Norwegian Epic

I am just about on the eve of my next trip to Europe. If you’ll recall, I’ve booked myself a Studio Stateroom aboard the Norwegian Epic to explore several ports in three countries. I’ll also be flying in and out of Rome, so I’ll finally have a chance to see the Eternal City. Without a doubt, this trip is the most expensive I’ve ever been on. It is also the most complicated.

Don’t let anyone tell you that cruise travel is easy. Normally, I only have to plan for one city. This time out, I have to plan for the time I’m spending in Rome, the time spent aboard ship, and the time spent in five ports and nearby cities along the way. Not to mention transportation to and from the airport and the cruise ship. As a type A planner, it pains me to say this, but the planning for this trip nearly overwhelmed me.

I know. You’re thinking “Cry me a freaking river. You’re going to EUROPE!!” Which is a fair response.

Here’s the thing about traveling on a cruise ship: As a solo traveler, the notion of being surrounded by other people all day, every day freaks me out a little. I do want to meet people and have time to socialize, but I also know I need some time to myself. There’s got to be a balance, right? So I’ve decided to mix my travel style up this time around. Here’s how:

Casa Mila, Barcelona

Independent Travel

I’ll be doing my usual independent solo traveler thing in Rome, Cannes, and Barcelona. No excursions or tours in any of those places. Cannes and Barcelona are two of the port cities, making them easier to explore on my own. I’ve done most everything I want to do in Barcelona, so that should be a somewhat fun and relaxing day for me. At the very least, though, I’d like to take a tour of Casa Mila, since I didn’t last time. Cannes is a pure photography day for me. I’ll be wandering around taking photos of this picturesque city on the Mediterranean, and that’s about it.

In Rome, the ancient city and architecture are my two focus areas: The Colosseum, the Forum, Palatine Hill, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps, along with the Borghese Gardens, possibly the Castel Sant’Angelo, and lots of wandering around the city. There are plenty of other things I could do in Rome, but I’m not going to. I have no desire to see the Vatican, or museums or art galleries. Since I desperately need some relaxation and down time during this “vacation,” I’m trying to rein in my usual “commando style” of travel. My mantra will be “Slow down.”

Tour Travel

In Marseilles, I’m taking Norwegian’s “Marseilles City Highlights and Avignon Tour”. In Naples, I’ve signed onto a shared excursion set up by another passenger with a driver and guide to explore Pompeii, Sorrento and Positano. (All in one day—yikes!) In both cases, I get to sit back and let someone else do all the work for a while. Right now, that sounds pretty damn good, even if it curtails my freedom a little bit. (We’ll see what it’s like in reality.)

Hybrid Travel

In Florence, I’m doing Norwegian’s “Florence on your own” tour, which means I’m hitching a bus* ride with them from the Port of Livorno to and from Florence while exploring the city on my own. It’s kind of a cross between tour travel and independent travel. And no, shockingly, I probably won’t do any museums here, either, since I’ll only have a few hours. I don’t want to squander what little time I have in a museum. I do, however, want to see Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, the Campanile, and the rest of the gorgeous architecture of Florence. I may check out some of the basilicas.

*I could have taken the train to and from Florence, but I’m deeply paranoid about something going wrong and not being able to get back to the ship in time. If you miss the ship’s departure, you’re responsible for getting yourself to the next port of call. I can’t afford that extra expense or the stress that accompanies it. If you’re on one of their excursions, the ship will wait for you.

A little R&R sounds pretty good right about now...

And when exactly is my vacation?

My job has me exhausted. I really need some rest. This is my only vacation from work for a few months. Yet, there’s really not a lot of downtime in this schedule, is there? When I return to the ship from port at night, there is dinner to be had, shows to be seen, bars to be visited, journal entries to be written, photos to be downloaded onto my laptop, and various and sundry other socializing opportunities. I’ll be lucky if I make it to bed by 11pm every night. I’d love to say that my day at sea will be my day to rest and relax, but with all the fun activities that are available aboard the Epic, I doubt I’ll be able to resist jumping in with both feet. Then again, maybe my “rest” will come in the form of:

My Forced Digital Detox

For the first time in awhile, I am being forced to take a digital detox for the majority of the trip. I can’t use my cell phone in Europe; the roaming charges would kill me. I’ll have Internet access in Rome, but once I’m aboard ship, the cost of Internet is too high. And I’m not going to waste what little time I have in port looking for and using an Internet cafe. So don’t be surprised if you don’t see as much of me online in the next couple of weeks.

Despite how it may sound, I am really looking forward to this trip. It might be exhausting, but I think it’ll also be a lot of fun. I cannot wait to see the ancient sites in Rome and Pompeii, and I’ve heard the Amalfi Coast is just gorgeous. I’m happy to be able to revisit Barcelona. The other locales are frosting on the cake. I’m also looking forward to going on a real cruise aboard the Epic, staying in the Studios and taking advantage of my access to the Studio Lounge to meet some other solo travelers. I’ve already “met” some of my fellow cruisers on CruiseCritic.com roll calls, so it’ll be nice to finally put faces to names and online handles.

Look for me to report back on these and many more things when I return. In the meantime, please don’t burn the house down while I’m gone.

Mediterranean Preview: 9 Cities and 3 Countries in 1.5 Weeks is a post from: SoloFriendly.com

Elevators by Chris D 2006

I had a conversation recently with a fellow travel blogger, in which we were discussing how important it is to write about our failures as well as our successes. I may be an advocate of solo travel, and I do love it and think most people should try it at least once. But I don’t want you to mistakenly think there’s something wrong with you if your solo travel experience isn’t an immediate, raging success. Sometimes, it isn’t–for any of us.

Loneliness does creep in sometimes, even with an experienced solo traveler like me. Things will go wrong. The question is: Will you take that as a learning experience, or let it cause you to retreat?

Last May, I had a very bad night in Madrid. I had gone out for dinner, where I was the only solo diner at this particular cafe. People around me were conversing in languages I didn’t understand, and all I could do was focus on my food. As I people-watched all the way back to my hotel, I saw lots of couples, families, and groups of friends and few if any solos. I started to feel lonely, vulnerable.

Back at my hotel, I went to the elevator bank and pushed the button and waited with an older American couple for the next car. We joked about something—probably the slowness of the elevators. An older man and two older women came up behind us, speaking what sounded like Italian, and waited with us.

When the elevator arrived, the Italians pushed ahead of the rest of us to get on. When I tried to get on the elevator with them, the man shooed me away. He didn’t want to share the elevator with me.

I was so stunned, I didn’t know how to respond. I backed out of the elevator, staring at them, and said “Are you kidding me?”

“Hey, come on!” said the American man behind me to the Italian man. “There’s plenty of room in there.”

To prove it, he grabbed his wife by the elbow and got on the elevator and didn’t let the Italians bully him. He gestured for me to join them, but by this time, the elevator really was pretty full. And I didn’t know which floors any of them were on–if the Americans got off first, I didn’t want to be stuck in the elevator alone with the rude Italians.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’ll wait for the next one.” The doors closed on them, and I pushed the button again, feeling humiliated.

Madrid

I fumed about what had happened all the way to my floor, berating myself for not being more like the American man, hating myself for backing down and letting the Italians treat me badly. As soon I got to my room, I burst into tears. The unexplained rejection and shocking rudeness compounded with my lonely fragility were just too much to bear in that moment. I felt like the wussiest solo traveler ever.

As I so often do when I’m feeling vulnerable, I had internalized the Italians’ rudeness. Instead of acknowledging that the problem was theirs, I started to go to my “What’s wrong with me?” place. It was not a good night.

After a bit more self-pity, I got online and tweeted something about what had just happened and someone tweeted back something along the lines of “Don’t you hate when people are jerks like that?”

That helped put it all back in perspective for me. Their rudeness wasn’t about me. It was about them. They didn’t want the other Americans sharing the elevator with them, either. The only difference was that I avoided confrontation, and the American man didn’t.

This is one of the negatives of solo travel: When something like this happens, and you don’t have a travel companion who can reassure you that you’ve done nothing wrong, that what happened wasn’t your fault, you sometimes blame yourself. Thank God for the Internet at times like those.

I went to bed, got some sleep, and when I woke up in the morning, the sun was shining and it was a new day.The incident from the previous night was still a vivid memory, but instead of “what’s wrong with me?” my feelings about it had shifted to “how rude those people were!”

We all have moments of vulnerability when we’re traveling solo. Sometimes, our own insecurities get the best of us. Sometimes, we feel fragile. But those moments don’t last. I promise. And, painful though they may be while they’re happening, they are good for us. They strengthen us and make us more empathetic toward others. If you’ve ever felt the stinging pain of a stranger’s rudeness when you’re at your most vulnerable, it should make you less likely to be rude to others yourself, right? At least, I’d like to believe that.

I’d also like to believe that the next time a stranger is rude to me, I’ll stand up for myself and my rights a bit better than I did that night. But one thing I am sure of is that a bad experience like this isn’t going to stop me from traveling solo in the future. Because I have far more stories about the kindness of strangers than the rudeness of them.

Photo credit: Elevators by Chris D 2006.

When Solo Travel Sucks is a post from: SoloFriendly.com

New Orleans

My trip to New Orleans was a powerful one in a lot of ways. I had almost planned a trip to New Orleans in 2005 that would have put me in the city right around the time Katrina hit, so when I did finally visit the city in 2008, Katrina overshadowed much of how I processed things. Locals I spoke with still talked about it. They had either made it through the storm in New Orleans or evacuated and returned to pick up the pieces of their lives. Outside the tourist areas, the city still needed much rebuilding (and still does). The most powerful story I heard, though, came from my cab driver, Eddie, who drove me to the airport on the day I left.

As we drove away from the French Quarter, Eddie (who was a tour guide before he became a cab driver), pointed out the watermarks on buildings and noted which areas had been flooded during Katrina. He stayed in New Orleans during the hurricane. I’d taken a tour earlier in the week with a guide who had talked about how repeated hurricane warnings over the years had made people numb to them–like “the boy who cried wolf”–and that’s why so many people stayed. So when I asked Eddie why he had stayed, I was able to couch it in the same terms without sounding like I thought he was crazy for doing so.

Eddie told me that it wasn’t until 15 hours before Katrina hit that the weathermen started emphasizing that the city was definitely going to flood and people needed to get out. But at the same time, the news reporters were shown on the evacuation route, pointing out the bumper-to-bumper traffic and saying the backup was hours long. At that point, no one who was still in the city was going to get out in time, Eddie said.

“You live in Vermont, right?” Eddie asked. (I had told him this earlier.) “When you hear there’s a blizzard coming, what do you do?”

I shrugged. “I make sure I’ve got supplies and hunker down in my house.”

He nodded. “Exactly. That’s what we do when we hear a hurricane’s coming. It just didn’t work out this time.”

New Orleans

He woke up to find his house flooded. But his mattress was floating. So he tipped it sideways to get it out the front door, threw his springer spaniel on top of it, and walked down the street, using the mattress as a flotation device, to a two-story apartment building. There, he found two other men and a dog. The three of them survived by breaking into empty apartment buildings for food and water. They left notes saying who they were and what they’d taken.

Things got hairy. They all had guns, and according to Eddie, that was a good thing when all hell broke loose during the aftermath, with gangs of looters roaming the streets. They took turns at night standing guard and wouldn’t let anyone else near the apartment building. Eventually, the National Guard came by to try to rescue them, but they wouldn’t take the dogs. Eddie and the other dog owner weren’t about to leave their best friends behind. They barricaded themselves in the apartment building and wouldn’t leave. Eventually, some Guardsmen came along who allowed them to bring the dogs and they were transported to the airport. But they couldn’t get on a plane with the dogs, so again, they stayed. Finally, they hopped in the back of a National Guard truck to Baton Rouge.

I expressed my wonder at what he’d been through.

“History’s really fascinating to read about,” Eddie replied. “But it sucks to live through it.”

But like so many other New Orleans residents I met during my stay, it didn’t stop him from coming back. In this classic “Man vs. Nature” story, man was bent, beaten and battered. . .but not broken. New Orleans and its people are survivors, and they love their city. Having visited New Orleans, I understand that love. It is truly one of the most unique cities in the country and well worth a visit by anyone traveling to or within the US.

The Taxi Trilogy: Feeling the Power of Survival in New Orleans is a post from: SoloFriendly.com

The Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando

I don’t usually splurge on towncars, but I had to twice in Orlando, because neither the Swan Hotel at Disney nor the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal have taxi stands. Instead, they have towncars. Oh, they’ll call a cab if you prefer, but meanwhile you’re left waiting for God knows how long for it to arrive. The savings of taking a cab over a towncar was around $10, and it irritated me to be pushed into spending more money than I should have for a ride.

On the day I left to come home, I stood waiting at the valet at the Hard Rock to ask them to call me a cab. No one paid me any mind at all, but I saw a man at a towncar waving at me. I thought he must have mistaken me for a client, so I ignored him. When the valet finally noticed me, he said “Sure I can call you a cab. It might be up to half an hour before it gets here, though. Or you could take one of our towncars.” He gestured in that direction. With a sigh, I agreed to take a towncar and he directed me toward the gentleman who had been waving at me earlier.

Now I felt like a jerk for ignoring him. I apologized and told him I thought he had mistaken me for someone who had pre-booked a towncar. He was very gracious about it.

His name was Mark, and he was a handsome older gentleman with silver hair and mustache from Puerto Rico who told me his life story en route to the airport. He was a terrific storyteller, and kept me entertained the whole way. He had spent years in Air Force Intelligence, and then went into the hospitality industry managing restaurants when he got out of the service. He did well in that career, but didn’t enjoy it; he said he didn’t care for the lack of work ethic in young people in the restaurant industry.

One day he had a brainstorm and decided to begin driving limousines instead. His wife at the time was not happy about this and gave him an ultimatum that he had to earn as much money every month in this new job as he had in his old one—or else. For the sake of marital bliss, he took the “or else” very seriously.

Orlando

Mark was doing all right driving the limousine, and enjoyed it much more than his old job, but the deadline his wife had given him was fast approaching, and he hadn’t earned as much as he had in his previous job. Then the September 11 attacks happened. Flights were cancelled all over the country. He sat at the airport with nothing to do because no flights were arriving. Now he wasn’t earning anything. With his wife’s ultimatum hanging over his head, things were looking bleak.

As he sat reading the newspaper in his car at the airport, a man approached him; the man and his wife had been on vacation before he started a great new job. He had spoken with his boss on the phone, and even though the boss knew the flight situation, he basically told the guy he needed to be at work the next morning, or he’d be fired. The guy lived in Cleveland or something. He had tried to get a rental car, but they were all gone.

He asked Mark: “Can you get me home before tomorrow morning?”

It was like something out of a movie. Mark drove the businessman and his wife home to Cleveland, driving through the night. It took 17 hours or thereabouts, but the guy got home in time to go to work. He and his wife unpacked their luggage and he told Mark to wait while he went into his house to get some money for the fare. He was gone for quite awhile. Mark began to worry he was going to get stiffed. But then the man ran back out with a huge wad of cash, way more than the cost of the drive (and coincidentally, more than enough to satisfy Mark’s wife’s ultimatum) because Mark “had just saved his job.”

Could it be true that there’s a silver lining in every cloud? It’s hard to imagine anything good coming out of September 11, but in this case at least, it saved Mark from having to return to a job that made him miserable and allowed him to pursue a career that is more rewarding for him. By the time we arrived at the airport, I was so glad I’d chosen not to wait for a cab, but had Mark as my driver instead. I was more than happy to slip him a good tip on top of the fare. He startled me with a kiss on the cheek, and wished me a safe flight home. He gave me his card in case I need a driver the next time I’m in Florida, but he needn’t have. He had already left a lasting impression on me. I’d say this career suits him just fine.

The Taxi Trilogy: A Silver Lining in Orlando is a post from: SoloFriendly.com

Canoe Pageant, Polynesian Cultural Center

If you’re traveling to Oahu, Hawaii, one destination that should absolutely be on your list is the Polynesian Cultural Center, located in Laie on Oahu. Why is it such a must-see? One of the things I wanted to make sure I got out of my trip to Hawaii was being exposed to the cultural traditions of the islands. I could have just hung out in Waikiki and enjoyed the sunshine and beaches and laid-back atmosphere, but I could get that kind of beach vacation in many places around the world. I’ve never been to any of the Pacific islands before, and I wanted to take this opportunity to learn more about them.

At the Polynesian Cultural Center, traditions of the islands of Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, Marquesas, and Aotearoa are being preserved and shared. You’ll hear native songs, see dances, learn about drumming, spear-throwing and lei-making, learn native games, witness a greeting ceremony, and more. You’ll see recreations of authentic ceremonial houses, cooking huts, and living quarters. The property is laid out in separate villages connected by bridges and walking paths criss-crossing a river. You can even go on a canoe ride down the river.

Polynesian Cultural Center

The day I was here had the potential to be a real let-down. Shortly after my tour group arrived and sat down to a decent-but-not-spectacular BBQ buffet lunch with a few other tour groups (under a roof, thank God), the skies opened up and we had torrential downpours. (I later learned this is the wetter side of the island, so if you make the trip, wear sunblock and bring an umbrella. You just never know.) It was so bad that people sitting at the end of the tables had to move, because the water was streaming off the roof and starting to come in to the shelter. As we later headed out to explore the villages, I got soaking wet from head to toe. My rainjacket did nothing to protect me from the torrential rain. I really, really don’t like being wet. And yet I enjoyed my time here enormously. It’s a beautiful site, and the shows are both educational and fun.

Samoa, Polynesian Cultural Center

The most memorable show for me was in Samoa. The young man doing the presentation on opening coconuts could be a stand-up comedian; he was so funny. He demonstrated how to break open the hard outer shell of a coconut to get to the hairy inner shell (and color me surprised—I thought the hairy part was the outer shell!). Then he demonstrated how they could potentially use all the parts of the coconut in some rather amusing ways.

Canoe Pageant

The highlight of my afternoon here was the canoe pageant. The canoes used in the pageant aren’t the canoes you and I might go out on a lake in. They’re like two canoes nailed together with a flat platform on top. They’re propelled by one young man perched precariously on one of the canoes with a long pole, which he uses to help him steer the boat–much like a gondolier. (As an aside, these guys have the ropiest back muscles I’ve ever seen. It’s obviously a good workout.)

Before the pageant started, a lone boat came floating down the river to. . .sell pink ice cream to the crowds waiting on either bank of the river. (Yeah. Pink ice cream. I thought that was weird. How exactly does ice cream fit into the cultural context here?)

Selling ice cream on the river

Then the show started, and it started raining again. Bless them, the rain didn’t dampen the enthusiasm—or the smiles–of the performers one bit; they put on a great show of music and dance. One boat had some male dancers who played a prank on their poleman—they started rocking the boat back and forth until the guy lost his balance and fell into the water. He probably didn’t care, since he was getting pretty wet anyway from the rain.

In short, while it’s a bit pricy, the Cultural Center is a great way to learn more about the islands of Polynesia and their unique cultural traditions, especially if you’ve only got limited time in the islands. I chose to fold this visit into a circle island tour, because that seemed the most cost-effective and time-effective way of doing things for me. But do explore the various options to see which one works best for you.

Canoe Pageant

What you need to know:

• Open daily except Sundays, Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at 11:45am (presentations and island tours begin at 12:05pm). The villages shut down between 5 and 5:30pm, but there are dining venues, a luau, and the evening show, HA: The Breath of Life, that run later.
• The Polynesian Cultural Center is located off the Kamehameha Highway in Laie, slightly over an hour away from Waikiki. This, of course, means you’ll probably need a rental car or to sign up for a package or tour that includes transportation (which is what I did; this is a common stop on circle island tours). Technically, you can get there via the public bus, but I wouldn’t recommend it if your time is valuable to you.
• If admission is purchased on your own, the day experience is $49.95 (before tax); you can add on a luau or buffet for another $45, and/or HA for another $49.95. (Clearly, getting culture is not a cheap experience.) If you come with a circle island tour, the cost of admission and possibly meals is included with the tour. Check individual tour operators for details.
• For more information, visit the Polynesian Cultural Center’s website.

The Polynesian Cultural Center is a post from: SoloFriendly.com