The Cruise!

I posted many of our cruise pictures here. We had a blast! We took an MSC cruise out of Genoa. The drive to Genoa sucks! 4 loooonnnngggg hours. We stayed in a a cottage over night on a cliff over looking the Italian Rivera. It was scary! Getting aboard the ship was the easiest process ever! Way better than carnival. The rooms were cozy, we had two rooms. The ship was beautiful, the staff delightful and the food perfect! Our first stop Marseilles, france. It was awful. Dirty. We got off the boat, went to starbucks and got right back on. But hey, they kids have been to france ;) Next stop, Barcelona, Spain. OMG... I cannot say enough great things about Barcelona. It was beautiful, the people were sweet, the city was breath taking. Now we head through the straight of gibralter. What an awesome experience. Seeing two continents separated by 7 miles of water. On to Casablanca, Morocco. By far the most gorgeous place I've seen. Seeing the 3rd largest mosque in the world, it had me in awe. We got a travel agent who took us for a day trip around the city. We ate at Rick's Cafe (from the movie!), saw the beautiful beaches, the rich parts and poor parts of the city. Their version of the twin towers, went in to pharmacies, bread stores, and a rug factory where they gave us their Moroccan tea and we left with a 600 dollar prayer rug with the tree of life on it. Worth every cent! Next stop- Cadiz, Spain. Another great place. We road the open top bus, went in a church that left me speechless, went to beaches where clothes were obviously prohibited ;) We got absinthe and tried it. That stuff burns! Ate some candies from the local candy factory and sadly said our goodbyes. Lisbon, Portugal here we come! Lisbon looked like San Francisco (I've never been, but from watching full house) it had a huge bridge like golden gate, row houses, steep hills. The weather was perfect, the locals every so sweet. We got a bite to eat at the hard rock cafe and wandered aimlessly around until the last call for the ship. Then we had 2 days at sea. Our cruise was a total of 2 weeks. The two days at sea got old quickly but we drank the days away. We met awesome people from austria, Becca and Christoph and another military family from germany. We also had two other families from our area on the boat. All in all, this was a trip of a lifetime. One we will never forget. We are very much looking forward to the next cruise in April 2014.