Day 6 - Friday, June 16, 2023 - Kadasi Port - Ephesus, Turkey - Part 1

Day 6 - Friday, June 16, 2023 - Kadasi Port - Ephesus, Turkey

We woke up super early & had breakfast in the dining room before heading to our port of Kadasi, Turkey. 

I was SO excited to come back to Turkey.  Turkey is probably one of the top 2 places I’ve ever traveled, & I couldn’t wait to experience it with my family since I didn’t get to last time.  We met our tour guide, Kerem, just outside the ship & he was ready with a mini-bus to take us on an adventure through Ephesus for the day.  He was amazing & I still can’t believe how much we were able to see & still make it back to the boat by dinner at 5:30.

Our first stop was the House of the Virgin Mary.  It is located on Mount Koressos near Ephesus.  The house was discovered in the 19th century by following the descriptions of visions by Anne Catherine Emmerich, a Roman Catholic nun who was blind.  Anne dreamed about a location of ruins on the top of a mountain & her visions were published in a book by Clemens Bretagne after her death.  For years, many people searched for ruins that matched her description for the house of Mary after Christ’s death, & they finally found a site that matched her descriptions exactly in Ephesus.  It is believed that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken to this stone house by Saint John (the revalator) & lived there for the remainder of her earthly life.  There is a key shaped baptistery near the home that is believed to be a baptistery site for Christians escaping persecution in Israel, & there is a wishing well below the home where you can drink of the “miraculous water” granting life, wealth, & love as well as leave a “wish” on the wall.  It was really fun to visit.  The house is extremely small & you cannot take pictures inside, but it was really neat to see.  There is a red line painted along the bottom ⅓ of the building which indicates where the original foundational stones are.  Above that red line they’ve built/restored the building in the way it would have looked.  On one wall of the house there is a shadow that miraculously appeared that looks like the silhouette of Mary’s face.  I didn’t see it, but Trek did & said it was really interesting. . . They were moving the crowd through the house pretty quickly so I missed that part. 

After visiting the house, we went down & drank from the wishing well & watched people attach their “wishes” to the wall.  It was a beautiful site to visit & SO unique.  I’m glad we went there.

After visiting Mary’s House, our tour guide gave us the history of Ephesus.  The gospel of John is believed to be written here as well as the book of Revelation indicating that the church at Ephesus was strong.  Ephesus has survived thousands of years & actually has 4 civilizations to its name.  Ephesus 4 is modern day Ephesus where everyone currently lives.  Ephesus 1 was built by Amazonian women (Ephos, queen of the Amazons)  in the 10 Century BC on a hill (Ayasuluk Hill). A castle still stands where this original Ephesus was founded.  The Temple of Artemis was once one of the 7 wonders of the world & was the largest building of the ancient world.  The temple was built by Ephesus, son of the river god Caystrus before the arrival of the Ionians.  The temple of Artemis has since been destroyed completely (356 BC) except for a few stones which can hardly be seen.  Our tour guide then took us to Ephesus 2 which is the ancient forum of Ephesus that has been discovered over the last 100 years.  It was in THIS Ephesus that the Apostle Paul taught the Ephesians from 52-54 AD.  We spent 2 hours wandering around the ruins & exploring the discoveries there. 

My favorite was the Library of Celsus built in 125 AD during the Roman Empire. 

We also visited the ancient theater that held over 25,000 people & is the largest of the ancient world.  It was used for plays, concerts, & for gladiator fights.  It is also where Paul spoke to the Ephesians. We saw the temple of Hadrian as well as a statue of Emperor Trajan, or at least the FOOT of Emperor Trajan’s statue.  I could have spent HOURS here.  I love sites like these.  We took a bazillion pictures & loved every minute of it. 

As we were leaving, they had a little play going on of Marc Antony & Cleopatra’s wedding.  The kids loved watching the gladiators fight & the Egyptian dances.  It was SO FUN.

Day 5 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - Sailing Day

 Day 5 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - Sailing Day

Our fourth day on the boat was a “sailing day” which means we stay on the boat the entire day while we sail to Turkey.  The kids were SO looking forward to a day full of swimming & relaxing with ice cream all day long.

We woke up trying to figure out what time it was.  They had told us to change our watches/clocks forward one hour, but we also didn’t pay for internet on the ship so we didn’t know if our phones would change automatically or not (we assumed they wouldn’t).  So we woke up & had to find a clock in the hallway to see what time it was.  Our clocks & phones did NOT change like we assumed so now we knew how to schedule the day based on that information.  The ship had a day FULL of fun since all 2500 passengers were to remain on the boat all day. 

We went to the dining hall for breakfast & I had the MOST amazing breakfast EVER (& wound up eating it every morning for the remainder of the trip).  It was a vegetable breakfast bowl with onions, peppers, zucchini & squash, tomatoes, & warm goat cheese with 2 fried eggs on top.  It was incredible.  That goat cheese is just my favorite thing & to add it to veggies is amazing.  At breakfast we looked at the ship’s activity schedule & planned out our day.

The first activity we participated in was the “Name That Tune: Disney Songs” Trivia Game.  We played against all the other families on the ship & out of 25 songs, we missed one (which we totally knew but overthought it. . . We knew it was Randy Newman, but Toy Story seemed too obvious choice so we went with Brother Bear (which I KNEW was Phil Collins, but nobody would listen to me). Randy Newman did Bug’s Life too so I thought maybe it was that.  It was the song “Sailing” from “Toy Story” but the part they played was 3 seconds of the part you don’t actually hear much of in the movie so we just were clueless.  So we came in 2nd place which isn’t bad.  Two other teams got all 25 right & had to do a tiebreaker which was “the other Randy Newman” soundtrack which was Bug’s Life.  We were proud of our 2nd place. 

After that we walked through all the shops in the mini mall then explored the art gallery.  The kids wanted a little bit of rest time so they all laid down in their rooms to watch Avatar the Last Airbender together while Trek & I explored the ship more & of course got more ice cream. 

For lunch we ate in the dining hall again & had amazing mozzarella sticks with spicy chicken sandwiches.  We ALL ordered the same thing & it was SO SO SO GOOD.  The chocolate cake for dessert was one of the kids’ favorite desserts on board. 

We all got into our swimsuits to spend the rest of the day swimming, but we got hit with a giant rainstorm & they closed down decks 9-11.  It was crazy.  During that craziness, Canyon hopped onto an elevator to go back to his room but didn’t tell us & we LOST him.  He knew where he was, but we didn’t.  We spend a good 45 minutes with each kid on different floors of that huge ship trying to find him.  He HAD gone back to his room, but he didn’t have a key to the room so he was wandering around the boat wondering what to do.  The stinker.  He knows better than that, but made a bad judgement & had the consequence of feeling alone, lost, & afraid.  Luckily Trek found him trying to find us & all was well again.  We had some good talks about the importance of staying together.  The teens ended up spending time in the teen area playing games while Trek & Craiger played some video games in the room.  I took Canyon & we went to the puzzle area of the ship & worked on a 1000 piece puzzle for 2 hours.  We were having fun.  Then we watched the “Sexiest Man” competition which was HILARIOUS.  (They were just random guys picked from the audience who had to answer hilarious questions, model, & just be silly. . . It was all in good fun).  Canyon & I laughed the whole time. 

After that we grabbed everyone again & played board games at one of the tables on deck 5 for about an hour which was a blast.  We played Citadels which is a family favorite of ours.  When 5:30 rolled around, we weren’t even hungry so we opted to eat a late dinner at the buffet that night.  It was good, but not nearly as good as the dining hall. 

After dinner, we made our way to the Spotlight Lounge on Deck 6 to enter the “Name that Cartoon Character” trivia contest.  Our family WON that one which is hilarious because we guessed on the Southpark character’s name & got it right.  (None of us watch South Park).  Trek & I knew all the 80’s & 90’s characters & our kids knew all the modern ones.  All the kids won blue highlighters for winning. 

Our last activity of the evening was the Singers Showcase show at the theater which was fantastic.  The singers on the boat were incredible & we loved watching them perform every night.  We finally got to bed around 9 so we could get up extra early for our busy day in Ephesus, Turkey the next day.