The FREE $25,000 Vacation Part 8

Athens was probably one of my favorite stops on the entire vacation from a sightseeing perspective. Obviously, the acropolis is one of the focal points for the history of politics and considering my degree is in Political Science, I have read enough Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the rest of the Greek scholars to put the non-history buff to sleep for hundreds of years! Getting a chance to see the birthplace of politics and modern civilization was a HUGE item on my bucket list. Seeing the streets that some of the most famous men in history walked on was quite inspiring. We also got a chance to visit the original Olympic Stadium where the first Olympics were held!! Also the town of Marathon is just outside of Athens, which is where the word "Marathon" comes from!

We figured out a trick on the Athens stop that you should consider when you are taking cruises especially if you have any ADD symptoms inside you. After the first couple of cruise tours, Sara and I realized we were definitely much faster walkers and had shorter attention spans than the average tourist. So, we decided to get a private driver and not to do the group tour of Athens. This worked in our favor for several reasons, we had a chance to meet a great couple from England before we found our driver who actually joined us on the adventure, and this gave us the ability to go where we wanted to and stay as long as we wanted to, and our driver just waited outside for us everywhere we went!! This also wound up being considerably shorter and costing les than the cruise line tour would have been for the exact same thing! I would also recommend brushing up on your history of these places before coming, because my memory from the college days at Texas State in 1996-2000 was a little spotty.

Stay Tuned For More,

Wes Melcher

The FREE $25,000 Vacation Part 7

The ship we sailed on was the Celebrity Solstice, and at the time was the newest cruise ship in the World. The ship was so big, and had so much stuff on board that we never even saw everything!! One day we tried to explore the ship completely but we kept getting distracted, and never finished our self guided tour. The food was awesome in all of the restaurants and in the main dining room. The service was a little slow in the main dining room I think because the ship was so new they were not adequately prepared for a COMPLETELY SOLD OUT CRUISE. That’s right in the middle of a so called recession the ship which can carry over 2500 passengers was completely full!!! This is just another reason of why I have been working in the travel industry, and I why I think the travel industry will continue to break record after record as the number of people around the world continue to migrate for business and pleasure to all edges of the earth.
At our first port of call was Sicily, Italy and we booked a tour for wine and cheese tasting. This is one of the top wine/cheese regions in the world, and we met an amazing couple from Dallas named John and Jean. They quickly became our cruise buddies, although we didn’t do that many tours with them because they booked all of them in advance and they all started at 8AM or earlier and there was no way Sara and I were getting up on our vacation before 8AM EVERYDAY for two weeks!!!

Wes Melcher

The FREE $25,000 Vacation Part 6

The second day in Rome started a little later than any of us planned because we decided to check out the nightlife the previous night which took us to a place called the ICEBAR, which is made completely of ICE!! This is absolutely a MUST stop for anyone between age 18-23, which made us feel like parents when we showed up and the place was filled with backpackers and students! This was probably the most entertained I have ever seen Jeff, when you combine something like an igloo and alcohol along with pay one price and drink FREE for as long as you can stand the cold!! Due to the fact that we attempted to stay in as long as we could bear it, and then tried a few other bars we definitely did not get the proper amount of sleep for tourist activities! We finally started the day at the Coliseum, and for me this was one of the best things I saw on the entire trip. I have always been a sports fan, and so this is like the birthplace of competition and athletics to me. The Romans sure knew how to entertain, and if you actually understand what it took to build the Coliseum and operate the events and control the crowd it is really unbelievable! This is also why I purchased season tickets in the new Cowboys Stadium, because I think the stadium is like our modern day Coliseum! There are a lot of different interpretations of the gladiator events, but the bottom line is that place was where people fought to the death not always but sometimes. The Coliseum was also the epitome of Roman Decadence (just like the cowboy stadium). We then got a chance to visit Vatican City, and St. Peter’s Basilica. This was also a major highlight considering I have seen this and read about it since I was first able to read. The whole area controlled by the Catholic Church is really unbelievable. The decadence of gold blended with the frescoes from some of the greatest artists in history all adorned by carvings, sculptures and statues dedicated to the early saints are absolutely breathtaking.
We attempted to make it to the Sistine Chapel, but due to a planning glitch we got there as they were closing it, but by that time I was not only exhausted from all of the walking and waiting in lines, I was pretty much like Michelangelo Who? Besides in less than 18 hours we would be on the

NEWEST Cruise Ship in the World, and we had several more things to see and do!!

On the morning we were leaving to head to the cruise ship our bags finally showed up, to this day I have no idea what we would have done if they had been just four hours later. I will never fly US Airways again, and I will make sure they don’t get any business from anyone I know either. Not having your bags for a week on a trip you have been looking forward to your entire life is a pretty disappointing experience, and their lack of customer service and effortless approach to helping us left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Nonetheless we were now on our way to the pier outside of Rome and headed for the best cruise of my life! The 12 day and 11 night itinerary boasted some of the best sites in the entire Mediterranean and thanks to WorldVentures not only did we get a discount, but we also were completely reimbursed by the company after we got back!!



Stay tuned for more photos and stories from the cruise,
Wes Melcher

The FREE $25,000 Vacation Part 5

Our bags still did not show up before we left Venice for Rome which was horrible, so we had to coordinate our plans in Rome to attempt to get our bags from the Rome airport. This was especially time sensitive considering we were leaving on a two week cruise in 72 hours, and considering how poorly US Airways had handled the bags up until this point we were extremely nervous!! However, this gave us a chance to do some more shopping (courtesy of US Airways, or at least it will be when they pay us back). Once we landed in Rome Maria encouraged us to take the train to our hotel, which I will NEVER do again, the Wes Melcher approach would have been to take a cab. Dragging all of Jeff’s and Maria’s bags were bad enough going through the subway, and then walking 3 miles it seemed like to our hotel was absolutely AWESOME (NOT)! I just listened to Maria because she is from a town just outside of Rome, and I figured “When in Rome” we stayed at the Westin Excelsior in Rome, which once again was an amazing hotel. This is one of the reasons I love the Starwood Brand. They always have great service, and they have GREAT beds!! Rome was the typical tourist adventure for us, although we all did a TON of shopping because of the great high end Italian designer stores. We started off with the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi Fountain which are two of the can’t miss stops on the Rome checklist. Jeff actually got into the Trevi Fountain, and I am not sure that is legal so I of course acted like I didn’t know him. This is something you have to be prepared to do sometimes with Jeff! We went to an AWESOME restaurant that night which became my favorite of the trip. The had the absolute BEST LASAGNA in the history of Italian food ever!! I proceeded to eat it three more times on the trip, which probably wasn’t the most adventurous of an eating experience, but why try something you don’t know if you will like, when you have already found your favorite!!!

Watch out for more photos and crazy stories,
Wes Melcher