10-06 and 07-2018: The Cruise Begins

On Saturday we moved from our Airbnb to the cruise ship, the Azamara Quest.  We loved the Airbnb flat but we were excited to get on the ship.  The Venice to Athens cruise was the very first piece of this 7-week trip that Christine booked.  Everything else was organized to fit around the cruise.

The cruise is organized by Olivia, a company that started in the women’s music business back in the mid-1970s.  As a matter of fact, we cruised on a 40th anniversary celebration for Olivia Records.  The travel company was started in the late 1980s and will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year.  Christine and I took our first Olivia cruise in 1990, I think it was the 3rd cruise that Olivia put together.  Over the years, we have done other cruises and one land-based vacation.  Olivia takes over a Club Med or other type of all-inclusive resort for a week for the land-based vacations and takes over a cruise ship for the cruises.  We’ve been on smaller ships, like the Azamara, with about 700 passengers and on a much larger Holland America ship of about 3,000 passengers.  I much prefer the smaller ships.  It’s hard enough learning one’s way around on this ship.  There are really only 3 primary decks where all the important things are located, but I still haven’t yet figured out which way is the bow and which way is the stern.  Some ships have patterns in the rugs on the floor that point to the bow.  If this ship has a clue somewhere, I haven’t found it yet.  We really love being on these Olivia cruises.  What’s not to love about being with 700 energetic and interesting lesbians?  And the Olivia team does a phenomenal job organizing and running the week’s activities and programs.  We are very well taken care of by both Olivia and the ship’s staff.  The other great thing about these cruises is that Olivia brings all the entertainment, so each night we are treated to comediennes and singers and other entertainers.

We boarded the ship around noon on Saturday.  This is the first time we’ve ever boarded the ship and didn’t leave the same day.  The Azamara was our floating hotel for the night.  Here are a few photos of the ship.

Christine found her cozy spot in our cabin

Saturday night the entertainment was Karen Williams.  We saw her on our first cruise, and I think on each subsequent Olivia vacation.  What’s been fun is that Karen has keenly captured in her show all the good things and bad things about getting older.  I’d say that the majority of the women on board are over the age of about 45, so getting older jokes really resonated.  It was an enjoyable show and we laughed a lot.  Karen riffed on why does Olivia schedule these shows at 9:00 at night.  Most of us in the audience agreed with that because by 9:00, we’re all too tired to stay awake.  We certainly chuckled about that.

Sunday the ship departed for its first stop, which will be Dubrovnik, on Monday.  There was a sail away party around the pool, although the weather has not been very cooperative for outdoor partying.  It has been rainy and chilly the past couple of days.  But Christine and I stood out on the top deck, deck 11, the sun deck, to watch our departure and say goodbye to Venice.

P.S.  We only having wi-fi when we are in port.  The internet plan on the ship is very expensive, so we are not purchasing it.  The next few posts may be few and far between.  I’ll try to keep up, but I’m afraid that a daily fix will not be possible until we’re off the ship.

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