The evening shows were fairly short (vs major cruise lines) but entertaining - the Greek folk dancing show was excellent.
The only negative was the request not to dispose of *ANYTHING* in the toilets - gift wrapping bathroom tissue for the wastebasket became an acquired skill.
An attempt at booking the cruise directly with Louis Cruise Lines originally went unanswered so we found an Athens-based agency that could book us. The agency, Atlantis Travel got us an even better deal as we got a free upgrade as well as one night in a four-star hotel at no charge.
There was a real mixture of nationalities on the cruise - all public announcements were made in four languages: English, Spanish, German and of course Greek. There was also some 80+ marathoners aboard.
Our most memorable crew member was Darick the waiter on the 5th deck aft. Learning that he was from Goa, India and noticing that was obviously a devout Roman Catholic, I recalled that St. Francis Xavier was closely associated with Goa and pointed out my X-ring, as well as Melinda and Glen's. As it turned out, he knew even more about the life and death of St. Francis Xavier than I did!
The Cristal's itinerary was very charged; with the exception of Rhodes, time in port was very limited. For the ports we had not visited previously (i.e. Patmos and Crete), I was very tempted to take the cruise line's overpriced tours to avoid the risk of missing the ship but decided to strike out on my own instead. I was fortunate to find two like-minded cruisers, Rafael and Antigone from Chile, with whom to share taxis in both ports and save considerable time and cash.
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We had barely gotten underway when we hit our first port-of-call, Mykonos. As we had been there previously, the fact that we were off-season and night was just around the corner, we passed on the opportunity to go into town.
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The next morning had us in Kušadasi (Turkey) where they really like to deal. After negotiating an acceptable price for a genuine fake Rolex, the merchant then pressed me to visit his leather-dealing cousin across the alley, which I did. I was soon surrounded by friendly staff and served tea (standard business practise in Turkey) and soon looking debonair and slimmer in a nice cream-coloured jacket whose 'leather' felt like 'buttah' - 700 euros said he. When I feigned choking, the price dropped to 250. Washable leather I was told ... "so real you can take a flame to it, watch this lighter on the sleeve". Impressed and still looking very fine I told him I unfortunately didn't really need another leather jacket. 'But life is not just for the things you need, you have to treat yourself' he says. I responded that 'I would not be here today traveling in retirement if I had spent my life buying everything I wanted instead of what I really needed'. The price dropped to 125 - nope. He asked me to name a price. Still feeling svelte and dashing (but still wondering about this interesting 'washable leather'), I suggested I might be tempted at 50 euros. Alas, no deal was reached.
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Little Patmos was quite charming in itself but also intruiguing due to its association with the apostle St. John the Divine who settled here after leaving the Virgin Mary near Ephesus.
Entrance to the Cave of the Apocalypse where it is said that God dictated the Book of Revelations to him.
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Back in town, I found a newspaper with the complete results of the marathon. The fourth column, about 1/4 of the way down tells the tale.
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In Rhodes I discovered the real cost of 'free' wi-fi, with at least some restaurants. In my case the small gyro plate was 10 euros with 20% of the meat being pure fat; 3 euros for a dash of tzatziki sauce, and a fountain Coke at 5 euros. Some fellow cruisers discovered that their large glasses of beers cost 18 euros apiece!
Rhodes was also the site of a self-induced panic for us. I went to an ATM to get some cash using P's ATM card, which she never uses. It seemed to accept the PIN ok when I started the transaction but as I came to withdraw the cash, it asked for the PIN again. I got a error message about the PIN. Thinking I had entered it in error, I carefully entered it again - again the error message. Finally, the machine kept the card "for my own security" and so we began to stress about the possibility of not being able to obtain cash if my card also had PIN problems. What was the real scoop? - P had given me her old ATM card which required the PIN that we had long forgotten. Whew, no problem!
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It was our first time on the island of Crete and took advantage of our docking in Heraklion to visit the ruins of Knossos, the palace of the early Minoan civilization.
My favourite sight in Heraklion was the cathedral
the ceiling being especially beautiful.
Cretans are fond of their fine-feathered friends. We were told that the square holes in a viaduct had been made so that birds could nest there. :-)
Heraklion's Venetian fortress
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Santorini was its usual spectacular self.
After some nibblies and wine
we had to return to the ship leaving this scene for Melinda and Glen's last days in Greece while we returned to Athens.
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