On the Way to Rome, The Eternal City

Tonight we head to Rome, where we'll stay at the InterContinental de la Ville Roma for a few days before joining Windstar Cruises' 312-passenger Wind Surf motor-sail-yacht in Civitavecchia on Saturday. This seven sail, five mast ship is one of our favorites and we are truly looking forward to traveling with her again!

We're flying a British Airways 777 in Club World to London and hope to sleep a few hours on the overnight flight. Once we land at Heathrow, we have a short layover before connecting on to Italy's capital city.

We flew Delta and Virgin for our last few trips to Europe, so it will be interesting to see how British Airways compares.

I only have two gripes with British Airways so far...

1. I'm not crazy about the fact that you must pay a per person fee to secure seat assignments in advance. If you don't wish to pay this fee, you must wait until online check-in 24 hours prior to your flight and hope that you're happy with the seat selection that's left. It's $90 per seat on the New York to London and London to New York legs and $30 per seat on the London to Rome segment.



2. I'm also a bit worried about the seat layout in Club World on the 777. The cabin layout is pictured below. As you can see, seats E/F in the middle of the aircraft look good for a couple traveling together, but you're actually facing backward. That doesn't seem to be much of an issue but on a night flight it looks like you would have to climb over the legs of travelers seated in the D or G seats. The other option is a pair of facing seats (A/B or J/K). We opted for a facing pair to get a little more space between us and our fellow passengers.

If all goes well, Leonard and I will check into the InterContinental in the early evening and head to hotel's Emperor Terrace for cocktails. (The bar has amazing views of the city, including Saint Peter's Square, Piazza Venezia, and the Pantheon.)

If you use Twitter, be sure to follow me this week (@luxcruisebible) since I'll be tweeting messages and photos as often as I can. And, of course, I'll blog from Rome and from Windstar Wind Surf as we sail the Italian Riviera and the Cote d'Azur.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxuryCruiseBible.com