Things that go bump in the night ... or ... adrift in the Tyrannian Sea in high seas and in the dark ....

First it is nice to be safe and sound back home ... today is Monday 11/24/2008 and I'm writing from the comfort of my office in Bulverde ... it's really good to be home.

When I last made a web log entry we were at sea and bound for the port in Civitevicchia, Italy with an expected arrival of 4am on 11/22/2008... that turns out to have been a little optimistic.  We actually limped in about 8 hours late and damn glad to have arrived at all.

All day during our last sea day (11/21/2008) the weather was turning a bit foul.  High winds (the ship was reporting "Force 7 near gale force winds") and moderately high seas (4-8 ft waves which for a ship the size of the Grand Princess are really not that big a deal).  It wasn't raining but it was cold enough to required a coat on deck ... the wind chill factor was pretty darn cold.

At dinner that night (around 7PM) as we looked out the window near our table we could see that the seas were definitely NOT improving and we had experienced a few "bumps in the road" that we all laughed and said we must be running over small vessels as we sailed along.  One of the bumps at dinner was big enough that I suggested that one may have actually been a trawler.

We retired fairly early knowing we had a full day of getting into port, hoping we actually had a driver waiting for us at 9:30AM and then getting into Rome quick enough to get a tour of the Sistine Chapel in before returning home on 11/23.  At this point we were making about 20 knots, the seas were still "reported" as "moderate" and I'm pretty sure 8 foot waves were the smallest thing we were seeing ... the sea was covered in what I call "white caps".

Somewhere around 11:15PM we were jolted to the point that not only did we wake up but it knocked out all of the power on the ship ... as in ... no lights, no engines no nothing.  We were "adrift" at sea.  And the sea was definitely not very happy about the whole situation.  We stepped out in the hallway to see that there were emergency lights on but that was the only light.

After some time ... less than 15 minutes, they did manage to get some of the lights back on and announce that "there is no danger, the crew is working to resolve the power problem and all passengers should remain in their cabins until further notice".  I wonder if there were people in the elevators and how they were fairing about then.

We walked out on the balcony and it was pretty clear that we didn't have any engines pushing us along ... but the waves were doing a fine job.

Shortly the lights and A/C systems were restored and the announcements told us that "all is under control ... please remain in your cabins".  At this point the engines were either not running at all or barely making any headway against the storm.

Sleeping for the rest of the night was pretty iffy ... we did the best we could and finally around 6am (remember we were supposed to be in port at 4am ..) I got up and looked out to see that we were no where near any port of any kind ... the seas were still easily 6-8ft and the winds were still pretty stiff.  The announcements told us that we should be in port around 2PM ... that would be about 10 hours late.

It is about this time people start realizing all of their travel plans were totally shot.  Supposedly the phones in our cabins were "free to use at no cost" but I can assure you there was no such thing as an open line.  We were also offered "free internet access in the internet cafe" but that did NOT include apparently free WIFI and there were about 10 computers in the internet cafe so you can imagine what the access to those was like.

As you might recall we had "hopefully" arranged for a driver to meet us at 9:30am ... we weren't at all confident we would be seeing him today ... later in the morning it was announced that Princess would provide free shuttle bus service to either the airport (the main airport) in Rome or to the "city center" in Rome.  Carolyn and I had hotel reservations at a tiny hotel near the center of the city (as close as we could tell) but our travel companions needed to get to the "other/smaller" airport in Rome.  So I snagged 6 vouchers for the bus to the center of the city with the notion from there we could catch taxi's to wherever we needed to go.

The ship was reporting that we were making about 10 knots at this point ... and our arrival was upgraded to about 12:30pm .... the seas had calmed "somewhat" and the ride smoothed considerably.  We ate breakfast and sat around wondering if we would actually make it by 12:30 ... We didn't go look but there was apparently significant damage to several of the shops (like the perfume shop, the jewelery stores, the knick knack stores) as well as one of the restaurants had a broken window ... shattered ... and it sure didn't seem like we were running on all engines.

Eventually we did make it to the port ... actually around noon ... but then ... disembarkation which is usually pretty smooth was completely rearranged with a new scheduled delivered to our stateroom late in the morning.

Bottom line here is that we sat in our "disembarkation lounge" - the casino in our case for about 2.5 hours before they finally let us off the ship ... and it's now close to 2:30PM ... we grabbed our bags and of course no sign of our driver ... can't blame him I'm sure he had a schedule to keep and we were  now 5 hours past our planned time to meet up with him.

Chaos doesn't begin to describe the scene outside the port terminal where we were supposed to board the free shuttles into Rome ... picture 2600+ disheveled and upset passengers, all having at this point completely lost any specific travel plans they had made months in advance, 10+ hours late disembarking the ship and with no clue which bus they and their massive amounts of luggage should go next.  It was a classic goat rodeo ... and we were all the goats ...

Eventually, and I can't even remember at what time ... all 6 of our party did manage to board some bus hopefully going to the center of the city ... which it turned out meant one of the lesser train depots in mid-city Rome.  To their credit, Princess did provide a "guide" on the bus to tell us where we would be arriving and getting all of our hotel or further travel plan information so a member of her company could meet us at the train depot and assist with taxis.  The down side of this plan was that there were in fact many many of these buses were descending on that unsuspecting train depot and the poor fellow that was helping wrangle taxis ...

When we finally arrived and got to the "get a taxi here" spot I was happy to see that the facilitator spoke very good English because basically none of the taxi drivers spoke any English.  All was well and good ... until ... I gave the address of the hotel Carolyn and I needed to go to ... the taxi driver became very excited and shook his head in the negative all the while gesturing and speaking very fast Italian ... it turns out that on that day at that time ... some sort of demonstration was going on in the exact location where we needed to get and the police had all of the streets around the area blocked off ... he could ... leave us about two kilometers from where we needed to go ... NOT!!!!!!!! ... The excited Italian discourse went on for a while, I explained to the facilitator that no way in hell was I gonna be dropped of in the middle of Rome with 4 50 pound bags and no clue how to get to my hotel ... interestingly ... now we  got to the point of ... "normally the ride from where we were to where we wanted to go would be 10 euros ... but with this demonstration the driver would have to take many many turns and if we could get there at all it could cost as much as 25 euros ... ah ha!!!! ... the situation is now clear .. :Can he get us to the front door of the hotel for 25 euros??? " .... " why yes I believe he can ... " ... "load that taxi up we are on our way .... "

25 euros later with very little having to circle around the barricades ... we magically arrive at our hotel ... took maybe 15 minutes ... at this point 25 euros was cheap in my mind.

We struggled with our bags up into the hotel and checked in to a room about the size of one our bed rooms in the house ... but this one included a bathroom with shower, sink, toilet .. actually we were glad to have the restroom "en-suite" vs down the hall.

We set the alarm for 5am ... our flight out of Rome was at 9:45am ... we actually woke up about 4am ... got the night desk clerk to get us a taxi and were on our way to the airport at 5:30am .... the rest of the travel home went as planned we actually got to the house about midnight ...

I'll post pictures in the gallery later this week once I've had time to decompress and catchup  with work ....

What a last 48 hours this has been

Bade

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Bade
Like an old desperado ... painting the town beige