PISA!

Friday morning we woke up in Livorno. We had previously purchased train tickets to go from city center to Florence, from Florence to Pisa and then from Pisa back to the boat. It was going to be a busy day, but we were excited about it.

We found out our train tickets were good for a four hour window of time so we decided to sleep in a bit and grab breakfast on the boat before heading out. Yesterday had been so busy and we were just kind of pooped. We disembarked at about 8:30 that morning only to find that there were no shuttles to the train station left (they were to run until 9:00) and that a taxi for the 10 minute ride would be 25 Euros. We started walking at that point. We got the the edge of the fence before a guard stopped us and said we could only go by vehicle. We were stuck! UGH! I was NOT going to be overcharged for a taxi simply because Princess couldn't keep a shuttle schedule. We got back on the ship and tried to figure things out. It turns out that if you do not buy an exceptionally overpriced excursion from the cruise line, they do not care about you at all. We were beyond annoyed and decided to just stay on the ship that day.

We changed into our suits and went to catch some sun and do some reading. We grabbed lunch and then it starting hitting me that I'd not see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. You guys, ridiculous as it may be, I have wanted my photo with that thing forever. We decided to disembark again and see if we could just get to Pisa. The taxis all held 8 passengers and if you could get enough folks together you could get all the way to Pisa (about 30 minutes up the road) for 20 Euros each. We found three Filipino guys looking to share a taxi, but we needed 3 more people to make it affordable. I put Jackson on the case and he walked through the terminal selling people on riding with us to Pisa. IT WORKED! He found two more guys (one from Peru and one from Macedonia) who wanted to go and had been waiting for an hour to find a ride. The Filipino guys had been waiting 45 minutes to find a group. We joked that you just need a couple of Americans to bridge the gaps. All 5 of the guys worked on the ship: two as cooks and three as housekeepers. We got a taxi driver to give us the 20 Euro each price for the 7 of us and away we went. I sat in the front seat and attempted to make conversation with our driver. He did not speak much English and I do not speak much Italian so it was a pretty quiet ride. :)

Perma-smile

Then, all of the sudden, we made it to a cute little town and turned in behind a wall. The driver said, "there she is!" I looked over and saw the Leaning Tower and I actually screamed with delight. It was just so surreal!!! Please note that no one else in the taxi had a similar reactions. Boys! ;)

"Let me help..."

HEYYYY

Certainly leans!

Too excited.

YESSSSS

One more selfie...

Area around the Tower

It was pretty crowded, but not awful

I had always read that the Tower was in the middle of nowhere so I expected it to just be in an abandoned field. Nope! It was in a bustling city center filled with folks preying on dorky tourists like me. I did, admittedly, get a pretty sweet little tiny tower trinket for a single Euro to put in my office. We got to walk around and take silly photos for an hour. We did not need that long so we finished taking photos and stopped to get Jackson a beer and me wifi. Funny how that works. 

A drink with the Tower in the background

After just a brief visit we headed back to the cruise port happy as little clams that we'd gotten the pictures we'd always dreamed of. Ok, by we I mean me, but whatever. I am so glad that we tried it again and I wish we would have just let the taxi in the morning rip us off. Pride is a dangerous thing. Live and learn. Perhaps one day I'll see Florence, but I'm not so sure. We headed back to the pool to catch some late afternoon sun and do some studying for the rest of our Italian trip.

BOGO frozen drinks? OK!

To make a moderately annoying day on the boat 100% better there was a Mongolian barbecue that evening. This is by far my favorite kind of food and you can find it in Honolulu and pretty much nowhere else. I was elated and the chefs onboard did not disappoint. Hooray. After dinner we watched a gorgeous sunset and another outdoor movie before heading back to our room to pack our things.

Mongolian BBQ! YES!

Gorgeous sunset

At the last minute we decided to go to the late night comedy show instead of packing. What is vacation without a little stalling?! We elected to do the walk-off disembarking so we did not have to have our bags packed up any earlier than necessary. That also meant we had to be off the boat by a 7:00. Agh! Oh well, the comedian was moderately funny and we enjoyed ourselves.

Ready for some laughs

We got up early the next morning to get one final breakfast on the ship before meeting the girls and heading for the train station. I am pleased to note that we managed our onboard account credit so well that we actually ended up with an $11 refund! (Note: only $40 of it was refundable so this was really pretty good use of the free funds.)

Look who was under budget, for once, ME

You could get a ride from the cruise line into the city for about a million dollars. We do not play that game so we hooked up with some friends we met at the pool and each paid 5 Euros for a taxi ride to the train station. We then got our train tickets for Rome for 5 Euros and an hour later we were in the city. We were likely there before a shuttle from the cruise line ever would have gotten us there and we only spent 10 Euros each. That's the J&J Petefish travel way!

We'd like to note that even with some little frustrations we absolutely loved our cruise. The weather was perfect. The seas were calm (I never even took seasickness medicine). The ports were awesome. The food was great. The entertainment was good. We will certainly add cruising in Europe to our list of good ways to travel. Thank you so much, Susan, for the awesome birthday gift for our favorite guy!