Roman Holiday?

Anneke in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Today was an early morning and it started out okay, but ended up horribly.  First, after the bus ride of 90 min., we went to the Vatican Museum.  Inside we saw many sculptures and tapestries. We also saw the Sistine Chapel.  Anneke said that it was much smaller than she thought it would be, but that it was beautiful.  It lived up to all of Chloe’s expectations and more. She loved seeing the real Creation of Adam, not just in a book. Afterwards we went into St. Peter’s Basilica and saw briefly “La Pieta” by Michelangelo.  Our guide showed us many details and monuments.

When we came out into the square the heat was intense. It was 82 degrees Fahrenheit.  We walked by the obelisk and to a souvenir shop where we would meet in an hour.  We went into the shop and then to a little café where we had some cold drinks. When we met the group again, we got on the bus to go to lunch. After a ride to the outskirts of Rome, we sat down to eat.  This is where things started to go down hill. The lunch took us two hours, because the service was slow.  After lunch, a scenic tour of  Rome, a stop for two hours in Polomo Square where we could take our own time to go to the Coliseum, the Trevi Fountain or shopping were scheduled.  Many people fell asleep on the “bus tour.”  We couldn’t understand our guide and she withheld bathroom privileges and was rude.

After showing us many unimportant things, we finally got to Polomo Square, after nearly two more hours of bus trip around Rome districts.  We thought that now we had finally gotten to something that we had been looking forward to. We wanted to see the Trevi Fountain. She then told us that we only had 25 minutes.  If we wanted to see the fountain then we had to run, and couldn’t take a much needed bathroom break. Everyone was already cross, but this made us mad.  She had wasted much of our time showing us the oldest hospital, and took away our chance to do anything of importance.  She left people in the dust as we ran across intersections trying to get to our bus.  She threatened us with a 200-dollar fine if we were late and we would have had to find our way back  to the ship alone.  On the way back we found that our only common ground with other passengers was revenge.  We were cracking jokes about how we would make t-shirts that read, “I survived the Rome Tour of 2011,” or “I survived Bus #5!” (It was our bus number.) 

When we returned to the ship, we joined about 50 other passengers to demand a refund and vent all our troubles to the customer services people.  We are still waiting on the refund.  Overall it was the worst day we have had yet. We loved the Vatican City, but the rest was bad. We hope tomorrow is better in Florence.