Holy Land Cruise - Getting to Rome/Civitaveccio

Eleven of our last fourteen flights on Continental had been delayed. This was not a good omen for our flight to Rome via Newark, especially considering that we only had fifty-five minutes to change planes in New York. Houston was finally getting a good soaking rain, good? Not really. We could not afford for our plane to be delayed. When it left the gate only a few minutes late we were relieved. When the pilot told us that there were engine troubles while on the runway we were concerned. "Luckily, they were able to resolve the problem without returning to the gate. Phew! We eventually took off half an hour late. Because of a decent tailwind, we landed in Newark on time. Good? Yes, but there was another plane at our gate, so we had to wait ten minutes extra. Ok, so we would only have forty-five minutes to get to our next plane at gate C74, almost adjacent to the gate at which we would arrive. Good? Yes, but the tow truck which arrived to tow our plane to the gate had the wrong hitch. It had to wait for the correct one, taking another 20 minutes off our change time; so now we only had 25 minutes. Yow!

We got off our plane knowing that it was only a short walk to the next plane. Good? Yes, but when we got there the gate had been changed to another the opposite end of the terminal. We RAN all the way, getting to the new gate only ten minutes before the flight was due to leave. We hastily told the Continental, now United, gate agent that we had run all the way fro our previous flight. She had the cheek to tell us that we were lying and that we had been in the lounge. We were MAD!!!! We got into our seats steaming with anger !

The plane left the gate a few minutes late and then sat on the runway for over an hour before taking off. Good job United!!

So now we were sitting in our upgraded seats in business/first class. We had requested a miles upgrade when we reserved the seats months ago. These were not the new fully flat seats that are now in use, but the older 60 degree seats. There was no video-on-demand, but seventeen channels of preselected video content, of which around four or five were movies. On our flight from Houston to Newark, we had wanted to watch a movie on channel three, but it did not work, so we ended up watching some other poor apology for a movie. Now that we had another opportunity we thought we would watch our desired movie, but alas, it didn't work on this plane either. Wonderful!

I must say, however that the service and food were both excellent. The ex-Continental crew (ex-cons) were terrific.

We landed in Rome an hour late, but this was not really an issue, as we were in no hurry to get to our ship. Boarding time was noon. This was still only 9am.

We were offered cruise transfers from Rome airport to the Civitaveccia port for $95 each. (Total $190). We decided to take the train instead. Cost $23 for both of us. We boarded the train at Rome airport with no problem. It was reasonably comfortable. We did not have to wait for other cruise passengers. The train took approximately 25 minutes to Testeverde, we we change to another train to Civitaveccia. The wait was bout 20 minutes for the next train arrived. We arrived in Civitaveccia with plenty time to get to the ship. The weather was glorious, cool and sunny. We decided to walk the four blocks to the Port Entrance before taking the port shuttle to the ship; the new Celebrity Silhouette.

Checking in and boarding was no problem. So here we are, ready for a pleasant relaxing vacation.