Ms Eurodam, Holland America Greece Cruise

After waking up at 3:30am in Edinburgh to fly home, less than 24 hours later we were up again at 3:30am to drive down to Venice, Italy to start our Mediterranean cruise!

Austria. Beautiful every time.

The road through the Dolomites in Italy is studded with castles.

When we stopped for a restroom break for the kids, we decided to grab some lunch at the little restaurant that was built spanning the freeway.

Said restaurant.

 After 8 hours of driving, and with just an hour to spare before we set sail (thank goodness there wasn't bad traffic!) we arrived at the Tronchetto parking garage and walked to our boat at the cruise port.

"Thar she blows!" The Holland America Line MS Eurodam.

The boat is HAL's third largest with space for 2,104 passengers. 

Just across from us in Venice was a boat identical to our Royal Carribean ship that we sailed on last year. We were a little nostalgic.

Smokestacks.

We had fun comparing our two recent cruises. Each one had pros and cons. One such example, this room was significantly bigger than our room last year, but Fox's murphy bed was awkwardly placed right over our heads.

View off the stern of the boat as we sailed. Such blue water!

Chillaxing sans kids who were living it up in the kids' play room.

Pastel sunset.

Sailing away the first night!

Holland America caters to a more "mature" clientelle, so there was no waterslide or kids specific pool, but that didn't slow down F&J who loved going to the pool and hot tubs every day.

Most of the time we would head up to the buffet style restaurant for breakfast and on lazy days we had breakfast delivered to our room.

Just like last year, I brought scrap supplies and made another Halloween themed mini album on our two "at sea" days. Separate post for this album coming later!

The Lido Market restaurant where we ate most of our breakfasts and all of our dinners.

The adult pool area in the back of the boat. There was a great little pizza place here. We'd get pepperoni, sausage, and pineapple.

The kids chilling in the stateroom on "the big, big boat."

More shots from lazy mornings. We watched Hotel Transylvania 2 more times than I can count! Chris and I also got to watch some movies while the kids were playing including Batman vs Superman, Skyfall, Sicario, The Big Short, Blended, San Andreas, Edge of Tomorrow, If I Stay, The Walk, Nonstop and Pan.

We took a couple HAL excursions and we would meet our group in this theater. 

Lovely weather up on the top deck of the boat. Soaking in the rays in Athens.

12 nights later we arrived back in Venice and drove back home, once again enjoying the breathtaking scenery through the Dolomites/Austrian Alps.

Silver-lining sunrise.

All of the recaps from our daily excursions coming up!