The Plan
I gave this a lot of thought. Last visit the girls were only 5 and 2 and I really felt that a long trip to Rome would be too much for them and consequently we wouldn't enjoy it either. Recently my older daughter has studied Ancient Rome at school and was really enthused about it. After much thought between doing a DIY trip, a
DCL trip or a private tour we have opted to do a full day private tour with smartcruisetours. They are priced more competitively than Romeinlimo but my research has found that they get really good reviews in various travel forums on the net. We are taking a tour based on their Rome Highlights but amending to suit us. We are not doing an interior visit of the Vatican (DH and I have done that before and as it will be the last Sunday in the month and free I anticipate big crowds!) We do hope to go inside the Collosseum and Isabelle particularly wanted to see the ruins of the bath house as well as the Forum so Julia at Smartcruisetours was kindly able to suggest a suitable bath house ruin which we could visit as part of the tour.
I expect that this will be a long day but our decision to go for a private tour was largely based on the flexibility in the itinerary and the fact that we can amend as we go to add or remove stops, insert gelato breaks etc... The cost for the tour for four people is 310 Euro although we got a 10 Euro discount from each tour as we booked another tour with the same company in Naples. I will be sure to review the tours fully - in the lead up Julia who deals with email enquiries has been excellent at making changes, suggesting alternatives etc...
Although our port time is 7:15am until 7:30pm we do not intend to be out all that time. Our pick up is at 8am and we have asked to be back by 5pm - obviously there is a little flexibility in this but that gives us plenty of time to get back and change \ relax \ unwind before dinner.
The Reality
The alarm was set for 6:15 which was a bit of a shock to the system, ouch! This is a vacation, right?! We managed to haul ourselves up and were sitting in Parrot Cay eating what was quickly becoming our regular breakfast of fruit, cereals pancakes and donuts (for the kids) By 7:10am. Having finished breakfast we quickly grabbed all the things we needed including our snacks and drinks and made it off the ship by 8:05am.
As we left the ship we saw quite a crowd of drivers holding up signs, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw someone there holding a sign with "Hand Family" on it. We had booked through Smartcruisetours and had brilliant pre cruise experiences emailing with Julia but there was a teeny part of me that was worried that as they were so much cheaper than RomeinLimo etc... that there would be a problem. Our full day tour with driver (not official tour guide) was 300 Euro for the four of us, the other companies I found were around 500 Euro but I am pleased to report that we got excellent service from Guiliano.
He introduced himself, greeted the children aswell and then took us to his air conditioned silver Mercedes minivan which would be our vehicle for the day. As requested there were booster seats for the children and they were soon settled in their seats and snoozing after the early start!
The drive to Rome was relatively quick and easy as it was a Sunday and Guiliano explained that there was hardly any traffic. In under an hour we were at our first stop, the beautiful church of St Pauls Outside The Walls. We got out here and took a look around, took some photos and used the restrooms. It was really pretty and well worth a visit.
From here we made our way to the Keyhole of Rome. This was really cool - we all had a look through and even though I knew what I would see it is still amazing to peer through a tiny keyhole and get a spectacular view of St Peters.
As we drove around Guiliano gave us plenty of local and historical knowledge. I know that many emphasise the fact that these drivers are not guides and of course they are not but for us it was enough to have a selection of interesting historical and geographical facts and anecdotes and a full on tour guide would have been more than we needed or wanted on this visit.
Our next destination was an area where we could get a view from above the Roman Forum and then walk through to a beautiful square designed by Michaelangelo. We took photos then proceeded down the steps to meet Guiliano at the exact spot he said he would be!
I had previously loved visiting the Pantheon and really wanted to show the girls this amazing building with it's domed roof with a hole in it. How on earth did they construct this all those years ago without the aid of modern technology and tools? We spent some time looking around inside, the girls were particularly impressed with the little plug hole in the floor for draining any rain! I think it would be really cool to be in here when it rains but the only times I have been it has been dry!
From here Guiliano drove us to the closest spot he could get us to the Trevi fountain. He told us to walk a couple of minutes down the little side street and we would be at the fountain. We did indeed get to the Trevi fountain, took a few photos and decided to wander around a little. We had asked Guiliano if this was a good place to get ice cream but he suggested we make that our next stop after we had been to the fountain.
We stood and watched a fantastic spray painting artist make amazing collosseum pictures and then, I have to confess, we stopped in the McDonalds to grab the girls some food. Now there was method in my madness, I knew that we would be doing our Collosseum tour at 12:20pm and wanted to avoid them suddenly "needing" food as soon as the tour started so they ate some Chicken Nuggets Roma style!
So we returned to the car and Guiliano took us to get ice cream. He did say that his favourite ice cream shop in Rome was closed on a Sunday but he would take us to another nice one. It did not disappoint. We all had some delicious Gelato and in the ever increasing heat it was nice to cool off.
After we had finished it was time to get to the Collosseum for our tour. Guiliano dropped us across the road so we just had to walk down some steps and across to get to the Collosseum. It was a little after 12 when we got in and boy were we glad to have our tickets pre booked. We walked past an enormous line of people and went to the reservations window and joined a line which had two families in it! We were given our stickers to show we were on the Underground and third floor tour and directed to go to the meeting point and wait.
We only had to wait a few minutes and we killed time chatting, taking photos and enjoying the shade!
Our guide arrived a distributed handsets on cords which we had to hold upside down to hear her. When held correctly we could hear what she was saying wherever we were within a short distance. I have to say at the start of the tour I was really concerned. She led us through a roped off section to an area on the main level in full blazing sun. She then proceeded to stand there and talk for 15 minutes solid about the history of the Collosseum while we (and several other members of the group) were wilting in the heat. After a few minutes I could see the girls couldn't stand it so we broke away from the group and sat about 25 feet away in a tiny patch of shade!
Darren fancies himself as a bit of a Gladiator so here he is posing!
Fortunately it got much better from there on in. We went down to the underground section which was really interesting. We were shown a tunnel through which Nero flooded a large area to make a lake in Rome prior to the Collosseum being built. We also were shown where the animals and gladiators waited prior to their fights.
After plenty of time looking around this section we were taken up to the main upper floor where we were shown a few exhibits.
Then we made our way up a roped off staircase to the top level. At various points in the tour people tried to tag onto it but they were easy to spot as they didn't have the handset things or the stickers and the guide told them they couldn't join us but they should book the tour!
Luckily at this point she gave us the option of talking the next bit through in the shade of an area just below the open top floor or we could talk about it while we were up on the roof. We, and a few others, quickly said "in the shade please!" so we heard more about ancient Rome from the slightly less hot shaded area. There were some really steep steps to get to the very top but it was well worth it for the great views.
The girls found some little "caves" which they decided to hide in, well it got them a little shaded relief from the heat!
We were finished with the tour and leaving the Collosseum at around 1:30pm and it was seriously unbearably hot. We left the shade of the Collosseum and were hit by the intense heat (remember Darren doesn't actually like hot weather!) We quickly bought our souvenir magnets and some bottles of water which I was extremely grateful to see had been frozen and still had a big lump of ice in the middle. We all literally threw the water down our throats and then staggered back towards the car. I had intended to get the Gladiator photos on the way back but I was actually very concerned that in spite of the factor 50 suncream we were burning (in the end it turned out the factor 50 did us proud and no one burned) and that someone was going to end up with heatstroke.
Never has there been a more welcome sight than Guiliano with our air conditioned Mercedes just waiting for us. He said that the cars thermometer was reading the outdoor temperature as 41 degrees.
At this point I suggest to Guiliano that the remaining items on the itinerary are just photo stop or drive-bys, We drove past the Spanish steps and declined a stop, we took a look at the famous shopping street from the cool interior of the car (I can't afford Prada or Louis Vuitton anyway!) then we drove over to St Peters. Darren and I have done an internal visit to the Vatican and seen the Sistine Chapel on our own, I don't think my girls are old enough to appreciate it and with it being the last Sunday of the month when entry is free and lines are long it was not on our plan today. We did however intend to do a photo stop there. As the car pulled over Olivia point blank refused to get out of the car! Now usually I would point out that I am the parent and she is the child however I could see her point! Darren suggested he stay in the car with Olivia while Izzy and I took some pictures which worked just fine.
From here we had planned to visit Terme De Caracalla, the ruins of some Roman baths which is now a concert venue. However we were all done in so we just stopped by the outside and made the decision to head back to the ship. We were well within the time we had Guiliano for but sometimes I think the mistake is to try to keep going and pack things in regardless of the circumstances. We all enjoyed the Collosseum but it completely finished us for the day so it was definitely the right move to head back to the ship. The girls slept on the way back and even Darren dozed. I chatted with Guiliano and enjoyed the ride back.
We said goodbye, paid Guiliano the balance of the tour plus a tip and the girls had a photo with him.
Once we were back on board it seemed like a good plan to go and have a swim. Suddenly Isabelle realised that her beloved Monkey (she doesn't sleep without it!) is missing and she thinks she left him in Parrot Cay. We take a detour to guest services to fill out a missing persons, I mean lost property, report! She tried really hard to be brave but I could see that she was really upset.
The children grabbed a quick bite from Plutos dog house and then went for a swim. Darren had a slice of pizza and I grabbed a burger. Originally our plan had been to eat in Rome but with a lunch time tour and then the extreme heat we just wanted to drink lots of water and had a few snacks so we ended up being hungry enough that we wanted to eat but knowing that we had dinner in a couple of hours so we didn't eat too much!
When the girls had finished swimming we went back to the cabin to change and were mightily relieved to discover that Isabelle HAD brought monkey back from breakfast but he had been hidden under some bags - huge relief all round!
We got ready for dinner which was Animators palette tonight. The children ate Spaghetti and Meatballs and I had Lemon Herb Shrimp, Andalucian Tomato soup (which was lovely) and Flank steak. Darren had soft shell crab followed by a lamb dish. I could see that despite her protestations that she wasn't tired Olivia was really in need of some down time. She didn't want dessert and I wasn't bothered either so we made a quick exit and headed for the cabin to chill out and watch TV. We did stop for a sneaky Mum and youngest daughter photo stop though!
We found our towel animal waiting for us, tonight it was something which I think is a dinosaur, the others aren't sure!!!
We got into our PJs and snuggled on the bed watching The Little Mermaid. Darren and Izzy stayed for dessert then Isabelle went for a brief visit to the club. However everyone was completely tired out and we were all in bed by 9:40pm after our very long day!
