Mediterranean Cruise: Banana Split, Hold the Banana

continued from “Outsiders” Tour of Rome and Venice

This was the kids first cruise and they were ecstatic. Walking up the gangway, Greg kept repeating that the ship was “will-wee will-wee big”, with Roy adding that, he just “wanted to go to the bottom of it”. (yeah, no idea.)

We were greeted at the entryway by Grandma and Grandpa (who were worrying that our 1PM arrival was “really pushing it” for a 4PM departure). Roy and Greg immediately made a detour to the ice cream machine, a place they would frequent many times throughout the trip.

We met up with the rest of Doug’s family during the customary “muster drill”. None of us were able to figure out where on the deck we were meant to be, and a few of us were already missing, so clearly the drill went well. Afterwards, we moved to the top deck to watch our ship maneuver its way out of Venice Harbor. We had dinner in the dining room that night — Greg assuming his position on the window sill, which kept him busy, and allowed the rest of us to eat in peace. A win-win. Greg’s other preferred location was underneath the dining room table. Maybe I should keep that one to ourselves.

Our first port of call was Dubrovnik, Croatia. While the rest of the family joined an organized tour through the cruise ship ($$$), we decided to “wing it”. It was a 45-minute, mostly uphill, walk, to the Old Town, but it was free, and you can’t beat free. In Old Town we strolled around Dubrovnik’s historic city walls, an iconic landmark, which offers stunning views of both the city and the sea. Afterwards we took a short walk to Banje Beach to dip our toes in the Adriatic Sea. (Some of us, ahem Greg, dipped more than just toes.)

Always up for an adventure, we rented kayaks to do the “Old Town to Betina Cave” tour. Greg was technically not old enough to kayak, but the magical thing about Europe is that when you tell the tour guides that your almost four-year old is totally water safe, they take your word for it. I took Greg in my kayak, who cheered me on by singing the first verse of “Baby Beluga” over and over and over again. The waves heading out to the cave were significant, and in hindsight it may not have been the most appropriate tour for our kids, but how often would we ever get the chance to do something like this? To emphasize this point, we stopped and asked both kids where we were, and Greg stopped singing long enough to respond with, “San Berna-dit-o”. Close enough.

Total Cost: $40

We had dinner in the dining room again that night. Roy and Greg had their first of six banana splits, where the banana was left completely untouched. A banana split, hold the banana.

In Kotor, we were tendered, so took a small boat into the harbor. While the extended family joined another tour through Royal Caribbean (suckers), we chose to (once again) go rogue and see what Kotor had to offer on our own.

Kotor is located in a secluded part of the Bay of Kotor; situated between the steep, limestone mountains of the Dinaric Alps. With most of the cruise ship passengers departing on tour buses, it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We headed straight to the docks were we secured an afternoon “water taxi” tour to Our Lady of the Rocks and the Blue Cave.

As it was still early in the morning, we decided to be a bit audacious and climb the 1355 stairs and 70 switchbacks to the San Giovanni Fortress. We had packed plenty of snacks (bribes) so were cautiously optimistic. We picked up the trail in Old Town Kotor, paid our $8, and proceeded through the gate at around 8AM. It took us a little over and hour and a half to get to the top, but the views of Kotor Bay were well worth it. I would like to also point out that the kids were not even wearing sneakers, they did it in Crocs.

Total Cost: $8

Cats are well represented in Kotor as being situated between the mountains and the sea, it has always had an issue with mice, rats, and snakes. Cats were (and are) necessary to protect the town, and have thus become a symbol of “good luck” throughout Montenegro. Apparently the cats have arrived here from all over the world, so the population is both large and multi-cultural. I wonder if they all speak the same language? Too bad I am allergic to cats.

After surviving our hike to the Fortress, we headed back to the harbor to meet our water taxi. Our tour included the four of us, an Australian backpacker, and a guy from Italy. As we left the dock, the sound of the engine and the bumpiness of the waves, randomly put our two highly energetic boys to sleep. This made for a brilliant boat ride, and interesting conversations with the backpackers — who both pointed out how well-behaved our kids were. Let me remind you though, they were both sound asleep.

Anyway, we cruised around until we reached “Our Lady of the Rocks”, a manmade island on the inner part of Boka Kotorska Bay, near the town of Perast. As the legend goes, the island began as a pile of rocks and then in 1452, two fisherman saw the Virgin Mary there so they built a church. In the 1600s, they decided to expand the island by piling more rocks. These days, during sunset on July 22, each year, the tradition continues with the citizens of Perast taking their boats out to the island and throwing rocks at it. It was not July 22 when we were there, but Roy and Greg obliged by throwing lots of rocks of their own.

Our next stop was the Blue Cave or Blue Grotto — a magnificent sea cave that glows with a striking blue color. I don’t typically jump into random bodies of water, but both Doug and I couldn’t resist. (The kids weren’t interested so we left them in the care of our non-English speaking boat captain.) The Bay of Kotor was certainly refreshing, but only by swimming into the cave were we able to grasp the full beauty (and blue-ness) of the cave’s interior. I may have been mildly hypothermic when I returned to the boat but sometimes you just have to make a sacrifice.

As an added bonus, our water taxi next took us to see one of the best sights of in the Bay, a hidden submarine tunnel. Built during the 1970s by the Yugoslav Navy, this tunnel was designed to stealthily host submarines from enemy ships and aircraft. The waters around Montenegro are exceptionally deep which allowed these tunnels to exist. The hideouts could also be fully camouflaged by closing large gates over the entrances that were covered in moss and (fake) rocks, which blended in with the surroundings. The words “enemy ships and aircraft” were all that was necessary to get both Doug and Roy’s attention.

Total Cost: $38

It was a long day for us, but we made it back to the ship and rallied for the first (of two) formal nights, with Roy and Greg rocking their matching Hawaiian shirts. I enjoyed watching the dynamic between our boys and their cousin-in-law (if that is really a thing?). Basically Greg (3.75) longed for Layla’s (5) attention, while Layla was totally engrossed with Roy (6). It was like a Kindergarten Love Triangle. Per the usual, Roy was completely oblivious.

The island of Santorini in Greece does not have a port for cruise ships to dock. As a result, our cruise ship was anchored in the bay surrounding the volcano’s crater, and we had to be transported to the port of Skala by tender boats operated by the unionized locals. (This gets interesting later, stay tuned). Skala is directly below Fira but to do anything in Santorini, you need to get to Fira. With so many cruise ships in port at one time, this can be a challenge. Luckily, we knew about this ahead of time and were on the first tender, allowing us easy access to the tram up to Fira. (Getting back down to Skala was a whole other story though!)

The Fira to Oia Hike is listed as the single best thing to do in Santorini and so we did not want to miss it. The seven-mile hike takes you along the caldera cliff and through the villages of Fira, Firostefani, Imerovigli, and Oia. It is certainly a stretch for kids as young as ours, but we had already dragged them up the 1355 steps in Montenegro, and we were only in Santorini once. The start of the path was in the square besides the Hotel Atlantis. It was not super easy to find, but we just kept walking “up” and eventually found the trail. After posing in front of a number of sparkling hotel pools, with the surrounding white walls covered in hot pink bougainvilleas, we made it out of town and into “nature”. We cruised along for a bit and when we were halfway there, stopped at a roadside stand to enjoy fresh orange juice and a Greek Coke.

When we finally made it to the outskirts of Oia, the kids were on the verge of a meltdown. After cresting the final hill, we decided to rest at a tiny church, with key locks, that overlooked the descending path to Oia. It is at this point in the hike, when we were positive we would be carrying our children for the final mile, that we came across a family visiting from Australia. The extremely boisterous father waxed eloquent over the kids, emphasizing how impressed he was that they had made it as far as they had at such a young age, how brave they were, how strong, blah, blah, blah. We owe that Aussie because now, with fully inflated egos, Roy and Greg pressed on to Oai.

We explored Oai for a short while, and then took an air-conditioned Greyhound Bus back to Fira. Once onboard the bus, Greg proudly announced (to anyone who was listening), “Mommy! Daddy! This bus has cupholders on ALL THE SEATS!!!” With that being the apparent highlight of Santorini, I started thinking that maybe we should have never bothered leaving California. 🙂

Back in Fira, we had to figure out how to get back down to Skala. After paying a small fee for us all to go potty in an actual hole in the ground, we pondered our options. The lines for the tram were quite long, so we opted to take the walking path down to the dock.. About 2-minutes into our downhill stroll we found ourselves face to face with a donkey, and that donkey was not about to move out of our way. A Greek man informed us that we just needed to “push” it out of the way and it would move. Uh, these things were like 900-lbs, and our kids were 35lbs! As a result, we each scooped up a kid, and with no other options to get to the dock, bonded together with the other cruise passengers to survive the “Donkey Death March”. At one point I slipped on a pile of “donkey doo-doo” and fell to the ground with Roy, sure that we were goners via “donkey trampling”, but In a true show of solidarity, a nice British man scooped us up and got me back on my feet to continue down the hill.

Surviving that, we now just needed to trust the “Santorini boatmen” to get us back to our ship. There was a long line boarding the tenders and we noticed that the wind and the waves were tossing the boat around substantially. The “boatman” (who, because of the unions, were, much to the chagrin of the Royal Caribbean Officers, in charge) were struggling to successfully tie up the tender boat. We watched from a distance as the rope began to fray all while the (mostly) elderly passengers were being forced to make a jump for it. When the rope finally snapped a few moments later, the Royal Caribbean staff could not take it any longer and thankfully took charge. We anxiously waited our turn, strategizing how to best not lose a kid while boarding, but eventually made it on the tender in one piece.

This was the first time we almost died in Greece.

The main draw of this port is a journey to Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. We decided it would be way more fun to throw caution to the wind and take a “riding lawn mower powered tram” to the the Mercouri Estate Winery and then the beach. The Winery was empty (which should have told us something), the wine was not good, and the owners were snarky – particularly at our kids. We could have skipped this altogether. At least we got to see a peacock?

We were fortunate that our “tram” eventually picked us up in front of the winery, and dropped us at a nearby resort adjacent to Spiaggia Beach. There wasn’t much to do here, so we skipped some stones and then waited with all the other tourists for the ride back to town. When we once again boarded the “tram”, we learned that it did not have the power to make it up the hill, and we would all need to exit, walk up the hill and meet our driver there. When we boarded the “tram” a second time, we were squished our row like a can of sardines, as it maneuvered its way onto an actual Greek highway. Yes, we were driving 15mph sandwiched between several lanes of rush hour traffic going closer to 55mph. The British woman seated next to me said it best with, “well, I think we are all going to die.”.

That was the second time we almost died in Greece.

We did some shopping in the harbor and were stunned at what you were able buy in a convenience store here.

Our final day was spent making our way back to Venice. For Father’s Day, I had purchased Doug and Roy a “behind the scenes” tour of the ship which they both thoroughly enjoyed. Roy even got the chance to steer the ship. As for Greg and I, we took a cupcake making class where the resulting cupcake was so bad that even Greg wouldn’t touch it. At night we said our goodbyes to our wait staff and Greg was awarded a towel folded into a bunny rabbit, that he cherished, named (“Bunny Towel #1”), and slept with that night. In the morning, we all disembarked and went our separate ways. Doug, Roy, Greg and I were off to Copenhagen.