Greece and Turkey – Family Cruise on the NCL Jade – June 2022

Kusadasi and Ephesus, Turkey 🇹🇷 - June 6, 2022

Our time at Kusadasi was published as 6:30 am to 12:30 pm, so we knew that would be 12:00 pm all board, so not much time. This was the only port that we booked a tour, so with all the covid issues, I paranoidly asked the tour guide if we would make it back on board on time. They reassured me. We booked Ephesus Shuttle for the tour. We debated whether to book Terrace Houses too; extra $10 each. I was not sure if we had enough time (we would have) and if others on the tour would want to go or not. $10 for 4 people does add up, and we were not sure how interesting to the kids it would be. This is a section of Ephesus that is covered and being excavated now. It looked cool from the pictures and videos. 

Upon approach to Kusadasi with the sun rising. 





We met our tour guide at the arranged time of 7:30 am. It was just our group; crazy, we had not booked a private tour. The vehicle was a very tricked out SUV, and the closest that I have been in to a limo. The ceiling was lit up with a stain glass like pattern and the first row of back seats faced backwards. 

First stop  


Ancient Turkish bathhouses 


Arrived at Ephesus. There are hills around that still need to be excavated where they expect to find more ancient ruins. 










Look at that view!





The public toilets with water flowing below to "flush". 



Library of Celsus 







Travis found a squat toilet before we left the Ephesus site; it was free. Luckily, I did not find one. 


Back in Kusadasi. Our tour was great! We paid while on the drive back and tipped the guide and driver. The one thing that I did not expect was for the tour guide to be related to everyone in Kusadasi and recommending/pushing shopping here and there. We did ask where the ATM was when we arrived in the morning and got cash for Istanbul before leaving. We used USD to get husband some new dinner shoes (his others broke the night before. We were originally going to pay in Euros, but they did not have the right change. They quoted the same price in Euro as USD, though the Euro was stronger.), some Turkish delight candy, and some ice cream before re-boarding the ship. 

Our ship with another, smaller one; I believe it was a Costa ship. 




With the Kusadasi sign and colorful houses on the hill. 



He is a little big for the playground. 


Our tour guide mentioned that birds were the symbol of Kusadasi, and we found the statue that he mentioned. 


We had the complimentary Asian restaurant back on the ship for dinner. It was not as good as last time on the NCL Spirit, but I believe Travis and Joel were pleased with it.




Relaxing on the balcony in the included balcony robes.

Next up Istanbul...


Table of Contents

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iceland and Greenland on the NCL Star - July 2023

Image
Flight and Reykjavik: July 10-11, 2023 We had a NCL booked Delta flight from DFW to Detroit, a 1:30 hour layover, before an overnight flight to Reykjavik, or rather Keflavik (KEF). This overnight flight was about 5 hours, so not much time to (try to) sleep. I think of Delta as being good, but I only had Sun Chips for breakfast. They did not promise breakfast, and I like Sun Chips, but for breakfast time? The dinner meal service was weak too; a cheese, fruit, and almond tray (Travis got) or chicken salad sandwich on a croissant (I got; though I don't like chicken salad). Travis's was missing the cheese, the main course. They happily got him another tray of the full meal. We traded some, and Travis let me eat some cheese on the croissant top. It was pretty good. We had loud kicking kids behind us, and a Mom and good kids, with her husband, to the right. My fault, I picked the back of the plane where there are more kids. Oddly, there was not a restroom in the back. Delta now provi
Read more

Iceland: NCL Star Embarkation

Image
NCL Star Embarkation - July 13, 2023 Cruise day! Because it is crazy, this cruise is exactly, to the day, 20 years after our very first cruise on the NCL Sun in Alaska.   Our guesthouse checkout was 10am, so we needed to move quickly. We were mostly packed up from the night before. We had some time to kill before our noon NCL check in. We also had about a 45 minute bus ride, which turned out to be longer. We planned a walk to visit the bird sanctuary again because it was near, and it had a bus stop near that we planned, knowing the time that the bus should stop. We got outside -- windy! Travis noted that he did get a wind advisory on is phone. Doh, our two beautiful days' weather in Iceland was over. Then I remembered all the bird poop on the trail, but there was a greenhouse that if we could get in, we could get out of the wind. Travis had the big suitcase so rolled, but I had the smaller one so carried through the bird mess. We were able to get into the greenhouse, so looked at t
Read more

Iceland: South Coast Tour

Image
South Coast Tour -- July 12, 2023 We had a Troll Expeditions 12 hour South Coast and Glacier hike tour booked. I booked it in ISK (Iceland is Islands in Icelandic; Islands Krona), with a credit card without a foreign exchange fee, when the exchange rate was better. I also saw the price in ISK higher closer to the tour. The tour started with picking up all those on the tour; they offered pickup at various hotels and locations in Reykjavik. Our assigned pickup was the same BSI (bus) Terminal. Since it had multiple sides and Google maps was not finding it well when I was planning, I emailed before to ask exactly where. I sent a Google map picture, and they sent back a different picture with the pick up area highlighted -- near the labeled Luggage Lockers on the Google maps. I felt better since it was an early pick up that I did not want to miss or make them hassle to find us. We were the first picked up at 8am, and the only ones at this location. It was noted that pickup could take 30 min
Read more