Rome to Civitavecchia (Italy) 27 April 2024     Woke up around 8:00 and got ready to check out of the hotel. I had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 11:00 at our hotel, and take us to Civitaveccia, where we would board our cruise ship the Sun Princess. Started hauling the luggage down the stairs. Quarter way down the stairs, the maintenance man took the big suitcase and took it the rest of the way down. He was at the top of the stairs for the second, and again for the third. Didn't have to carry anything. I was really grateful, and although known as a cheapskate, I gave him a generous tip. Asked the proprietor if we could leave the luggage in the hallway while we had breakfast at the restaurant at the front of the hotel. Had Cappuccinos with Danishes for breakfast.                 Took the luggage outside the front door of the hotel around 10:50. In five minutes a man asked if that was our luggage and whether we were going to Civitavecchia. It was our taxi driver. He took the two large suitcases and loaded them into the taxi that was parked  about a block away. He spoke good English and was very talkative. Mostly politics, and mostly about Italy's idiotic government buying electricity from France, instead of building their own nuclear reactors. He also gave us an extensive history lesson, as we passed some landmarks on the way to Civitavecchia, about the areas the different tribes, Latins, Etruscans and Sabines inhabited around Rome. Arrived at the Civitavecchia cruise ship port just after 12:00. The boarding had already begun. In a few minutes we were through security, got our medallion which does everything on board the ship. It opens your stateroom door, it acts as a credit card for expenditures on board the ship, if Rita wanted to know my location, it would locate me, etc. We went to our stateroom 10633. We had been upgraded from a Cove Balcony Stateroom to an aft facing Deluxe Balcony Stateroom. WOW!! It was the best stateroom on the whole ship. All veteran cruisers, on the internet, who've had aft facing balconies rave about them. It was spacious, with the largest balcony on the whole ship. Couldn't believe our luck. Unpacked our luggage, and moved in to our home for the next 3 weeks. After we had moved in, we took our semi private glass elevator, with an aft view two floors down to where most of the restaurants were. We had dinner in one of the many restaurants onboard.                 After exploring some of the ship, we went back to our stateroom, opened one of the two bottles we were allowed to bring onboard, sat on the balcony and emptied the bottle.