Has the Captain Ever Held the Ship for You?

Has the captain ever held the ship for you? That's a question I thought I might have to answer on Saturday morning when I made my first major travel blunder. Leonard and I have traveled all over the world from Siberia to South Africa to Indonesia to French Polynesia with nary an incident…no missed flights, no missing luggage, not even any major delays. 

Over the years we've been lucky (partly because things have just gone our way and partly because I'm obsessed with details and generally have checklists to guide us through each part of our journey).

With luck being on our side this long, I guess it was time for a travel hiccup and this one was major. After spending a few relaxing days in Rome, we headed for Civitavecchia to join the beautiful Wind Surf from Windstar Cruises. As we sped away from Rome I realized that I'd left our passports at the InterContinental. Oy! We had to backtrack all the way to the hotel and then race to Civitavecchia. (We arrived at 3:30pm for a 4pm all aboard and a sail-away after 5pm.) Phew!

We have to thank our driver from Rome Cabs and owner Stefano Costantini for making sure we got where we had to go…on time! If you ever need transfers in Rome, I highly recommend Rome Cabs. They also offer guided tours from StefanoRomeTours.com.

Things could have been much worse and I'm so glad we swerved around this potential disaster. The thing is, I almost knew that I was going to forget the passports. I never leave them in the room safe but for some unknown reason, I did this time. Never again.

The silver lining of the incident was that it reaffirmed to me why I married Leonard. He's such a calm person and goes with the flow. He could have been angry or at least aggravated when I told him we'd need to go back to the hotel, but he wasn't. He was calm and comforting and said, "Hey, we'll get the passports and hope we get to the ship in time. If not, we'll find a ferry and meet the ship tomorrow. No worries." Not many men would have been so  cool-headed about the whole thing!

I'll tell you though,we were both ready for a drink once we finally did board Wind Surf!

Last night was a bit windy as we sailed out of port so dining outdoors at Le Marche and Candles was cancelled. Instead, we had a lovely meal at Degrees. (I'll post some photos shortly.)

Today we're at docked Portoferraia and it's a lovely, crowd-free port. Leonard and I walked to Fort Stella and one of Napoleon's residences. While there are some steep inclines (streets and stairs), it's totally do-able on foot if you take your time. We worked up an appetite and enjoyed lunch at a local trattoria.

Now it's time to relax a bit and get reacquainted with Wind Surf. We haven't been on the ship in four years and we want to look around to see what's the same and what's different.

You can expect more photos as soon as we've had some time to download our chips.

Tonight we'll dine at Le Marche (weather permitting) and tomorrow we anchor off Porto Rotondo on Sardinia. Stay tuned for additional Wind Surf updates.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxuryCruiseBible.com