Brilliance of the Seas Part 3

After our exciting detour to the Emergency Room, our trip got even better (please sense some sarcasm in that statement)! We got to the airport on Saturday to continue our journey back to the Brilliance and the first problem was that we did not have seats together and the flight was overbooked on our 9 hour flight to Rome. This is not usually an issue, but after what happened the night before, I was not going to let Kevin out of my sight. After some kind words and throwing our frequent flyer status around, we were able to sit together and got some extra leg room sitting in Economy Plus! Because the flight was overbooked, we were about 30 minutes late leaving IAD and therefore 30 minutes late arriving in Rome. When we got to Rome, we had to find our bags, which were shockingly on the carousel with all the other bags from our flight (well 2 of the 3 bags– that’s right, Kevin was missing his bag with ALL of his clothing). We were told that for some reason the bag was checked all the way to our final destination and we could claim it there – Great, Right? It would have been great if we had made it to our final destination, but unfortunately that didn’t happen!! By the time we figured out our bag situation, and moved from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, we only had 25 minutes to check-in, get through security, and get to our gate – obviously that wasn’t going to happen. So we went to the re-booking counter. The next and only flight on that airline (Alitalia) to our destination (Reggio Calabri) was not until 5pm, putting us there at 6:30pm. The ship was leaving at 8:30pm from Messina (a 30 minute ferry ride from the airport) and we most likely would not have made it to the ship in time on this itinerary. Our next option was to change airlines and fly out at 10:10am to Reggio and arrive only an hour later than originally planned. This seemed too good to be true, and was! Let me note that it was approximately 9am at this point and the flight would leave in an hour. First, we had to go back to Terminal 3 from Terminal 1 and find the booking office. We successfully found and booked our ticket and then proceeded to check-in. With our boarding passes in hand, we walked over to security and immediately my heart sank! The line was like a Disney line. It wove back and forth and no end was in sight. We finally got into a line for one of the 10 or so scanners and right before we reached the end of the line one scanner broke. Of course this caused everyone from that line to come over to our line and our hopes of making the flight were shot! If you have never been to Italy or had much interaction with Italians you probably can’t imagine the chaos and pushiness we encountered. Everyone seemed to think their flight was the most important and they would miss it if they did not push to the front. I remember looking at my watch with 15 minutes until the plane left – not boarded, but left - and we were still not through the mess. I finally made it through (Kevin was a few people behind me) and sprinted to the gate. When I got there, the agent informed me that we had missed it by 5 minutes! AHHH!! I couldn’t believe it, and at this point Kevin and I were both LIVID!! They told us where to pick up the 2 bags we had, and we were back to square one. I collected the bags while Kevin attempted, without success, to get a refund on our ticket and make plans for another flight. After some research, we decided to take a flight from Rome to Milan and Milan to Reggio, putting us there around 5pm – still cutting is close, but worth a shot. When we went to purchase the tickets, they were no longer available! What more could go wrong!!! The very kind agents back at Alitalia suggested we fly into the Catania airport and take a 1 hour train ride to Messina. This was a great suggestion, but would not allow us to claim Kevin’s luggage in Reggio. We weighed our options and finally decided to for-go the bag and just try to get to the ship. So we booked our ticket to Catania, leaving Rome at 1:40 and arriving at 3:30. We finally got out of Rome, but were still apprehensive of what was to come. Once we had claimed our luggage, we went to the tourism office and were told we could take a bus directly to Messina so we booked our ticket. We missed the 3:45 bus by about 5 minutes and the next bus didn’t leave until 5:10, so we had some time to eat some pizza – probably the best pizza I have ever eaten – and then wait. We got on the bus with no problems, drove for about 90 minutes and were dropped of at the train station that was within walking distance of the ship. We finally got to the ship around 7pm with 90 minutes to spare before departing (this was about 8 hours later than we planned, but we actually made it). I honestly didn’t think we were ever going to get to the ship! Around 7:30, 30 minutes after we signed-on to the ship, Kevin got a phone call and was informed that his luggage was at Reggio. Instead of risking the chance that the bag would not make it to the ship in an hour (which was highly unlikely) Kevin opted to have his bag delivered back to Colorado Springs. We shall see if that actually happens. Kevin does not have high hopes of ever seeing that bag again, but I am optimistic!

After we settled in our room and showered, we had dinner in the Windjammer, watched the headliner show in the theatre (a comedic violinist), and finished the evening watching Dancing with the Stripes – the ships version of Dancing with the Stars. It was an incredibly long day, well 2 days really, so we called it a night around 11pm. We were just happy to have actually made it to the ship!

We woke up around 8am on Monday morning, because we had a meeting with the environmental specialist on the ship. The meeting was quick and easy and we were able to start working by 9am (although we didn’t). We grabbed a quick breakfast in the Windjammer and then went back to sleep until noon. We went up to the rock wall at noon and removed the holds on the top 3 meters of the wall and then quickly powerwashed the wall again. Fortunately most of the prep work was done when we started this job in August, so we didn’t have much to do this time. We were back in the room around 2pm and slept again until about 7. We showered and then Richard (the sports supervisor) met us at the room before we all went out on the ship together. We had dinner in the Windjammer again, and then went to the Schooner Bar for drinks and Piano Bar Entertainment with Paul O’Shea. His entertainment never gets old! Around 10pm we went out to the centrum for the 70’s dance party. Sadly, Richard didn’t have to dance this time, but we still enjoyed watching others dance…I even joined in for a while! We finished the night in Starquest and parted ways around 12:45am. Kevin and I decided to grab a midnight snack at the Seaview Café, and took our snack to go as they were just closing down for the night. It was a nice and relaxing day before the painting began!

On Tuesday, we waited about 24 hours for the wall to dry from the powerwash the day before, and didn’t get started painting until about 11:30am. We (well Kevin) painted until 2:30 and then took a quick lunch break. We got back to work an hour or so later, but were forced to stop working at 5:30 because the sun had set and it was extremely difficult to see what we were painting. We were hoping to finish painting all in one day, but no such luck!

Beginning of painting, Day 1.

End of Day 1.

I snapped this picture while Kevin was finishing up....Still shocked that I actually captured something so beautiful!

And a close up of the above picture! Love it!

Because Kevin's bag was lost, he had to wear my pants! Richard supplied Kevin with some new shirts and I provided the pants. I thought it was rather entertaining. 

On Wednesday, the ship passed through the Suez Canal! We woke up around 9am and ate breakfast in the Windjammer. The ship started through the canal around midnight and was almost half-way through when we woke up on Wednesday morning. We saw the ship exit from the upper part of the canal into the Great Bitter Lake - a holding point for all of the ships waiting to go north and south. We waited in the Great Bitter lake for about 3 hours before entering the last one-way section of the canal. In total, it took about 15 hours for our ship to pass through the entire canal. Meanwhile, we finally finished painting the wall!! We finished everything around 1pm, but the coat of paint we put on the wall earlier in the morning had been thinner than what we ended up with, so we had to do some patch work around 4pm. We ate dinner at the Windjammer that evening and then went to the juggling show in the theater. We were able to spend some more time with Richard during the show, and again later that evening at the White Party. We were so happy to finally be done painting!!

The front of our convoy entering the Great Bitter Lake. 

Our first daytime glimpse of the Suez Canal!

Ships in holding in the Great Bitter Lake.

More ships waiting for their turn to pass through the last half of the Suez Canal.

Beginning of Day 2. 

Going through the last half of the Suez Canal. It was amazing how different each side of the Canal was. The European side was lush and green, where as the Asian side was completely barren. 

Our convoy leaving the canal. 

Exiting the canal 15 hours after we entered. The city behind us is surprisingly called Suez! 

The end of painting...Or so we thought! If you look very closely at the top left of this photo you can see some color differences. This was when we realized we had to do a few touch-ups.

Finally DONE!! For real this time! 

The final product, minus the last few holds at the top. 

It's about time we took a picture of the 3 of us! 

We woke up around 9am on Thursday and went up to the wall to finish putting the few holds back up that we had to remove. We worked for about an hour and then were finally finished! The ship docked in Aqaba, Jordan right next to Eliat, Israel. I wished we could have gone to Israel so bad!! We had to be out of our room around 11 that morning so we packed our bags and stored them in Richard's office. We ate some lunch at the Seaview Cafe and then relaxed on the ship until about 2pm. Our flight left Aqaba at 6:30 that evening so we went to the airport around 2pm. We had no idea the airport would consist of only 2 gates and that we would not be able to enter the airport until 2 hours before our flight. So we sat in the lobby and waited very patiently to check-in and wait some more. We flew from Aqaba to Amman and had a 6 hour layover with the same situation - we could not enter the airport until 2 hours before our flight left. So we waited in the lobby until 11pm (with horrible bathroom facilities and no where to get anything to eat). It was absolutely miserable. Our next flight was from Amman to Frankfurt, where we waited another another 5 hours before flying to Chicago. Our layover in Chicago was 5 hours before we finally flew home. In total, we traveled for 40+ hours that day! Needless to say, we were exhausted and incredibly happy to be home, out of airports and off of airplanes!!

Looking out at Eliat, Israel from the port in Aqaba, Jordan. It always surprises me how close Israel is to so many countries that dislike them! 

It was a once in a lifetime experience to travel through the Suez Canal and we are so glad to finally be done with this crazy paint job. We had great experiences and met some great people throughout the process, but we are so glad to be DONE!!

On a sidenote, it took 2 weeks for Kevin’s bags to make it back to the house, but fortunately they did return, one day before we were scheduled to leave again!