American Mom in London: Mediterranean Cruise: Port of Civitavecchia

Our port on Tuesday was Civitavecchia, which is the cruise port for access to Rome. I wasn't all that excited about this port as I had already seen most of the Rome highlights on a previous visit and remembered the city as being rather dirty, hot, and crowded (I know I am a minority here as most people love Rome). Still, I felt it would be silly to miss out on seeing the city again, especially since David had never been to Rome. I didn't want to deal with the overcrowded public transportation with Colin and his stroller so we opted to book another semi-private excursion in Rome.

We got off our ship and met our tour guide. However, things didn't go as smoothly as they did with our tour in Livorno. The tour guide did not have any one else to share the excursion with us. He then made us wait in the hot sun for about 45 minutes until he could convince a British couple and their teenage son to join us. Needless to say, we were not happy at this point. We then got to his van and found out there was no car seat for Colin. The tour company had specifically agreed to provide car seats for Colin on all of our excursions. We chose to pay full price for Colin with this company (many others give a discount or are free for 2 year olds) because they had guaranteed he would have a car seat. Needless to say, we weren't off to a good start.

We did end up seeing a lot the rest of the day with stops at Vatican City and St. Peter's Square, Piazza Venezia, Colosseum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, and a viewpoint outside the city. We also had lunch at a restaurant that I am certain was owned by friends or family of the driver for which he received some sort of kick-back, but it was at least a decent meal of pasta and beer.

I was glad we made the trip into Rome, but this was definitely my least favorite day of the cruise. I was happy when we made it back to the ship and had some pool and waterslide time before dinner. We had dinner and then dropped Colin off at Camp Carnival. David and I had a drink on the adults only Serenity deck and played a round of mini golf before picking up Colin. He was tired after not having napped well due to the lack of a car seat. We all went to bed early as we had a big day ahead of us, the port of Naples and Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast which I was really looking forward to.