We awoke in The Gallery Suites in Piraeus, on the 7th floor of our compact room….I had had a restless night…having moved the bed to allow John to get into it, without crawling up from the bottom, I hadn’t realised that I was in the direct line of fire from the air conditioner. As the room was at 27 degrees we had phoned reception..1100 to ask for the aircon to be put on and set at 22degrees….however this meant I had a very cold head and back…around 3.30 am I’d had enough of dozing and waking up shivering so I turned it off and opened the window…a much better solution and sleep came to me……I can say with conviction that rush hour starts just after 5 am with the roar of traffic, pepping of impatient drivers and of course the ringing of the church bells which strike on the hour every hour … it was hardly a room with a view …

…having said the negatives because I am a sleep deprived grump!!! There are infact lots of positives… the hotel is scrupulously clean… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bathroom so spotless (not even our own), the staff are very friendly, it’s literally 5 minutes from the cruise port … in-fact you could walk it in 20 minutes…there are lots of good restaurants around and it is literally a stone throw to the metro to go into Athens if you so wish…. Oh! And the shower was of water canon pressure…divine.

We headed down the road 20 paces turned right then left … 60 paces in total and voila a very nice coffee shop selling an assortment of breads, panini, croissants, sandwiches and cakes… we ordered two avocado, tomato, thin Turkey breast and egg panini, a croissant to share and two americano coffees. It all came to £15 a very tasty nice breakfast which put the smiles back on our faces.

After wandering back to the hotel we checked out and took a €10 taxi to the cruise port. Wow…!!! Talk about efficient… we arrived at 11.15am although our ticket told us to arrive at 2.30pm…so we were chancing our luck… our bags were swept away… there was no queue and we were in our cabin by 11.30 and had our first drink on deck before 11.45…. Superb …. The ship was virtually empty so we did a recognoiter and got our bearings….. all very nice …

Our cases arrived before 2.30 pm and with Johns help we were unpacked and all neat and tidy by 3.00pm… We then headed down to the theatre for the Muster drill talk before heading on to the poolside deck for Sailaway … which was proceeded by a very active dance class which we enjoyed watching!!!

The sail away from the open deck is pretty spectacular and really shows how crowded the coastline is with the large metropolis’s of Piraeus and Athens.

After sail away we headed to the Photo and internet services. We had a simple question …. We had pre purchased one device&Streaming package each. When logging on, on my phone it would seem that I can’t log off and then log on, on my iPad … that would need a two device package even though you only want to be on one at a time…. We were spoken to by a very nice person who didn’t know the answer so he referred us to the Deputy Manager who had a very dismissive manner. ……. Most people who know me, know I am not a lady to be dismissed…. His abrupt answer was “No! one device only” I politely asked how much it would cost me for a second device and was told to give my phone to someone else and they would tell me… obviously my query was well below Mr I AM A Somebody’s level of expertise. After several minutes of the other chap still not answering my question we were getting no where. The manager, a pleasant elder gentleman, had witnessed the whole conversation, he apologised for his deputies rudeness and kindly explained how the internet works on the ship and why we couldn’t log out and in… he also explained that because of everyone’s different loyalty level the prices differ according to the package you want and the discount you are entitled too… any way the long and the short of it was that another device was going to cast me a further €88, a price I wasn’t prepared to pay…. So it’s on my phone whether I like it or not … and you readers will have to put up with the typos because fat fingers on little keys are not the greatest….. !!!

Back to the cabin for a quick wash and brush up before back out again to L’Approdo Restaurant My Choices Dinning(which is the same as anytime dinning on Princess Cruises) . We arrived at 7.00pm on the dot and were immediately seated on a table for two up against the wake picture window….delightful….

We were warmly greeted and introduced to our waiter, Salem. The menus are all on a scan QR code. We had a great choice… it was all very tasty and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

After supper we wandered around and checked out the ‘What’s on’. Although we both fancied the theatre it wasn’t due to start until 10 pm and we have a morning excursion tomorrow. So having walked 8500 steps yesterday and 9500 steps today my little legs were feeling somewhat weary so we retired to bed…setting the alarm for 7.45am tomorrow morning… Good night one and all…