Our Cruise Ship: The Perla

Steve is reading and trying to act intellectual
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After our wandering aimlessly in Athens for the morning, we met our Contiki cruise tour group at 2pm to head over to the Pireaus port where we would be sailing off from. We waited in line probably for 2 hours to get through "boat customs" which consisted of us handing over our passports and getting our belongings molested by the black conveyor belt/demagnetizer.

Our tour group was an interesting mix of people and our tour guide was a crazy big and blond Aussie guy named Tarquin. We quickly gave him the nickname of TQ and he seemed to like it so it was all good. The rest of the group were: 4 Aussie girls ready to party, the Calgary married couple on a belated honeymoon, the Engaged Kiwis on a pre-marriage honeymoon, 2 Aussie girls who we didn't see much of, Torontonian Steve who shared in the donkey-riding excitement, Michael the computer guy from New York, Lauren a granola girl from Winnipeg and boy-crazy Arielle from Toronto I think. I will say now that it was Steph and I who shut down the boat every night. Surprisingly these people didn’t stay up very late nor party very hard but some nights we hung out with more of them than others but you could always rely on Steph and I to be running around somewhere on the ship, at least until the bar and brutal "club" closed.

I will say now that it was Steph and I who shut down the boat every night.

View from deck
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We checked into our small 2 bed with tiny bathroom compartment and debated and decided on getting the All-inclusive drink card which we needed about 30 drinks to break even. (Note: At the end of the cruise I ended with 60 drinks and Steph had about 55 - and the cards applied to non-alcoholic drinks as well so don’t start thinking bad things! But good work on us!)

Cruise News (daily ship going-ons) and TQ's daily Contiki instructions came and went every day so we always sort of knew what we were supposed to be doing. The ship was not a funfest party since it consisted of the Contiki's and the elderly. Some old people we met were really fun and we learned Greek dancing with them and the instructor Svetlana but it would have been nice to have more young people on the ship!

The Perla (aka Home for 7 days)
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For most of the cruise until about the last 2 days were freezing and windy on the deck - we wore our hoodies everywhere we went. There was a pool that I did not see anyone venture into - an Aussie girl stuck her toe in and it almost froze off so no pool for anyone. The food was decent and there was just way too much. We probably gained weight on this part of our trip since every meal had 4 courses so we tried to just have 1 or 2.

Next time you hear one of us saying "Panos! Panos!" it's because its our cabin cleaner's name and he STUNK like the worst B.O. you have ever smelled times 10. The first time I smelled it I thought I would die. Steph thought I was overreacting until we walked into our room while he was cleaning and wow the smell lingered and probably was embedded into our clothes. I had to leave the room every time he was in the immediate vicinity and go to another deck. So for the rest of our trip every time we smelled bad B.O., we would say "Panos!" so we were could start holding our breath.