August 1, 2007 — Olbia, Sardinia

This was a light day, and we needed it. With an inside stateroom it was completely dark. And we knew we wanted to sleep in, so we didn’t bother making a wakeup call. We have pretty good internal clocks, right? Wrong. We awoke to the sound of the Magic’s “When You Wish Upon a Star” all-announcement speaker at 9:45am and the voice of our friendly cruise director Brent notifying passengers that the crew would be staging a mock emergency drill in 15 minutes and that passengers should pay it no nevermind. Groggy, Angie jumped out of bed about that time and went to the front door. She peered down the hall to the right and was startled to see what appeared to be smoke. What? As we found out later from our server Sara, the crew sometimes is faced with mock smoke in their drills in order to make them find alternative routes to their emergency station. Someone had left a door ajar on the first deck and it somehow made it to the passenger area. Oops! But no harm done. I’m just glad the Magic goes to such great lengths in its drills to protect passengers in the unlikely event of an emergency. Now fully awake we got dressed and made our way to deck nine for a bite at Topsider’s. We just made breakfast. Afterwards, we headed back to the room to get ready for our Day at the Beach. We met at 1:15pm and headed out by bus.



La Cinta beach is a play area for Olbia’s more wealthy residents, our guide tells us. It’s about a 45-minute bus ride from the port to the beach and we enjoy the sites of the country en route. Olbia relies heavily on agriculture and tourism for much of its income. The land here is much different than what we have encountered thus far. For Americans, it looks like a cross between the plateaus of New Mexico butted up against the mountains of southern California. A British couple on the bus tells us this terrain is more like what one would expect to see in the Greek isles. At La Cinta beach the Magic passengers file off the bus.



We definitely look like a gang of tourists, tramping our way past the Sicilian beach goers to our designated area. I again note that the Italians are a fit bunch. No fat here, and the men and women alike are very tan. Many of the men wear Speedo-like bathing suits. And a noticeable number of the women tan sans a top. This is no shock as we had been forewarned. So, we settle in to our promised chairs under quaint umbrellas. One of our passengers makes a fuss to the tour guides that his chairs and umbrellas aren’t exactly the way he wants. To be truthful he was being rather rude. To the point that he makes one of the Sicilian boys working the beach so angry that he walks off in disgust. I inquire about the restrooms and make a point to apologize to the workers. They shrug it off. But justice comes when the man goes to sit in his chair and it topples over backward throwing his large frame off in the process. It’s all we can do not to laugh, but we hold it together. Now settled, Maddie heads off into the crystal-clear water with Angie for a dip.



The hawkers file by offering us everything from hair braids and knock-off purses to necklaces and water toys. We wave them off, but Meg is dying to bargain for a purse. I go with her and ask our local excursion guide, Pilar, if it is okay to buy from them and negotiate. She politely agrees to accompany up the beach to where the hawkers are camped out and we peruse the endless array of faux items. Meg settles on one and the negotiations begin. The seller, whose accent sounds African, starts at 75 Euros. He and Pilar go back and forth and she asks me how much we want to spend. I wasn’t planning on buying anything today, so I only brought 30 Euro. Amazingly, she talks him down to this price. Meg almost backs out of the deal, but I say we can’t at this point. As she takes the goods she gives a big smile, happy with her purchase. Pilar tells me she is a high school English teacher and this is only her summer job. She’s happy to see the teenage so happy.



We play around in the water a bit more and then it’s time to leave. In all, we spend about 2.5 hours here, but it’s time to go back to the ship. On the way back, the girls crash again (all of the kids here are so worn out that you see many of them sleeping on the busses). and hear about their fun day on board. We return to the boat and follow our routine of going to the evening stage show at 6:30pm followed by dinner in Lumiere’s. We release both girls to go to their clubs and we eat dinner with our table mates. Dinner was good. I forgot what we had. The adults enjoy our desserts and coffee and part ways. Tomorrow is a long day in Rome. Tonia and Erich have been there before, so they decide to stay on board. On our recommendation they head to the theater to see “The Italian Job.” We stopped by Shutters, the ship’s photo shop, to see if there are any photos we want. We choose a few and head back to the cabin. Our excellent cabin steward, Arya, has left Maddie a towel elephant. It’s now about 11pm and Meg returns. Anticipating a long day, we all hit the hay for a good’s night sleep. All ashore call tomorrow is scheduled for 7:45am.