More on the cruise

Mom e-mailed me by blog notes that I was going to post when we were on the ship but we could never get the wireless thingy to work. Anyway - for anyone who might be interested in more details about our first few days, here goes

"What a time! My last update was kind of frazzled because it costs $.50 a minute to be on-line on the cruise ship and the dag-gom computer wouldn't let me type the letter "u" so everything was a little grammatically incorrect - you know how that gets to me. Anyway - we are having a fantastic time here on our cruise.

Saturday
We left the house in London at 3:45am on Saturday and arrived in Barcelona with absolutely no hitches - smooth flight and no problem with our luggage or anything. Mom had arranged transfers for us from the Barcelona aiport to the cruise ship so that was a cinch too. I should add that on our flight we had gorgeous views of the Pyrenees mountains and could see our ship as we approached Barcelona. When we arrived at the port we were lucky enough to get priority boarding so we were some of the first people to board the ship. We went straight to the buffet where we did a minimal gorging :).

This is the ship that Jeff and I went on for our honeymoon so we are a little familiar with where everything is and Jeff is having fun being on his turf. We weren't able to get in our stateroom until about 2:30 so we walked around the ship and people-watched. You just don't realize how many European women go bra-less and smoke cigars. Anyway - so our room is small but cozy and we have 2 twin beds with bunk type beds hanging off the walls. Our luggage came slowly throughout the afternoon so we weren't able to unpack until late Saturday evening. Mom, Dad and Jeff took a little nap while we were waiting and I did some ship exploration of my own. Then we had to put on our huge lifevests and go to our muster stations before dinner - that was fun. This is done just in case we have a Titanic episode and have to evacuate the ship - at least now we are prepared.

Dinner last night was great - every dinner in the dining room here feels like a gourmet experience. Dad and Jeff had shrimp cocktail and prime rib, Mom had some great fish and I had a stuffed chicken breast - yum yum. You know - cruises are all about the food. After dinner we walked around some more and had some coffee and tea in the cafe - very nice. We stayed out looking in shops and hanging around until about 11:30 then we came back to the room and went to bed.

Sunday
We woke up around 8:45 this morning so it was a sleep in morning for all of us. We had docked in Marseilles, France at 7am. After showers and getting ready we went to the buffet for breakfast and then decided to take a shuttle into the city of Marseilles to just see some sights. I have to say that Marseilles is absolutely gorgeous - exactly what you would think a French city should look like. Very old buildings with balconies facing the water and pretty flowers in boxes. We walked through a market where they sell soaps and souveniers where some gypsies were also begging us for money and Mom says calling us bad names in French :), visited the pharmacy to get some medicine for my stomach and got some bottled water at a little quick stop type place. The water here on the ship is $3.50 for a liter and Mom and I both drink a lot of it so we needed a cheaper supply.

Anyway - Marseilles is the 2nd largest city in France behind Paris so I am sure there is lots that we didn't see while we were there. All of the ports that we are visiting use the Euro as the currency. Jeff and I are taking lots of pictures that I hope to be able to post soon.

We travelled back to the ship around 2pm and had lunch and went to a wine tasting event on the ship. We had some of what Jeff calls "stinky feet cheese" and 6 different wines...I know - we are so cultured. After that we were wiped out so we all ended up taking about a 2 hour nap and missing our dinner in the dining room. Tonight was the first of 2 formal nights so everyone on the ship was dressed all schmancily except us slackers. We went to the buffet and had dinner in a more casual setting. Jeff and I went to the casino for a few minutes and then met Mom and Dad back in the room where we are about to go to sleep again.

Tomorrow is a big day - we will be in Villefranche, France and have a shore excursion that leaves from the ship at 7:15am. We will be travelling to Nice, Cannes and Grasse where we will tour a perfume factory. This is kind of a highlights of the French Riviera tour and I expect it to be even more gorgeous than Marseille.

On Tuesday we will be in Livorno, Italy where we will travel to Florence and Pisa to do the tourist thing. Wednesday will be Rome where we will take a tour of the Colosseum, Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica and all of the old important things that make up Rome. Finally Thursday we will be in Naples, Italy where we will hike up Mt. Vesuvius and visit Pompeii. So many exciting things in such a short amount of time.

In addition to the places we will be visiting, we are planning some neat activities on the ship too...there are shows every night, a toga party this week, line dance lessons, etc. So much fun...

Update: Monday
Today was another adventure filled day! We pulled in to Villefranche, France early this morning and met for our tour at 7:15. We took a tour called "The Best of the French Riviera" which took us to Cannes where the big film festival is. We took pictures on the steps where the red carpet is laid out during the festival and we also briefly visited the beach and went barefoot in the water. Jeff popped his head into a casino that is in Cannes and said it is just like casinos in the States.

Then we went to tour the Fragonard perfume factory. So interesting to see how these fragrances are made. We must have smelled 20 different perfumes and we ended up with headaches from fragrance overload. This is also the place that Mom and Dad visited 6 years ago and brought me back a bottle of perfume which I have worn almost every day for the past 6 years and it is just now running out. They discontinued that fragrance but somehow Mom talked them into pulling out one of the last bottles and selling it to us. So I can continue to smell yummy :). We bought a bunch of other perfumes and soaps here too.

We then went and had lunch at a restaurant - I wasn't impressed at all with the food - it was a salad with tuna and anchovies (blek!) and a chicken leg with some weird veggies. After lunch we went to St. Paul de Vince which is a really neat little village with lots of little shops with olive oils, souveniers, tablecloths and the best ice cream. Dad and I had lots of ice cream - yum yum.

After we got back to the ship we had dinner in the dining room which was very nice. Then we went to the "Name That Tune" game in one of the bars on the ship. I thought we would do really well with that since Dad knows every old song there is but it turned out to be theme songs from movies. Mom and Dad got 5 out of 10 and Jeff and I did worse. It was fun though.

Now we just got back to our room after going to the celebrity headliner show. The celebrity was Dominick Allen who was a member of Foreigner. I guess the show was pretty exciting...he sang a couple of Foreigner songs and then some other old ones. He does play a mean guitar, saxophone and clarinet.

Tomorrow we will be docking in Livorno and taking a bus to Florence and Pisa. We are on our own to site see so we have a lot to fit in to a couple of hours. I hope to post again soon!!"