(written June 6, 2025 by Devri)
We had a lazy morning since our ship didn’t arrive in port until 1 p.m. We all went to the Red Velvet Restaurant for breakfast. Brian, Mom, and I ordered Eggs Benedict, which they said would come with hollandaise sauce, but instead it came with a chicken gravy kind of sauce. It was a bit of a let down, but the restaurant itself was cute, the servers sweet, and the chairs decent. Plus, we all got to be together. After breakfast, we tried again to find Gabe’s water bottle, but no luck still.
Brian and I headed back to the room to do some packing since Gabe goes to bed earlier than everyone else, and I’m really glad we did.
We watched the boat pull into port from our room, and it was so beautiful. I’ve loved this cruise because we’ve been able to see the land around us for most of the trip.
We changed into swimming suits and then got lunch. Lara let me borrow one of her cover-ups, since I had left mine at home. We got off the boat and started walking towards town to find our tour guy. We were wondering how far we would have to walk when we saw a 15 passenger van on the right, and Mom said, “Do you think that’s our guy?” I squinted to read the sign on the windshield, walking a bit closer before recognizing my name on the sign.
The kids were especially excited about having that whole big van for just our group, especially after being in big tour groups and having to go places we didn’t necessarily want to go.
Our driver, Stefanos, was so great. He took us to Paleokastritsa Beach where we caught a small boat that took us to see some sea caves nearby. The water was beaufiful, but I confess to being a little disappointed in the caves themselves. I thought that we would be able to go into them further.
After the boat ride, our driver took us over and around mountain ridges to Glyfada Beach. He said that Paleokastritas Beach and Glyfada Beach are a 5 minute boat ride away from each other, but a 30 minute car ride due to the mountainous terrain.
The beach was beautiful. That statement is inadequate. Truly. We reserved 6 beach loungers with three umbrellas, but mostly, Brian, Greg, Rachel, Gabe, and I enjoyed the water. We didn’t end up using the chairs the whole time, but we enjoyed having them. The water was crystal clear, even under the waves as they were rolling in. They reminded me of the ocean in the movie Moana. We could see all the fish and things in it. It may be my favorite beach ever, nestled in against an opening in the cliffs. We could have stayed there indefinitely. Unfortunately, we only had an hour and a half.
Stefanos drove us back to the port, and we walked back to our ship.
We got there in time to go to dinner together, so I showered super fast, and then Gabe showered really fast, and then we went down to eat. Our servers Jose (from India) and Nelly were fabulous all week and quickly learned how much we loved our water!
We headed to bed filled with a little anxiety though. MSC had requested our passports, and they hung onto them for 2 whole days. We needed to catch a train at 8:46 the next morning, and they were telling us that we wouldn’t have our passports until 8 at the earliest. Brian took a turn trying to get an earlier time, and I think Kirt did too. Mom went to the desk later and turned on the charm to beg the guy to put our passports on the top of the pile.
We were grateful for the time change heading back to Italy as we would get an extra hour to sleep before our early morning. With pleas to heaven that we would make our train the next day, we headed to bed.