Western Mediterranean Cruise.

Garrett’s parents were celebrating their 30th anniversary and invited us and Jordan (Garrett’s brother) to join them on a Western Mediterranean cruise! We were stoked! I had never been on a cruise before and we were really looking forward to it. It was on the books for almost a year! Garrett and I wanted to take advantage of already being in Europe and decided after the week long cruise we would do our own thing the following week. We had thought about road tripping the French Rivera, but decided to spend our week exploring different cities in Spain instead.

August 10th finally came and Garrett and I headed to LAX. I was so excited to be getting away with my hubby and heading back to Europe for the 3rd time in less than 2 years. Yes, I'm extremely spoiled! 

Garrett’s parents picked us up from the Barcelona airport. We got some dinner and went to bed. Our cruise would be picking us up at the Barcelona cruise port the next morning! We used Norwegian cruise line and our ship was called Epic. I can’t recommend Norwegian enough! There was tons to do! Lots of amazing food options! Great service! Beautiful port stops!

Day at Sea

Garrett and I had an inside cabin, which meant no windows and we loved it! We called it our cave. We were so tired and jet lagged from our trip we ended up sleeping in until about 2pm! Wasn’t like us at all, but it was so nice to get some much needed rest! We were glad this was our day at sea and we weren’t missing any port stops. Once we finally woke up, we changed into our swimsuits and headed to lay out by the pool! This would probably be my only negative about the cruise ship, the actual pools were so tiny, but there was tons of chairs to lay out and some super fun water slides! That night we watched a magic show and had an amazing dinner! I ate so much during this cruise…let’s just leave it at that!

Naples

Our first stop was in Naples. We had decided we were going to check out the city of Pompeii. It was a hot day and we took the train from Naples to the entrance of the Pompeii exhibit. This train was old and dirty and lots of graffiti all over. We were in Europe during the hottest time of the year and this day was extra toasty. I was sweating so much on that train! No air conditioning and SO many people crammed in.

Pompeii was incredible. It was crazy to think such a big city was completely covered by lava and debris ​from a volcano. They have done an amazing job of preserving so many buildings. We did lots of walking and exploring through the ruins. 

We made our way back to Naples for some lunch and exploring.  From the areas we were in, we were thinking the people of Naples didn’t do a very good job of keeping the city clean. It was a super old city with lots of cobblestone so that must make it much harder. We got some lunch, found a coffee shop, and walked around. Garrett and I headed back to the cruise earlier than we needed to be. We put our swim suits on and headed to the jacuzzi. It had cooled down  and was actually sprinkling while we were in there.

Rome

We tried to get off the ship as soon as it docked. We had a ton we wanted to see so we needed as much time as possible. I had been in Rome earlier that year with my mama so I knew my way around and I knew where all the major sights were located. We took the train into Rome and then took the subway right to the Colosseum. Classic. It’s so majestic. The lines to buy our on tickets to get inside were insane! We decided to find a guided tour and use that to get inside. We found a tour that would do both the Colosseum and Palatine Hill. Once the tour of the Colosseum was over, we felt like we were running pretty late. We had our tour guide give us our tickets to the Palatine Hill and checked it out ourselves really quickly. From there we walked to the Venezia Plaza. I absolutely love this building. It’s huge! We got some lunch at a little restaurant and then checked out the Trevi fountain. From there we headed back to the train station and back to ship we went!

Pisa/Florence

When we talked about what to do at this stop we quickly decided we most likely wouldn’t have enough time to make it to florence and back. We didn’t want to risk missing the ship. We decided to check out the leaning tower of Pisa! So cool! From the cruise port, we still needed to figure how to take the train to Pisa. We figured out we needed to take a bus to the train station and then walk a bit. We made it though! It was beautiful! I am a total tourist girl. Garrett is a food guy. He agrees to do most tourist stuff with me (and take pictures of me) and I agree to always let him pick the restaurants. He has yet to let us down. We eat pretty dang good. We weren’t in Pisa for too long. We got a few pictures and walked around. We took the train back towards the cruise stop. Or so we thought. I was on my phone editing my photos and wondered why our ride was taking so long. I looked on the map and realized we accidentally took a train that was going to Florence. Everyone was sleeping so no one had noticed. I kind of wished I wouldn’t have said anything because I would have loved to see Florence. We hopped off on the next stop and waited for a train back. We got some food close to the cruise port and then finally made our way back to the ship.

Cannes

Cannes is on the Mediterranean coast of France. This was the one stop on the cruise where we need to take a small boat from the cruise to the port. Our cruise ship had to anchor out in the open ocean. Cannes is absolutely beautiful. It a beautiful little town with a pretty big harbor. Lots of beautiful boats. It reminded me of home in Newport Beach a bit. The weather was amazing. We walked around to find a restaurant to rent some chairs to lounge on for the day. The prices were expensive. We learned pretty quickly that the French Riviera can be that way. We ended up finding a spot on a public beach and laid out our beach towels. Garrett and I didn’t tan for too long. We get too hot and antsy. We need to keep moving. We left his family and explored the city. We walked around, got some coffee, explored a pretty famous hotel, and then made our way back to get some lunch with the whole family. After lunch, Garrett and I were feeling pretty beat so we headed back to the ship. We missed our little cave haha. After some much needed rest we decided to join a huge bingo game! We had so much fun! The cruise ship also had an ice bar, we had to check that out! Garrett would take me on dates throughout the ship after dinner with the family. We had the best time.

Palma De Mallorca

I had done a little ​bit of research on each of our stops and Palma De Mallorca was the stop I found the least on. I knew it was an island, but from what I saw online there was much going on there. 

Boy was I wrong! We didn’t have too much time on the island, but it was gorgeous! There was a big city and some beautiful buildings. We ended up renting electrical bikes and followed the bike trail all along the coast. It was absolutely beautiful. The island is tropical so we could see the clouds rolling in and it started pouring and then stopped after twenty minutes. 

​Bikes are not my thing. Every time I’m on one I end up falling or crashing into something. It had been a while so I figured I was just being paranoid. Electrical bikes seemed so fun and a great way to get to know this city. But this time was no different. I ended up hitting the curb and I went flying off the bike. Thankfully I was okay, just a couple scratches and a hurt ego. Besides my near death experience, we did love this island. I’m so glad it was on our cruise itinerary. Garrett and I would love to go back one day.

Our last night on the cruise Garrett’s parents surprised us with tickets to an acrobatics show with dinner! We had checked the concierge earlier during the week but it was completely sold out. We were so excited! We had an absolute blast as a family. Garrett actually got picked to participate in the show! It was awesome and he killed it as the lover boy haha

Barcelona

We started and ended our cruise in Barcelona. We didn’t spend much time there during the cruise, but we did spend about 3 days there at the very end of our two week trip. You could read more about our time in Barcelona in my week in Spain post. ​