Here We Go Again

Last year we took a Costa cruise. This year we'll also be taking a Costa cruise.

Today, I called Costa's customer service line to book our second cruise with them. I had our cruise credits to apply. The service agent was very, very nice and we chose a mini suite on the Costa Fascinosa on a seven night cruise leaving from Barcelona on July 31st. There was no problem applying the credit notes after Bill and I signed them and PDFed them and emailed them to customer service. As a result we hardly had to pay anything for our entire cruise.

This is our cruise itinerary:

July 31	Barcelona (Spain)	-	7:30 PM (leave)
Aug 1	Ibiza (Spain)	9:00 AM (arrive)	-
2	Ibiza (Spain)	-	3:00 AM
2	Palma De Mallorca (Spain)	9:00 AM	6:30 PM
3	...cruising...	-	-
4	Palermo (Sicily)	9:00 AM	6:00 PM
5	Naples (Italy)	7:30 AM	2:00 PM
6	Savona (Italy)	9:00 AM	5:00 PM
7	Barcelona (Spain)	2:00 PM	-

Then my husband booked us flights from YYJ (Victoria, BC) to AMS (Amsterdam) to BCN (Barcelona) and then home to YYJ. Last minute meant a good price, but not a great selection of seats. We are flying Star Alliance (Air Canada and Lufthansa).

So, we'll start be leaving Victoria on July 20th. We arrive in Amsterdam on July 21st. We will explore Amsterdam (it's my husband's first time there and my second time). I can't wait to show him around one of my favourite cities in the world and to compare how it is now to when I was exactly half my current age.

Then on the 29th of July we fly to Barcelona. We will stay there, exploring the city till the evening of the 31st of July when our Costa cruise departs.

On the Costa Cruise, we will probably just explore the ports of call by ourselves as we didn't really enjoy the tours last time (if they offer a tour to Monaco in Savona that actually goes this time instead of being cancelled like ours was last year, we might go). We do know that on August 1st, we'll be on Ibiza and we have tickets to an EDM event featuring David Guetta, Robin Schulz, Klingande, and Kimotion at Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel on Playa d'en Bossa. The event goes from 5:00 p.m. to midnight. Then we'll ghost out of Ibiza at 3:00 a.m. and find our other adventures along the way in both Spain and Italy (there are two ports of call in Italy that will be new to both of us in addition to two ports of call in Spain which are new to both of us).

When we arrive back in Barcelona on August 7th, we'll further explore a city that I grew to love when I was there twenty years ago. It is the first time for Bill in Barcelona.

Now we have to figure out our accommodations in Amsterdam and Barcelona . . . Stay tuned.

We can only hope that this cruise is better than the last one. At least our server, Amit, was superb.

-April