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My earlier review was the Eastern Med leg of this long cruise. We had done the western Med twice before, so some of the ports were familiar to us. In addition, we had spent a month touring Italy on our own. This leg and the prior one were very port intensive, so we did not spend a lot of time on the ship. We ate breakfast in the Lido. The Lido on the HAL ships is far superior to Princess. Both side were busy - one side had any kind of poached egg you could imagine - with ham, spinach, even smoked salmon. There was a crepe station where you could get a variety of fillings and toppings. It was our favorite meal of the day. When tired after a long day at port, there were often buffets by the Sea View pool, which featured cuisine of the country we visited. Im a NYC native - I loved the mid-ship setting. We were impressed with the efficiency of the ship.
We did not have to re-embark in Venice, since we were already on the ship. We did the city on our own, the day we arrived. Though disappointed that the St Marks area was flooded, we still enjoyed riding the vaporetto and the Rialto bridge area. Most of all we loved sailing out of the city. Our cabin was on the starboard side, so we had a great view of the city.
We missed the port of Lavorno. We have been to Florence many times, so that was not on our agenda. But the captain got on the TV and explained the reason for the decision.
Everyone was so impressed by his thorough explanation of the situation.That the weather report by the captain - Vincent Smitt - became a regular feature of the Good Morning show. The cruise director was excellent and Tom - the port expert was extremely helpful. I have an allergy to flowers. It took a while to get them to understand how difficult it was to sit at a table with orchids. But by this leg, they knew to move them away from me. We are not big eaters, so we did not go to any specialty restaurants.
The ports are described below - we went to the Island of Kefalonia - the port is Argostoli - CC does not have it listed - when we missed Lavorno, we went to the Island of Sardinia - port Cagliari -also not listed on CC - nor is the port of Catania where went to Taormina
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