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When Peter and Meredith discovered they had to cancel their two week cruise for the Wisconsin Alumni Association (as hosts) to the Greek Islands, they wondered who they could get to replace them at one day's notice. Our hands were up so fast! |
| It meant we had to cancel our move into The Bernardin, our new apartment at the corner of Chicago and North Wabash, but that wasn't a hard decision to make! We had Jessica fed ex us our formal wear (there are 3 formal nights on the ship), we grabbed our passports and re-packed our bags and jumped on a plane to Frankfurt and then Athens. We arrived into our room around 3 pm, really really tired. But what a room! It has a beautiful soft queen sized bed with a sitting area, a private bath with TWO sinks and a shower, and a teak deck veranda. We keep looking at each other amazed that we are here. |  |
 | The Crystal Serenity set sail at about 9 pm, right after we had dinner. We stayed up to watch it leave the dock, then crashed. The next day we sailed all day through the Dardanelles |
| and the Marmara Sea, then the Black Sea and through this tiny channel by Istanbul to the port of Nessebur in Bulgaria. We had tea at 4 pm in the palm court to wake us up before dinner, then we went for a walk around the teak promenade deck, a circle takes about 6 minutes. |  |
 | We went ashore independently (i.e., no tour) as soon as the Captain announced we were clear to go. They had constant shore boats, very efficient. We walked through this ancient little town that is morphing into a tourist destination for the British. We saw several of these women with twig brooms, working at cleaning the streets. |
| The streets had cobblestones like we've seen before in Europe (small square ones, but also these huge rocks, set in mortar. |  |
 | This old tower looks at the new resort area about 4 miles away from the old city. We didn't go there. |
| That's our ship there, behind me. It's huge. There are 1,035 guests and around 700 staff. You can't go anywhere without someone remembering your name and offering you something. I had a manicure yesterday in the spa.
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 | The little harbor into which we went on the shore boats to disembark. |
| The bow of Crystal Serenity from the shore boat. |
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