That last morning, Gym and Mrs. Gym were able to skip the normal disembarkation protocol with the help of their Oceania butler, Pritam, Pritam had looked after them so well on this trip and that morning, they would be the third and fourth passengers off the ship because they did not surrender their luggage to the ship's baggage handlers and with Pritam's help, simply carried the bags into the terminal at Civitavecchia themselves. They also made a very good decision to hire a private car for the transfer to the airport and their transplanted Sicilian driver, Mr. Resina, whipped them to the Leonardo DaVinci International Airport with time to spare.
This Athens to Rome cruise aboard one of Oceania's ships was sort of significant. Gym and his sidekick, had just linked up four separate itineraries that ran from Hong Kong to New York City. Since 2011, the plucky pair had started in the South China Sea, crossed the Indian Ocean, sailed the entire length of the Red Sea, negotiated the Suez Canal, cruised the Mediterranean from one end to the other and finally, had followed Hurricane Nicole on a transatlantic voyage into New York. The shipping industry pegs the distance at over 12,000 nautical miles. Gym and Mrs. Gym travelled considerably further given that they stopped at dozens of interesting port-of-calls along the way.
Both this last cruise and their time in Malta, with family made for a great 2017 vacation. On November 7, 2017 they left Europe and returned to North America to get back to work and face the oncoming Canadian winter (and it was a doozie). They don't travel again until May, six months from the day they landed in Calgary. Stay tuned, because in the next few years they plan on linking New York City with Hong Kong via the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, the South Pacific and the Far East!
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