PORTOFINO, ITLAY

The last 24 hours have been superb.

Being back home with Crystal is as good as before and even better.

​We dined in Waterside last evening and the food was superb. Anne Marie tried a new dessert recently created.  Keyword is yummy.

After dinner the evening entertainment featured Comedian John Joseph in the Galaxy Showroom. John combines comedy, music and improv so you get it all with him in one fantastic show.  Cruise Director Rick Smith shared a photo with everyone.   

How often do you see a Captain helping someone with their luggage? On Crystal you do.

When Cruise Director Rick Spath arrived to the ship for the dry-dock he was not only met at the pier by Captain Birger, but the Captain was kind enough to help Rick with his luggage.

Yes, teamwork at its finest and who better to set this example for the team than the Captain of Crystal Serenity Captain Birger Vorland. Kudos to the Captain. This is the Crystal we know.
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Bravo.

Rick also mentioned that when the crew left Serenity in 2022 in Bimini that he said good bye to them as they went ashore and everyone had tears in their eyes of sadness. When much of the crew returned to Serenity in Italy he waited for them to welcome them and they had tears in their eyes of happiness. While we were not on the final sailing of Serenity we had tears and sadness and when we boarded on July 31 our tears turned to happiness.

Rick also mentioned that when the crew left Serenity in 2022 in Bimini that he said good bye to them as they went ashore and everyone had tears in their eyes of sadness. When much of the crew returned to Serenity in Italy he waited for them to welcome them and they had tears in their eyes of happiness. While we were not on the final sailing of Serenity we had tears and sadness and when we boarded on July 31 our tears turned to happiness.
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We sailed for our next port-of-call Portofino, Italy around 11:00 PM.  We have visited this beautiful area of Italy several times and the last time was in 2015 on a very special milestone birthday for Anne Marie.  Anne Marie is half Italian, so it was fitting to be in this area in 2015.

In fact, first time was our first cruise on Serenity in 2005 when we did a back-to-back cruise.  We tendered ashore and saw our four table-mates and spontaneously found someone to take us over to Santa Margarita and he waited for us to take us back after we walked around and had lunch.
 
Two photos from 2005 included. See if you can figure out which ones. LOL.
 
Keith went over there by myself today.  Getting into the tender you really bumped around with strong sea swells. When we proceeded the tender would go up and down and make that big noise as it hit the water over and over.  It calmed down close to shore. The return was much calmer.  Several guests who went ashore early were on walking tours.
 
Keith walked for quite a while visiting sites that we enjoy. He took several photos of the clock tower as this is a photo he likes to use for Blogs and other travel write-ups. One nice the aspect of Portofino we enjoy is it is small and doesn’t get overrun with tourists. Things are mainly as they were which we love.

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We enjoyed the rest of the day on board Serenity. Anne Marie walked on the Promenade Deck for the second time. Keith played Paddle Tennis for a couple of hours and we enjoyed conversations with crew and guests.

Some pages from the daily program Reflections follow. Apologies if they are difficult to read.

Cheers,

​Anne Marie & Keith