hold for Mykonos: June 23, 2013
Currently, 7 of the 8 of us are booked on the Delos excursion. My dad has still yet to book...he's a newbie to
DCL and has to wait until that stinking 75-day mark
. There initially seemed to be some issues with availability, so we'll see what pans out. Worst case scenario is that we do this on our own. He could also do an adult-only excursion. We shall see...I've read that it's fairly easy to get to Delos once you get off the ship, but my fear is that I'd get nudged out of making a ferry and not making it back to the ship on time. UPDATE: 8/8 booked on 10:45 excursion!!
Suggested dinner attire: Pirate Night.....which then brings up the question....to bring Pirate attire or not? I'd have to make something new for DD. Easily enough accomplished, I guess...Update: Pirate attire packed and ready to go for all! I also made my dad a pirate shirt so he could join in the festivities!
Menu: Master Chef
Show: Scott Pepper (magician)
Mykonos was beautiful!! It has a very rugged, barren landscape that is juxtaposed by the amazingly scenic white and blue buildings. It is the iconic Greek island...the one you see in your mind's eye when you think about what a Greek island is. As we were on the 10-something excursion, we got the opportunity to take it a bit easy that morning and sleep a bit.
View from ferry back at ship and the old port:
We docked in the "old port" and for those of us on the DCL Delos excursion, we walked off and went right onto a tender (ferry??). It was about a 30 minute ride over, and before we boarded, we were handed our headset device for our tour. Our tour guide met us on the island. I'm assuming that they went over with the early Delos excursion. The boats that we took over to the island actually stayed there while we toured. I didn't see any that were coming and going, so that may be why people can do this on their own and not get left behind....the reason I was worried about doing this on our own. Maybe they pack out the people they pack in?? Hope that gives y'all that are thinking about doing this on your own something to research and chew on.
Our tour was to last 2 hours. As with all DCL excursions, we had our bottle of water, and while it was very warm, there was a lovely breeze. Our guide was lovely...very educated and easy to understand. She did a great job trying to time our progress thru the ruins so that we didn't fight other crowds in the same area. Our route took us around to the museum, where there was a bathroom
. And cats. There were cats all over Europe, and the kids seemed to always be drawn to these things. Interestingly, in Athens (I think....), they actually would round up the strays, fix them and vaccinate them, before letting them go again. It was actually a city project! But I digress......
We continued on thru some amazingly intact housing areas. Pictures will come.....
The famous Lions (these are reproductions):
These are the real ones in the museum (with the elements of wind and water a lot of stuff had been preserved/replaced):
More cool stuff in the museum:
A mock-up of what the houses had looked like:
As we finished up the tour, we were herded back to the boat. Before we boarded, they collected the electronic device thingie, but we could keep our 1-bud earset if we wanted. LOL! Yes...only one bud (see the pic of DH and my dad above...).
The boat ride back was choppy. Very, very choppy and windy. Let's leave it there, shall we? I wandered to an area that would result in me not being SOAKED by ocean spray.
We were dropped off at the town port, as opposed to being let off at the old port to go back to the ship.
View from ship of new port and town:
Dad headed toward the buses to get shuttled to the boat, but the rest of us decided to have some lunch and wander. DH took the lead and led us off the main drag. We found a GREAT restaurant (with wifi) that had.....get this.....a pet pelican!!!!! Those are large birds, let me tell you!!! This bird wandered into the kitchen after wandering over to one of the staff for petting. The chef had to head out of the kitchen with a fish to feed to the pelican to keep it from getting underfoot. You had to wander thru said kitchen to get to the bathroom and I do have to insert here that the whole place was very, very clean.
After we ate, we just wandered. There was no rhyme or reason to the street layout, but then again I'm a bit directionally challenged. We ended up over by the famous windmills and got our pictures!! After this we headed back toward the shuttle buses. We ended up seeing more friends at the beach on our way back...their kids were having a great time!! DD was a bit jealous......she wanted to go swimming....
Back on ship, we all parted ways, and I went to the gym. I need to look at pics to really be able to tell you what we did the rest of that evening, but I do know that we went to the show. The magician was pretty good!
Added in to add: By this time we'd discovered the lecturer that was onboard. After the show and before dinner almost every evening he was in the Buena Vista Theater lecturing on something that was coming up (usually). It's on the Navigator. This particular evening was Rome: Victor or Vector? (roger, Roger....hahahahahahaha! Not many of you will get that joke, I think. Sound off if you do!)
This night was one of the new menus, I think. In spite of the pending sea day, I was ready for bed....