Our port in Belgium was Antwerp, more than 50 miles up the River Scheldt. Not the usual entrance into a country, but not much is usual when you travel by ship. In a world of immediate gratification that allows and even expects minimalist spelling like “gr8”, it’s hard to slow down into the relaxed cadence of the mindset of a ship. In fact even the activities on the ship continue at a frantic pace while the ships coasts along. So it’s easy to fall into the trap of making up for the “slow time” on the ship when we do reach port. Traveling 300 miles in a day is replaced by covering 300 miles in two hours on a train.
Our time in Belgium split into the same confused trend. We spent our first two days dealing with a minor medical issue – everything is fine – but it did require a very slow pace for those days, continuing to live on “ship pace”. One day we visited Passchendale, a WW1 battlefield, and the next we wandered around Antwerp and the old canal town of Bruges, including renting a boat! A highlight of the day in Bruges was Ryan FaceTiming with his class from a square outside a church in Bruges. 
We passed the next three days at breakneck pace, spontaneously deciding that the boys needed some kid time at Disneyworld Paris. We rented a car and scurried out of Belgium into France. After checking into one of the worst “quality per dollar” hotel rooms we’ve ever stayed in, we enjoyed the next day cavorting around Disney. Although we had fun on the great rides, it paled in comparison to our experience to Orlando. When we were told curtly that they had no salads (the only vegetarian option for Christy of their four entrees) at 11:15 AM, we knew we weren’t in Orlando anymore (side note to any Disney execs who read this, Disneyland Paris is NOT helping your brand – or maybe the bar is very low for these experiences in Europe)!
That afternoon we decided that it was possible to show the boys Paris in 3 hours! So we got up early the next morning, took a 45 minutes train ride to Paris, ate breakfast, visited Notre Dame, walked by the Louvre and spent some time at the Eiffel Tower. And then back to Disneyland by noon to pick up our car, drive back to Belgium, get lost on the way to the car rental lot and walk back to the ship. Not exactly ship pace!! Three ports visited and ten more to go!
