One of the questions people frequently ask when planning a Mediterranean cruise is what to do when the cruise ends. For us, the answer was simple. We weren’t ready to go home. Our cruise ended in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, on May 26. We could have headed to the airport, boarded a flight and called it a vacation. Instead, we went to the train station. The cruise was over, but Italy wasn’t. Over the next several days, we traveled independently through Venice, Florence, T

Two people can sit at the same bar on the same ship, and one should buy the Deluxe Beverage Package while the other shouldn't. Using Royal Caribbean as the example The answer depends on your Crown & Anchor tier, the price you actually see, how you drink, and where your cruise takes you. This post walks through each of those so you can run your own numbers, and shares what happened when we ran ours. Benefit details come from Royal Caribbean's official Crown & Anchor benefit gr

One of the awkward parts of cruising from Cape Liberty is figuring out what to do on disembarkation day when you have a late flight out of Newark. Our flight wasn’t until 7:59 p.m., which left us with a choice: head directly to Newark Liberty International Airport and spend most of the day sitting in a terminal, or figure out a way to squeeze one more adventure out of the trip. We chose New York. And after actually doing it, I can say that this is a very workable option if yo

Everyone talks about the big production shows and the headliners when they talk about cruise-ship entertainment. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some fantastic shows at sea. But I’ve been cruising since 1992, and I’ve come to believe that some of the best entertainment onboard isn’t found in the main theater. It’s the great bands, great pub singers, and great piano players. They’re the performers you stumble across after dinner and decide to stay for one song. An hour later

10 Romance Books to Read on Your Next Cruise

If you enjoy fishing and you travel, sooner or later you're going to look out at the water from some incredible destination and think, I wonder what's swimming out there? I've asked that question quite a few times. Over the years, my wife and I have booked fishing charters in Bermuda, Santorini, Jamaica, Cabo San Lucas, Seward and Ketchikan in Alaska, Jacksonville, Florida, and even Loch Ness in Scotland. Some trips produced incredible fishing. Others became memorable for rea

Some ports of call give you a taste. Bermuda gave us a full day of contrasts and a sunrise fishing trip that turned into the most wahoo-heavy haul we've had in three tries. Here's how it went. Day One: From Dockyard to the Cave We docked at the Royal Naval Dockyard on a one-day pass, and instead of staying close to the ship, we caught the ferry across to St. George's. There's something about arriving by water that sets the tone for a day, watching the island unfold from the d

When I first mapped out the itinerary for Beneath Mediterranean Skies, Crete wasn't on the page. The cruise Olivia and Lance take was built around the stops that mattered most to the story I already knew I wanted to tell: Naples and the Amalfi Coast, Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Venice, and the long, golden run through Florence and Chianti. Crete wasn't part of that plan. It found its way in later, and honestly, it found its way in because I couldn't stop thinking about a morn

One of the things I love most about writing the Uncharted Horizons series is that so little of it is invented from thin air. The ports, the guides, the small mishaps and the unexpected moments of grace that end up in these books almost always started as something my wife and I actually lived through. Rome, and specifically our morning at the Vatican, is one of the clearest examples of that. Before Sunrise, Before the Crowds We'd booked a 7:00 a.m. tour, the kind that gets you

Some days don't need a reason beyond themselves. This was one of those. My wife and I booked a full-day Chianti wine tour, a group of us on a bus winding through hills that look almost too tidy to be real, vineyard rows combed into the landscape like they'd been drawn there. It was simply a wonderful day together, three wineries, a butcher shop that's been in business since before anyone thought to write the date down, and, as it turned out, a garden that later became the exa

There's a particular kind of light that falls over the Arno in the late afternoon, gold and a little hazy, the kind that makes every bridge look like it was built specifically for a photograph. We stood on that riverbank with the water moving slow and green beneath us, the old buildings lined up along the far bank in their faded yellows and creams, and I understood immediately why Florence had to be part of this book. If you've read Love, Uncharted or you're waiting on Beneat

Some cities ask you to hurry. Venice asks you to stop. There's no other choice, really, when every street dead-ends into water and every shortcut turns into a maze of bridges and alleys that all look the same. My wife and I spent a full day wandering Venice, and it became one of the settings I most wanted to capture in Beneath Mediterranean Skies, Book 2 of the Uncharted Horizons series, releasing October 1. The Grand Canal We stood on a bridge over the Grand Canal in the lat

Every book has a hinge point, a single place where everything before it clicks into everything after. For Beneath Mediterranean Skies, that place is Civitavecchia. It's a working port city outside Rome, not the kind of place most travelers linger, but it's exactly where I needed Olivia and Lance's story to turn, and it's exactly where my wife and I found ourselves at the start of our own Mediterranean cruise. Beneath Mediterranean Skies, Book 2 of the Uncharted Horizons serie

The Athens That Found Its Way Into Beneath Mediterranean Skies There's a particular kind of light in Athens. It settles over the marble in a way that makes you understand why an entire civilization decided this was the place to build something that would outlast them. My wife and I felt it the moment we stepped off the ship in Piraeus, and long before I'd written a single word of Olivia and Lance's Athens chapters, I knew this city would end up in the book. Beneath Mediterran

There's a particular kind of gray that settles over the Aegean on an overcast morning, a soft pewter light that somehow makes the white cube houses of Mykonos look even brighter by contrast. That's the sky we woke up to on our Mykonos day, and honestly, it turned out to be a gift. No harsh midday glare, no squinting through sunglasses in every photo. Just cool air, calm water, and a full day ahead of us. We'd booked a private sailing excursion for the morning, and when we pul

Some ports you sail into and just know you're somewhere special before the anchor even drops. Santorini is one of them. Rounding into the caldera, watching the ship glide past those dark volcanic cliffs with whitewashed villages spilling down the rim like sugar poured over stone, my wife and I stood at the rail taking it all in. Photos never quite capture it. You have to see the scale in person, the ship small and toy-like against the height of those cliffs, to understand why

There's a moment on every great cruise itinerary where the ship pulls into port and you realize the history books are about to become real. For my wife and me, that moment came in Kuşadası, Turkey, with the town's name spelled out in giant white letters on the hillside above the harbor, guarding the base of a hill topped by a gleaming statue of Atatürk. From the rail, it looked like just another pretty port. What we didn't know yet was that a short drive inland was waiting to

House of the Virgin Mary Every stop on Olivia and Lance's Mediterranean itinerary earned its place in the story for a reason, but few moved me the way Kusadasi, Turkey did. Most travelers who dock there head straight for the marble streets of Ephesus, and rightly so. But a few miles up a quiet, pine-covered hill above the ancient city sits a small stone chapel that carries a different kind of weight entirely: the House of the Virgin Mary. A Place Built on Tradition, Not Certa

By KJB Alan There are places you remember because they're beautiful. Then there are places you remember because of the people you met. For my wife and I, Naples became one of those places. We stepped off our Royal Caribbean cruise expecting to visit Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, and perhaps enjoy a little Italian wine. Instead, we spent the day with people whose warmth, humor, and hospitality forever changed the way we think about travel—and eventually inspired scenes and charact

People ask me that question more than any other. And the honest answer is: I didn't set out to write a romance novel. I set out to save something before it faded. My wife and I have been cruising together for over thirty years. We've stood on the overlook in St. Lucia with warm bread in hand, watching the Pitons rise out of the sea below us. We've raced through the streets of St. John's in Antigua, laughing at nothing in particular, the kind of afternoon that happens when you