Welcome to the Royal Crimean blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 169.

Royal Caribbean offers cruises around the world, and when the days get longer and warmer here in the northern hemisphere, many ships head to Europe for the season.

Once there, Royal Caribbean offers quite a variety of itineraries on some amazing ships that visit incredible ports.

This week, we have a review of a recent Navigator of the sea's 13-night Western Mediterranean cruise from Southampton to review.

We'll discuss what is so fun about this itinerary as well as the highlights of the ship.

Here we go.

You know, I love featuring listener feedback on this podcast, including when we get a chance

to talk with people who just got back from Royal Caribbean cruises.

And this week, we're really lucky to be able to get a chance to talk to someone who just

went on a 13-night Western Mediterranean cruise from Southampton on my favorite Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas.

Joining me this week, it's Dirk Erkin from Germany. Dirk, welcome.

Hi, Matt. Thank you for having me. Great to be on your show.

Absolutely, sir. It's a pleasure to have you on here and talk about a cruise on my favorite ship,

Navigator of the Seas.

Let's start with a very easy question for you, Dirk.

Why did you pick this sailing?

Generally, it was an itinerary.

We wanted to go to Mediterranean again.

We have done the eastern Mediterranean several times, but never been the western Mediterranean.

So that, and we wanted a cruise without a flight.

So starting point was England,

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