Naples, Italy - Day 47

Hello all from Jeff Capri
We have just returned to the ship after 2 nights and 3 days on the Island of Capri
I will as usual allow my better half to go into detail about what a wonderful and exciting place it is and continues to be
My task is to explain our last day, In order to do this some quick background information:
One of the reasons we choose to take the cruises we did was because our ship is well known for spending extra time in smaller ports including overnight stays, giving Ron and I a chance to see the nightlife as well as the tourist sites
The ships itinerary for this port , SORRENTO, was to arrive in the morning and spend that night and leave the next night around 7pm to head to Rome where a new segment would begin, ,meaning that most of the passengers would leave and a new host of characters would come aboard. The ship would then spend the night in Rome and leave the next day and its first port of call would be SORRENTO.
These few days gave us the chance to leave the ship and spend two nights and 3 full days on Capri and rejoin the ship and new passengers in SORRENTO and spend yet another night on board the ship in Sorrento before sailing on to our new ports
All right enough background
We left the ship as planned in Sorrento and took the hydrofoil to Capri a trip of about 20 minutes
Now see Ron’s section about Capri
We now skip to our last morning on Capri
Our plan was to sleep late have breakfast at the hotel, a dining room with a view that both of us could have lived with forever and then head down the cliffs to the hotel owned beach club for the day, heading back on the JET boat as the locals call the Hydrofoil in the late afternoon to reboard our ship which was spending the night so no rush on our part or so we thought????
The morning began at 0700 when the phone rang and it was the hotel owner asking us if we intended leaving today for Sorrento I said yes and he then began to explain why that wasn’t going to happen
Overnight the winds around Capri had built up to such a high velocity that the JET boats and even the Ferries had chosen not to run that day to anywhere!!
Whoever was on the Island was staying on the Island and no new folks would be joining us.
We really didn’t panic at first since we knew our ship was spending the night and we could just stay put and recross the next morning back to Sorrento and board the ship then.
When we told him that would be our plan he told us we were welcome to stay since none of his new guests could get to the island anyway
Great we thought we have a plan and being stuck on Capri is like telling an alcoholic he must stay in a vineyard overnight
All was fine till we went up to the breakfast room where the owner told us that he had contacted the ferry people and that they made no promises about running the next day until very late afternoon at best which means we would possibly miss our ship. However he brought other news as well
The ferry that had left Naples for Capri before the shutdown was arriving shortly, the ferry ride unlike the jet boats is close to two hours so it had set out before the shut down, and that ferry short of a gale storm had to return to Naples or face heavy fines, YOU all have to understand that other than the wind the weather was fantastic it was warm and crystal clear perfect weather, so this captain decided to make the return voyage to Naples and would take passengers , so after a quick breakfast, our suitcase loaded on their micromini trucks and we walked back into town meet our suitcase and grab a taxi down the mountain to the port, where we are greeted by over a thousand other stranded folks who all want a ticket on that ferry
Just a reminder this ferry is not going to Sorrento but to Naples but Ron and I agree we will have many more options on the mainland then on Capri on how to reach our SHIP in Sorrento.
Now back to a couple of thousand people wanting tickets and us
Ron went to stand in the line with people who already had tickets who are waiting to board the ferry when it arrives and I head to the line that is more of mass demonstration Chicago 68 style, and decide the best way to obtain those tickets without waiting in that line
I see that the line when it becomes single file is in the queue labeled NAPLES and that the queue labeled Sorrento is empty so what the hell without making eye contact with anyone I move right to a ticket window which is closed but there are at least 5 people in this booth which I am sure was built to hold only 1 person, I move to the back where the entry door is and I politely knock and I am equally politely ignored. I forgot for a moment I am in Italy, where shouting is a rule of life, I pound on the door and sure enough one of the squished group inside opens and yells back WHAT and I say with my angelic face ANYONE PLEASE HELP ME I ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH, the woman immediately takes pity on me and says GET AWAY NO TICKETS HERE, in what I must admit was perfect English, I decide that I need to yell back and say I need to get to Sorrento, my boat is sailing, this earns me a great laugh and she relaxes a bit and says Sorry no Sorrento today only ferry to Napoli, I swear I almost had tears on my face when I said I needed two tickets, the mother in her came out and she said she didn’t have tickets in this booth it was only for vouchers no cash tickets
Well the now the tears are almost real , I realize that the time I have spent behind this booth has killed any chance of getting tickets in the line so I look at her and begged saying I would pay whatever to buy a voucher but that I needed those tickets
Well I need to end this part of the drama, she relented yelled at two men inside the booth who gave her two golden tickets which she handed to me, I tried to give her a 50 euro note and walk away but she insisted on giving me the exact change and would not accept a tip, I thanked her as a dutiful son and began to make my way back through the throngs which the police estimated at now close to 3 thousand people to find Ron and get us on that ferry.
To make this already very long story a bit shorter, lets skip ahead to when the ferry is about to leave almost 90 minutes late given the huge crowds
We decided to call the car service we used in Sorrento to ask them to send a car to Naples to drive us back to Sorrento so we could reboard our ship the QUEST
I called the owner of the car service to explain our needs, what he then said brought both Ron and I to a standstill, by the way not easy to do with the seas moving like a washing machine. Alberto the agency owner asked me why we were returning to Sorrento, I told him to reboard our ship, he said and I quote “mr jeff there are no ships in the bay” NO SHIPS where is the QUEST??
He asked me to hold the phone and came back on the line about 2 minutes later; the QUEST was in Naples it too had been unable to drop anchor in the rocking bay of Sorrento
ALBERTO said when you arrive go out of the terminal building turn left and walk and sure enough after walking less than half a mile we saw the QUEST we said a little thank you for making the right decision without even knowing it WE WERE HOME again.