Carnival Horizon Review: Day 8 – Romefeatured

Legend has it that if you throw a coin with your right hand, over your left shoulder, into the Trevi fountain, it will ensure that you return to Rome. On our first trip to Rome in 2015, we made it a point to take a tour that would take us to the fountain.

We returned in 2016.

In 2016, we made it a point to go back to the fountain to throw another coin in.

We returned in 2018.

So while I’m not going to sit here and say the reason we returned to Rome was because we threw coins into the Trevi Fountain per se, I did win this trip off of an Instagram post and that never happens so I’m also not saying that the reason we returned to Rome wasn’t because we threw coins into the Trevi Fountain. So basically, I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

We were docked in Civitavecchia before I woke up, but it was another day of waking up earlier on vacation than I do at home to go to work. We grabbed another quick breakfast on an empty Ocean Plaza and headed over to the Liquid Lounge to grab our tour stickers, finding it to be much less frenetic and much more orderly than it had been the day before with the Florence tours.

For our day in Rome, we had booked a Rome On Your Own tour through the ship, which was, for all intents and purposes, another hosted transfer from the dock in Civitavecchia to Rome’s city center, where we’d have seven hours to do whatever we wanted. Our guide for the transfer was a lovely Italian woman named Corina, who was helpful in doling out suggestions and tips over the hour and a half drive.

On our first trip to Rome, we did a super intensive tour that took us to the Trevi Fountain, inside the Colosseum, to a lunch inside a swanky hotel and a full half day tour of the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. It’s probably one of the most exhaustive tours I’ve ever done. But in that, we’ve kind of not only seen the “big” attractions, but we’ve toured them exhaustively. So while Corina was offering to help organize tours, tickets to the Colosseum or the Vatican, we knew our day was going to involve sitting on the top of a Hop On Hop Off bus, enjoying the hustle and bustle of the city and walking around our favorite parts (and, you know, throwing another coin into the Trevi Fountain just to be safe).

Corina had offered to help facilitate tickets onto the Green Line Hop On Hop Off bus, but we declined for two reasons: one, the Green Line had poor reviews and two, many people on our bus were going to take her up on it, and it was pretty clear the company she worked for was affiliated with the Green Line, which meant all other Rome On Your Own tours were also likely to funnel passengers onto the Green Line. So when the bus dropped us off near the Colosseum, instead of following the line with Corina to get tickets to the Green Line, we found the CitySightseeing Roma agent and bought tickets to their bus for €23 a piece.

While we were walking past the Colosseum, a local man tried to harass us into talking to him so he could sell us on whatever he was selling. He was super aggressive and persistent and while it’s not human nature to ignore someone talking directly at you, I’ve found that a polite but firm no thank you while continuing to walk away and avoiding eye contact is really the best way to get them to leave you alone.

We hopped on the first bus we could, quickly finding seats on the upper deck and beginning our ride through Rome. We drove past the Circus Maximus, the Arco di Constantino and the Teatro Marcello and I just kind of sat there and marveled at how uniquely awesome Rome is. Rome is a fully modern city. In many regards, it reminds me of New York, but with one big difference: this modern city is built around the remnants and ruins of a huge, historically significant ancient civilization, the lore of which was the subject of an entire summer of World History courses when I was in high school. We’d glide past Circus Maximus and the Colosseum and all I’d picture is the gladiators, the fights and the way of life, and how amazing it is that the remnants of that era are not stowed away in a museum, but still in their original place where anyone can visit them and where they serve as a persistent reminder of the history of the city.

Our first stop off the bus was the Trevi Fountain. We hopped out near the Piazza di Spagna, which is a short walk away. Many of the main sites are located within the center of the city, off streets too narrow for these busses to navigate, so they stop on larger streets a short walk away. It started to rain a bit as we were walking towards the Via del Tritone, and we waited it out in a really charming courtyard. The rain was unfortunate but short-lived. If the worst we got in April travels were a couple of short rain showers, I’d consider our trip lucky.

The walk to the Trevi Fountain is one of my favorites. There are so many shops and cafés, which you’d expect near a big tourist attraction, but the prices at the shops are some of the best we found in Italy, and the restaurants and cafés weren’t tourist traps – they were authentic Italian eateries. But my favorite part is how, when you’re maybe a block away, you just know you’re going the right way because you start to hear the soft hissing of the water flowing through the monument and the buzzing of excitement from the crowds of people trying to get their pictures taken.

The first time we visited, the Trevi Fountain was undergoing massive renovations and was covered in scaffolding. The second time, we could go right up to the edge of the pool. This time, we could only get as far as a pedestrian railing overlooking the entire fountain. And it was packed tight. We wouldn’t get to snap that perfect Boomerang throwing a coin in, but we got a good enough vantage spot to snap some pics and throw our coins in. Hopefully it brings us back to Rome in the next year or two.

Afterwards, we headed to a nearby outdoor café for some cappuccinos. Someone once told us that locals will never order any espresso drinks containing milk after 11:00 AM and that’s how you mark yourself as a tourist. I’d have a pretty hard time passing for a local in Rome as is because my broken attempt at speaking Italian is terrible (and my vocabulary is limited to shouting Andiamo! to my family), but I got my cappuccino in before that self-imposed cut off just to be safe.

The shopping we’d found in Florence the day prior had been disappointing, to put it mildly. The prices weren’t as low and the selection wasn’t as high as we’d found it on our previous two visits. In Rome, though, we found amazing deals on higher quality leather, scarves and Murano glass and we spent at least an hour trying on bags and scarves and convincing ourselves we didn’t need any more (an effort in vain – I bought a leather backpack and another leather handbag and Mom bought at least six scarves).

We were going to grab lunch, but lunch in Italy falls a little later than it does back at home, and a bus had just pulled up to the stop, so we hopped on and scored some primo seats, opting to ride a loop around and enjoy the sights of the city.

A full loop around on the Hop On Hop Off bus takes 1:45 – two hours. It passes by quickly – so much so that as we were finishing our loop, we realized we were two hours away from our 5:00 PM meeting time. And that sounds like a lot of time, right? Except we wanted to get back early so we didn’t chance being those people that hold up an entire bus of tired, cranky tourists and we wanted to have a nice Italian lunch, which can often times be a time consuming proposition. The bus takes a short 15-minute break as they change staff, somewhere around the train station. We hopped out there, found a nearby restaurant that had an expansive menu and ordered a few items to share. My mushroom risotto tasted great, but wasn’t as thick or creamy as traditional risottos are, but Mom’s gnocchi and Stephanie’s penne arribbiata were super tasty, and we got to wait out another short rain shower from a covered patio with a carb feast in Italy. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Stephanie really wanted gelato before we left, but, go figure, we couldn’t find a gelato shop anywhere nearby, and we were close enough to the meeting point that we’d be too early if we headed back when we finished lunch, so we mapped ourselves to Pasticceria Panificio, a nearby bakery that had good reviews on TripAdvisor. The bakery smelled like a sugary heaven, with dozens of different Italian cookies. We each created our own bag of treats and brought them back onto the bus with us to enjoy on the ride home.

The hop on hop off bus dropped us off right at our meeting point for our tour group, where we met back with Corina and the rest of our group. Two people were missing, and Corina received a call that they were stuck in line at St. Peter’s Basilica and she worked out another bus group they could ride back with so they didn’t get left and our group wouldn’t be delayed. This was fortuitous for both sides, as there was another accident that backed up traffic going back to Civitavecchia, adding nearly an hour to our drive back. I slept through it (…again), but Stephanie tells me the wreckage was horrific.

We were back onboard around 7:30 PM and found our room had once again been turned down before we got back, which was awesome. Not so awesome were two things: one, for the second day in a row, we found dirty towels hung up on the racks and this ship was far too new for that. Secondly, our room was absurdly hot, especially in the evenings. We weren’t sure if the temps were up because it was cooler out with lower spring-like temperatures outside or if it was a cooling system issue, but our steward assured us he’d have someone take a look at it and our room was much cooler later that evening.

The only big drawback to sailing on an inaugural voyage is that many operational kinks need to be worked out with customers, which is a great learning experience in the long run for the crew, but kind of awful to have to go through. On this cruise, it was the main dining room. We’d find no lines to check in for a dining time on Deck 5, only to get downstairs and have to wait in a line for 20 minutes to even reach the host stand to get seated. The servers were frazzled from managing so many tables at once and the meal was paced poorly. I had two appetizers come out at once on this evening, while Mom and Stephanie sat and waited for theirs. All of our main entrees came two to three degrees undercooked and our desserts were delicious, but warm options served cold. The servers were extraordinarily apologetic and we were completely sympathetic of the fact that they’re on new ships with new teams, but after a long day in port, it would have been nice to have a peaceful meal.

After dinner, there were a handful of events going on around the ship, but by the time our meal wound down, it was nearing 9:00 PM. We walked around Ocean Plaza and popped into a few shops, but we headed back to the room for another night of turning in early. It kind of stunk being on this beautiful new ship and being too tired to enjoy it, but the end was in sight: after a very full day in Naples, we’d have a sea day to rest, recharge and discover everything we hadn’t seen, done or tasted yet!