The Journey is our favorite ship and this was our fifth cruise on her. The price was very good, under $5000 for a balcony cabin for two. The reason we love Azamara is that they go out of their way to make passengers feel at home. It's hard to explain, but almost as if you have a friend with a yacht who has invited you to stay for while. Your fellow passengers are usually well-traveled adults (children not encouraged) from many countries. We enjoyed their company and came home with email addresses of some very nice people.

We arrived in Rome Aug. 7 with hotel reservations and transfers we booked ourselves. Hotel Farnese is what we would call a B&B. It is in a lovely, residential part of the city, but easy walking to areas for shopping and restaurants. Great staff, but only CNN in English on the TV. They arranged drivers for us wherever we wanted to go. Driver picked us up at the airport and took us to the hotel (55 euros).

We took a tour to the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's. Word of caution: Rome is very hot during the day in the summer and tourist destinations are very crowded. May is better. Read more