Lunch / Dinner

We had a late start today and our first real stop on the ship was the dining hall to eat fabulous meals.

Lunch consisted of lamb sausage, Norwegian fish soup and tomato salad (image below).

Dinner – A three course meal with the usual seafood theme. The bowl has some type of mushroom soup.

Baked Cod (image below) – main course

Veggies

Our ship dropped us off in Stamsund and we took a bus to Lofoten and stopped at a small town along the way called Torvdalshalser where we took the photo below overlooking the whole valley.

Our next bus stop was Lofoten which features a museum and an art gallery of a local resident, Kaare Espolin Johnson. The photo below is right outside the museum.

Kaare Espolin Johnson

Local artist famous for artwork in books and magazines. Wikipedia page here.

Art exhibit in museum

After the art gallery we headed over to the Lofoten museum. The museum tells the story of how the family which owned most of the land in the area was built as a “company town” and the family that owned the land also owned the general store, the houses fishermen would live in when they came in to fish. The owners would eventually also buy all the fish from the fisherman.

The working and living conditions of the fisherman were abysmal.

There were tens of thousands of pounds of fish processed each fishing season. Image below shows fish being hung to dry, much like the fishermen.

Typical living conditions except there would be 14 or so people packing into a room like the one below.

After our site visit, the bus took us to the next port over called Svolvaer which is considered the “capital” city of Lofoten but our tour guide insisted that was a lie because it’s not a capital, just the biggest city in the area.

We got back late and the ship had porridge treat along with some type of exotic hot drink.

Categories: Norway
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We spent the day at Trondheim today. This is Norway’s third largest city with a population of 225,000 people. We got in at 9 am and proceeded to get on a bus to visit Nidaros Cathedral.

This is the front and main entrance of the church. It does look a bit like Notre Dame.

After the cathedral we visited the top of the hill to get a scenic view of the city and coastline. The church can be seen (green steeple).

Lunch

After the tour we got back to the ship for lunch and we had another round of fine dining that blew our taste buds away. Havila has bridged gastronomy like no other cruise line has and we are very grateful they have taken a different approach than most cruise lines. Last year we did a Greek cruise and were disappointed that the cruise line shipped all of their industrial processed food out of Miami. You can read our disappointed rating for the cruise ship here.

Havila has already earned an A+ rating on food a mere three days into the cruise.

Dinner

Dinner at Hildring (fine dining) today was a five course meal. The first dish was King crab from Varanger served with arctic ponzu. Very nice.

Second dish – Scallop from Hitra served in its own shell with horseradish vinaigrette and herb sprouts. Absolutely scrumptious!

Third dish – Pan-fried turbot in butter sauce, caviar and crispy crudite of leaf thin fennel slices. Exquisite flavors perfectly complemented.

Four dish – Rack of lamb from Dovrefjell with caramelized carrot puree and borettane onions. I prefer my lamb medium rare and this was served medium but it was good.

Fifth dish – Sea buckthorn cream with cloudberries and herb crumble. A nice juxtaposing of texture, rich creamy and saucy. Smooth yet crunchy, sweet yet savory, delicious and yummy.

Desert – Dark chocolate confectionery.

The chocolate eye is astonishing and amazing. A great way to finish the evening but you have to ask for the Sea Eye!

You may be wondering how much this meal cost and the answer is we don’t know. We were given the menu below but then the host said it would be double the price for some unknown reason. So we were expecting the bill to be 600 krona. After we finished our meal, the hostess said there would be no charge and it was included in our suite package.

We’ve had situations like this all throughout our journey. There is a cafe that sells pastries, coffee and other items in between main meals. Sometimes we are told our purchases are free (part of suite package) and sometimes we’re told there will be a charge. No one seems to know when or why we will be charged or when items are included in our suite package. We call it “Havila lottery” and sometimes we win big and other times we don’t. This cruise ship doesn’t have a casino but you still gamble with the cost of things during your journey.

Categories: Norway
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Rough seas in the North Sea last night. Our ship rocked up and down and rolled left and right the entire night. It was at least 15 to 20 foot swells!

After today we will head to the Norwegian Sea so hopefully sailing will be smoother.

We spent most of the day sailing and while the weather is dreary we still had spectacular views.

There isn’t much to do in the ship. There are no entertainment venues except for the expedition expert that gives a daily lecture.

Lunch

We had lunch in the fine dining restaurant and the food was excellent.

The portions may seem small but the food has high dense nutrition. All the food on the ship is sourced locally and fresh and it is amazing.

There is no buffet on this ship as it leads to enormous food waste so all servings are modest but it is possible to ask for more food if you are still hungry. We haven’t asked for any extra portions yet.

Excursion

We headed out to Geiranger for our excursion and the views of the fjord were amazing.

The only catch was it was a long bus ride to the site and an even longer bus ride to the next stop.

Our second stop Andalsnes had a gondola you can take up to the top of the mountain. We had dinner at a restaurant at the top.

It is worthwhile mentioning that our ship dropped us off and Geiranger and we will re-board in Monde. This means that we will travel bus and ferries to meet our ship at its next destination. We left at 2 pm and won’t be back on the ship till 10 pm.

We will be getting back dead tired.

Categories: Norway
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We were told to check in at 3 pm but the ship hadn’t unloaded passengers from last sailing and we had to wait 45 minutes to check in.

Strangely enough, for a budding new cruise industry, the building we checked in had no signs and we weren’t sure if we were in the right place. The photo below is what it looks like.

While we were allowed to board after checkin we had to wait till 6 pm to get into our cabins so we had to lounge around.

We also walked around the ship.

When we finally got to our room a bottle of champagne and other goodies was waiting for us.

After unpacking we headed to dinner.

Dinner

Fine dining wasn’t available on the first day (Saturday) so we ate in the general dining area. There is a three course meal with a starter, main course and desert.

Sashimi starter was ok.

The poached salmon (above) and lamb shank (below) were excellent.

Side of veggies was also excellent.

The unusual deserts were very good as well. Unique ingredients that we hadn’t had before anywhere.

Overall food was excellent but service was slow. Took a very long time in between dishes to get the next dish.

Earlier in the day we had an orientation and the host mentioned that there is a shortage of engineers and experienced officers and that may have extended to crew i. the kitchen and dining areas but not mentioned specifically.

After dinner we headed straight to our jacuzzi to watch the coast as we sailed out.

Categories: Norway
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We arrived at Bergen around 1 p.m. from a one hour flight from Oslo and once again we shocked at the high cost of transportation from the airport to the city center. It was a whopping 850 krona ($85) to travel 21 miles via Uber! We did not bother to check prices with taxis given our experience with them so far.

Bergen is a nice city. The weather here in mid August was about 71F/21C cool and overcast with periodic showers. The wind blows steadily and that can add a chill to the ambient temperature and a light jacket is definitely needed to stay warm.

Our first stop after checking into our hotel was to walk over to the harbor and we were surprised to see a very busy open air market selling a variety of fresh seafood and other food items such as sausages, honey and ‘exotic’ meats such as moose & reindeer burgers and hot dogs.

We opted to try fresh seafood and noodles at one of the stalls. The plate & coke below cost $30 so lunch for two was about $60. The dish contained calamari, two types of shrimp, veggies, and noddles.

After lunch we took a Fløibanen funicular up to the top of a mountain with a spectacular view of the city center below.

After our long stay walking around the top of the mountain, we descended back down and stopped at the world famous hot dog stand called 3-Kroneren This stand sells a variety of hot dogs from different types of meat including the formerly mentioned reindeer, moose, and wild game varieties. We were skeptical but the hot dog we shared was amazing.

After our hot dog stand visit we headed to the Bryggen Wharf and bought some gloves for our fjord cruise we’ll be boarding tomorrow. The wharf is a historic district with distinct shops that have been in existence for hundreds of years and not much changed over that period of time.

Norway Pros & Cons

After having spent a couple of days here now we can conclude a few pros and cons about the country.

Pros

Debit/Credit Cards Accessibility

We haven’t had a single problem with using our credit or atm cards anywhere in Norway. Debit/credit card use is actually preferred by many vendors and some look at us funny when we try to use cash to pay for items because it is very inconvenient. Almost everyone here pays with card by tapping the terminal and quickly moving on and it works flawlessly.

Food Variety

We are large city dwellers and we have become accustomed to having every variety of food available to use including our favorites such as Indian dishes (Korma, Butter Chicken, Biryani), Japanese (sushi, ramen), Vietnamese (Banh Mi) and so on and we were concerned we’d be stuck eating seafood in Norway for most meals but that has not been the case. Oslo alone has a large multi-cultural community that features food from all over the world and were happy to fill our bellies with great food.

Weather

The weather is spectacular. One of the reasons we chose to visit Norway this year was because we got roasted in Greece & Italy last summer and the few years before that in Spain and other European locations near the Mediterranean. We wanted cool and fair weather and Norway has delivered.

Cons

High Cost

We did our research and we knew Norway was on the more expensive side of the ledger but we did not expect it to be far higher, on average, that what we would normally pay in the United States for similar items.

Transportation

The most glaring cost outlier is transportation. Taxis and Ubers are very expensive compared to other places in Europe and United States. A taxi driver in Oslo wanted 2000 krona ($200) to take us from Oslo city center to the airport. We laughed and told him we’d Uber but the Uber cost for that trip was 1000 krona ($100) so while we saved half the cost, we still felt the pain. The only two other places that come to mind for similar costs are London and Switzerland.

Food

We are staying at hotels and they don’t have kitchens so we’re having to eat out for all of our meals and that normally isn’t an issue unless you’re in Norway and paying 20 to 30 percent higher food costs than you would in the United States or other parts of Europe.

Traffic & Over Crowding

The traffic, in general, has been bad. Norway does have a decent public transportation system but it seems buses and trains are full. The airplanes we have flown in have also been full. Traffic in city centers is congested and slow.

We saw cruise ships in both Oslo and Bergen and it doesn’t help when these large ships drop off 3000+ people onto the city and we all have to compete for the same limited sights and resources.

We stopped by a local fjord cruise to inquire about a short excursion and we were told they were all sold out.

Categories: Bergen
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We decided to head out somewhere nice and cool this summer so we’re in Norway. So far so good and we have a few tales to tell. First and foremost, DO NOT TAKE A TAXI anywhere in Norway, they will rip you off! I should have done some due diligence but I figured Norway is a nice country, highly regulated, so this shouldn’t be an issue right? Wrong! We made the mistake of asking for a taxi ride a short distance and were charged $75 for the short trip. DO NOT TAKE A TAXI IN NORWAY!

The taxi situation is so bad there is an entire thread on Trip Advisor about it. The ONLY exception to the DO NOT TAKE A TAXI RULE IN NORWAY is if you can get it from a machine like the one in the picture above. There is a set rate and you know what you will be paying when you order a taxi from these terminals but the best thing to do is take an Uber, train, bus, bike, walk, crawl or hitchhike. DO NOT TAKE A TAXI!

National Museum of Norway

Our first stop was the National Museum of Norway. We were really impressed with the wide range of artists featured in the museum. Some of my favorite artists included Karel Appel, Arne Ekeland, Bendik Riis, Kai Fjell, Alf Rolfen, Teddy Rowde, Finn Faaborg, Charlotte Wankel, Thorvald Hellesen, Aage Storstein, Theodor Kittelsen, Edward Munch (see image below), Harald Sohlberg, Dirck van Baburen, Johan Christian Dahl, and Hans Gude amongst others.

GOL STAVE CHURCH

Our second stop was the Stave Church and it’s located in a large park surrounded by many different historical buildings and museums. It’s officially called Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. It’s worth a visit to take in how people from the older eras lived and experienced their day to day life.

Inside the church (image below)

Triple Museum – Fram Museum, Ship Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum

After the Stave Church we headed to the triple museums of Fram, Ship, and Kon-Tiki. Each museum showcases the naval expedition and exploration of Norwegian history.

We stopped and had lunch nearby at the Fjord Cafe (image below). The cost of that plate of salmon with egg was about $20. The total cost of the a meal for two was $50 including drink.

Norway Is Expensive

The most expensive place we have ever visited was Switzerland. The SECOND most expensive place we have now ever visited is Norway. Our hotel breakfast for two was $50 at the hotel we’re staying but it does include a buffet style breakfast with plenty of food.

Our first night we stopped at a Chicago style pizza pub place inside our hotel and the cost for one medium pizza, one beer and a coke was 464 krona ($43).

We stopped at a pharmacy to pick up Meclizine (Postafen) and it cost $28. It is $6 on Amazon back in the U.S. A coke zero at a shop at a museum with cost $5, a bottle of water $3.

We’ll be headed to Bergen tomorrow so we’ll see if that location is any cheaper than Oslo.

Categories: Norway
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We recently dined at a fabulous restaurant in Houston, Texas called Toukei. It’s located at 9630 Clarewood Dr in Houston, TX. Let’s get to our review!

The Good

The food is fabulous although there aren’t many vegetarian options on the menu if you’re looking for a vegan or vegetarian restaurant. Almost all dishes have some type of meat infusion or cooked with animal fats and oils.

Prices for the dishes are reasonable considering the inflationary escalation most restaurants have had since COVID pandemic. We include our receipt below to give you a sample of the money spent. We had a group of 6 so we ordered quite a bit of food and shared amongst the group.

The Bad

We made a conscious effort to arrive here early at 5:45 p.m. to ensure we got seated. This restaurant gets extremely busy and most of the restaurants in this area of Houston (Chinatown) get really busy on the weekend. While we had no problem getting a table at 5:45 p.m. when we left at 8:30 p.m. there were several groups waiting in line to find a table. The restaurant itself is not very large and there are no reservations, it’s first come first server and the restaurant won’t seat incomplete groups.

The wait staff were fine when we started our evening with frequent visits from our waitress but as the night carried out, we saw less and less of our waitress

The Ugly

The ugliest thing about this restaurant is that it is trying to pretend to be a nightclub. The music in the restaurant was playing so loud our group could barely hear each other talk. We were so concerned that I whipped out an app on my smart phone to check the decibel rating of all the noise. The joke for the evening was wondering if Toukei was a restaurant trying to be a nightclub or a nightclub trying to be a restaurant. The food is good but we don’t want to go deaf enjoying it.

We asked the waitress if the music could be turned down and she immediately said, “No!” She then explained that the music comes from a computer in the owner’s office and only the owner had access to it. We asked if she could call the owner to turn it down and she immediately snapped, “No!”

It was obvious to us that other customers had complained about the music because she immediately had responses prepared with an emphatic no each time. Why does it matter? From The National Council on Aging:

• Sounds below 70 decibels are safe, while sounds above 70 decibels are harmful.
• Prolonged exposure to sounds louder than 85 decibels can damage your hearing.
• Sixty decibels is equal to the sound of normal conversation, 90 decibels is closer to a lawn mower or hair dryer, and 120 decibels is more like a siren on an emergency vehicle.
• Exposure to sounds at 120 decibels may cause discomfort, and 140 decibels is considered the threshold of pain.

Conclusion

It’s a great restaurant with good food but the loud music and the risk of incurring hearing loss isn’t worth it so we doubt we’ll return to this restaurant anytime soon considering there are hundreds more restaurants in the area that aren’t pretending to be a nightclub.

Categories: Houston
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The Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort is supposed to be one of Hilton’s largest properties and unfortunately it’s also one of the worst ones I’ve stayed in and I’ll tell you why..

Staff: D+

We give the staff a D+ for good reason. First our check in was horrible. The woman checking us in kept getting distracted by other clerks asking questions. I suspect she is either the supervisor or simply knew more than the others but she could never focus on one thing. Checking in shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes at best but 20 minutes later we were waiting for our room keys. Adding to our aggravation was the constant up-selling to larger suites or other services we didn’t want, need or ask for during our check in process. On top of all the fiasco, her computer system was down and she kept having to ferry from one terminal to another.

If this had been the only issue with staff we could simply shrug it off to a bad day, everyone has them but it didn’t stop there. Our daily room service wasn’t really service. While the beds were made, there was no attempt to check if the body wash was empty to refill it. Luckily we had our own body wash but for a room charging in excess of $300/night, we expect at least the soap to be refilled!

Entertainment: B-

The Tapa bar had a live band playing almost every night so at least there was some entertainment to be had on premises and there are tons of shopping just across the street from the hotel but the options did feel a bit light.

Services: Incomplete

We did not try any of the services aside from the beach and were glad to have towels offered but quite frankly many of the service were way over priced. Most meals for room service were in excess of $30 to $40+ so we opted to just walk down to the nearby restaurants and eat there.

Dining/Food: Incomplete

The food was overpriced. Breakfast will run you about $40 for eggs and toast and it’s not fantastic just over priced.

Infrastructure: D-

The infrastructure of the hotel is our biggest complaint and we’ll detail why:

1. Room had a musty moldy wet dog odor to it. We had read reviews on booking sites that this was a common complaint but we thought people were exaggerating, they were not.
2. Internet – I had to work from this hotel and heavily rely on internet to work remotely. Well the internet connection in our room was unstable. My VPN to the office kept dropping every few minute. I switched to my personal computer and suffered the same problem so it wasn’t a computer issue. The internet here just sucks.
3. Hot water – It’s nice to take a shower with hot water but if you want hot water you need to shower early in the morning or late at night because the whole complex seems to be hooked up to one 40 gallon water heater. We called to complain and maintenance said they didn’t have the part to fix the hot water so our room was changed to another floor. One of our traveling companions booked in another room also lost hot water at some point.
4. In Room Desk – As I mentioned, I needed internet to work from my hotel room so while I was delighted to have a desk and chair in the room there was nowhere to plug my laptop into without unplugging the lamp. The other outlet was taken by some contraption that I dared not unplug for fear of bringing down the power grid at the hotel.
5. Room is dated – Not really a big deal for us but for the price we pay we would have liked to have a nice more modern hotel room with adequate power outlets that included USB for charging our phones. It is beyond me why a hotel like this doesn’t offer USB infrastructure for cell phones and tables that everyone now carries. Power at the desk is a no-brainer except for Hilton.
6. No spare blanket – You would expect a room with two queen beds might have a spare blanket but not at the Hilton where saving a penny is great as long as it’s an inconvenience to your customer.
7. Parking – There is self parking for a whopping $68/day but you better get there early or you may not have a space!
8. Roads – The whole area has too many cars and quite frankly, we would prefer if the city/county/state would simply turn most of Honolulu Waikiki beach into a pedestrian zone and build elevated trains to move people around. The horrible traffic alone is enough to keep us out of Honolulu and this hotel for a long while. Please get rid of the cars!
9. TV – The room features a nice TV so when we wanted to catch up on the news it was surprising to see that the TV guide button listed a guide with no useful information. You can’t make this stuff up.

Overall Grade: ???

We really don’t know how to grade this hotel but we are sure that we won’t ever return to it. We normally stay at the Sheraton down the road but wanted to try something different on this trip and give Hilton the opportunity to earn our loyalty but after this experience we’ll return to Marriott on our next trip out here.

Categories: Hawaii
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We’ve now completed our 10 day cruise tour of Italy, Greece and Malta (see itinerary below) and had time to reflect on the journey and report on the experience.

Staff: Grade A+

The staff & crew on the Norwegian Breakaway were hard working and friendly. We were frequently greeted with good mornings or good evenings and we disembarked or embarked on the cruise ship and various other places we went around the ship. Alexis said there was only one unhelpful person when trying to change an excursion but overall we thought the staff and crew did a great job in keeping us fed, entertained, welcome and safe.

Entertainment: Grade A-

We attended a magic show by J Alexander which was entertaining, funny and magical and we attended two musicals Burn the Floor and Six. We had a good time at all the shows and it was great to have something to do while at sea. We also enjoyed the live band that played at the main foyer during our Starbucks coffee runs as well as the Jazz singer and band at The Manhattan.

Excursions: Grade B+

Our excursions, overall, went well. The biggest complaint we have is that there has been no technological advancement in on-boarding or off-boarding such large numbers of people on the ship. Over 10 years ago, we went on a western Mediterranean cruise on Norwegian Epic and the process to go on excursions was the exact same way: wait in an area, get your assigned group number called, walk to the exit point and get your card scanned to get off. A second complaint and a huge forthcoming issue for all cruise lines is that many of the excursions do not offer people with mobility/disability issues the ability to visit sites. In the US, there are 50 million or so baby boomers that will continue to grow old and develop mobility issues and if cruise lines don’t address disability and excursions they will ultimately lose business.

Services: Grade C

We utilized the spa for several massages and while the massages were great, the cruise gets a C for deceptive pricing. We had signed up for a $199 massage special that included an extra half hour when we boarded the ship. Much to our surprise, they did not disclose a $40 service charge so we essentially ended up paying full price for the massage. We also dinged Norwegian on this grade because of the constant and never ending up-selling that takes place everywhere from pushy photographers to art sales and additional services at the spa. We also had the ‘unlimited liquor’ package but struggled to get more than 1 drink every 30 minutes at bars like O’Sheehans because they were clearly understaffed and had too many drinks to prepare.

Dining/Food: Grade C-

There is no way to sugar coat this (pun intended) but the food at just about every ‘free’ restaurant and buffet on the ship was mediocre. The ‘paid’ restaurants that we visited, Moderno Churrascaria and Le Bistro weren’t much better. Le Bistro was a french themed restaurant was the best meal we had on the ship and it was likely because it probably had an actual French chef cooking food. The ‘Brazilian’ themed Churrascaria cooked the worst picanha I have ever had as the meat was overcooked, was heavily seasons with pepper and no salt. Other cuts of meat were over cooked, poorly seasoned, rubbery and tasteless. The traditional sides were really the only things edible at the restaurant.

Bars: We went to several bars asking for local wines or Greek/Italian cocktails and were informed that only certain liquors and alcohols would be served on the ship. What’s the point of going on an Italian/Greek cruise and not get access to Italian and Greek booze?

Wine Tasting: We went to a single wine tasting expecting to sample some Greek or Italian wines but the wines we tasted were from California, Oregon and Portugal. WTF? If we wanted California wines, we would have just stayed home!

We gave the dining experience a C- instead of an F because while the food was terrible, we didn’t get ill from eating it the 10 days we sailed.

Infrastructure: Grade C+

When we boarded we had to request several fixes to our cabin. First, the shower wouldn’t drain properly so we had to get an engineer to make a visit so it would drain properly. After a couple of days the issue was fixed. Secondly, while we don’t expect to have great internet access while out in the ocean, we did expect that when we paid $10 per passenger to utilize Norwegian’s internet app that it would work consistently but that wasn’t the case (see image below).

Norwegian ‘banned’ radios because they want to force people to use their unreliable app and service. We really didn’t have a choice but to buy it because it’s difficult to communicate with others if you don’t have cell service onboard the ship. We may consider bringing our own Starlink Satellite Internet the next time we cruise but I’m sure the cruise lines will find a dumb reason to ban them as well.

Epilogue: Overall Grade: C

Overall Norwegian Breakaway scored a C which gives it an average rating. There was nothing particularly exceptional about the ship except for the staff. Would we cruise on the Breakaway again? Probably not and we were leery of booking this cruise after reading the reviews of it on CruiseCritic.com but booked anyway as it was the only cruise that fit our tight schedule.

Categories: Norwegian - Breakaway, Uncategorized
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When we were in Rome, we rented an apartment through VRBO. Our apartment was located on Via Pierluigi da Palestrina in Rome. Since we were traveling as a family, we rented a four bedroom apartment. The apartment could have been fantastic as it was close to the Castel Sant’Angelo and the Vatican as well as plenty of shops and restaurants but there were far too many issues with the apartment.

The Good

The apartment was very large and had plenty of room and beds to sleep up to 6 people. It had a kitchen, dining area, family room, and 3 bedrooms with the family room having a sofa bed (4th bedroom). It was located near the Italian Supreme Court, Castel Sant Angelo and the Vatican. Below are some views of the courtyard from the apartment.

The Bad

Despite the great location and size of the apartment, that’s about where the good ended. Here is a list of issues with the apartment. First, there was barely any hot water. This apartment uses a tank-less water heater system and it rarely worked. There was a weird combination of having to open the sink faucet to drip then you might get hot water out of the shower. If that were the only problem it wouldn’t have been that bad but it wasn’t. The second problem with the shower was the water pressure which provided but a trickle of water from the apartment. The third problem with the shower room was mold in the corner of the bathroom. The fourth problem with the shower was how tiny it was and there was no shelves for soap or shampoo or much of anything else, fairly primitive even for European standards.

Secondly, one of the AC units (pictured below) was not working. It was well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit while we were in Rome the last week of July and not having AC was brutal. We managed by cranking up the other AC units and strategically placing fans to circulate as much cool air as possible.

The furniture in the apartment was the cheapest creakiest stuff possible. The beds all creaked at the smallest movement and the mattresses were fairly thin and offered very little padding.

The Ugly

We were charged a 170 euro cleaning fee upon arrival which needed to be paid in cash. We’re not sure what the cleaning fee was for because the floors in the apartment were dirty. Clearly it wasn’t mopped prior to our arrival as there was dirt everywhere. The picture below is of the outside shutters, does this look clean to you?

It was great to have a full kitchen with gas stove, fridge and small dining table however the pots and pans provided did not have any lids so we had splatter everywhere anytime we cooked something. When I say pots and pans I really mean a small pot and a wok that was provided to cook.

Epilogue

With all the issues many people are having with VRBO and AirBnB and the ones we’ve experienced, it’s unlikely we will use those services again. I won’t say NEVER because the reality is that some cities simply don’t have enough hotel rooms or offer rooms large enough for more than 2 or 3 people much less kitchens but we will definitely use hotels more frequently over VRBO & AirBnB.

The cost of this ‘fabulous’ apartment was about €400 ($438)/night which was still cheaper than getting two hotel rooms during the prime summer vacation month in Rome.

Categories: Rome, Italy
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