This trip is all about early morning departures. Today we had our alarms set for 4 AM and by 4:30 AM we were out of the Hotel Excelsior and in a crazy taxi to take us to the Dubrovnik Airport. The Dubrovnik airport doesn’t open until 5 AM and we arrived a few minutes before then, dropped off our bags right when they opened and were at our gate a few minutes before we were supposed to board our 6:15 AM flight to Zagreb.

One thing I love about this trip specifically is that Jenn and I spent a lot more time thinking about how we wanted the days to flow to ensure we got to relax and enjoy these spectacular places. After an 8+ hour wine tour, we knew we’d want to keep it light today.

Over the last five years, Jenn and I have become more and more interested in wine. We’ve done several wine clubs and I tend to bother Jenn with interesting facts about the wines we drink. We also have found going on wine tours in different countries to be some of the best tours we’ve taken.

In 2012 we came to Dubrovnik on a cruise with my family and Game of Thrones had just finished airing its second season, the first it filmed in Dubrovnik. I remember on the tour of the city they had mentioned some of the actors being on location and how big of a deal it was for Dubrovnik.

It’s been a long time since we’ve done a multi-stop trip like this. Waking up this morning a little before 4 AM and dragging our bags and our tired eyes downstairs to checkout wasn’t nearly as fun as I remember it. Luckily after a lengthy wait to find an Uber we got in the back of a Prius and made our way to the Dublin airport where we waited in long lines to eventually make it to our terminal to board our plane early. Unfortunately, as I said “this may be the first on-time flight I’ve been on this year” we were told that there was crowding in the airways over France and Croatia and we had to sit on the runway for 45-minutes. Luckily we had gotten Starbucks before boarding or I would have been even more grumpy.

Today marked the official start of the cruise and our first stop after the port city of Venice, Italy. Last night before we turned in we saw a notice that said to put your clocks ahead one hour what we didn't realize was that was for the following day so Jenn and I woke up under the assumption it was nearly 11AM and not 10AM and rushed to get ready to ensure we were up and ready for our 12:30PM excursion in Dubrovnik, Coatia.