mahdnc

We are an hour and a half away from docking at Palma de Mallorca. It's going to get up to the mid 80's today there.

While docked at Toulon, we had a view of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle--the proud flagship of the French Navy. It appeared to be idled as we saw civilian dressed people walking on the flight deck and no one in uniform.

This was last night at the Rendezvous Lounge. After I snapped the photo, I heard a "hello" behind me. It was @wayneg1 (Wayne and his wife Karen) who were enjoying the string music. I asked that we meet there at 5pm on the first sea day for drinks) because I want to get their perspective on the current British political situation.

This is like the fourth cruise that I've seen this dog statue used for the guess-the-weight contest by Park West. I'm surprised that a frequent cruiser doesn't take advantage of it to win it. Or a clever B2B cruiser. I asked the Park West attendant about that last night but didn't get an answer that I understood. I cynically concluded that apathy prevented anyone from submitting a guess. I also thought that maybe it was a scam and no one ever won or claimed the prize (I was tempted to place a discreet marking on the back of the dog to allow me to determine if this is the same dog statue I'm looking at in future cruises).

Kim, we also received the invitation but we didn't make it. We were busy with little stuff plus the weather (cloudy and very windy) made the event seem less inviting. How was it?

So far, I have found the ship to be in excellent condition. This is based on our cabin and a small sample of the public areas. I will update you as the cruise progresses and perhaps others on this cruise will chime in. Where her age is more evident is with dated design and technology which is to be expected.

@vickykay, so I had to laugh when I looked at Cruise Critic as we were stranded by the roadside and saw your request for photos! And so that’s what I meant when I said we’re the poster child for Celebrity to convince passengers not to book shore excursions on their own. Us and the poor couple that mistakenly booked an independent tour that started in Marseilles! I can only imagine what they would be thinking if they came on the tour with us!!! They would be Celebrity shore excursion customers forever!

Our driver made reservations for the 4 of us to have lunch at a cafe at Cassis which sounded great. We got back into the van and proceeded to Cassis. Halfway there, disaster struck. While we were riding at a fairly high (but appropriate) rate of speed on the highway, we heard a bang and felt a shudder. The back end of the van then drooped and fishtailed slightly a couple of times; you could feel and hear the van riding on its rim. Fortunately there was little traffic around us and our driver was able to maintain control over the van. With no suitable shoulder to work with, our driver took the next offramp and parked the van on the shoulder right after a toll booth. The area we stopped at was pretty safe from traffic. The next problem was that our driver did not know how to change a tire and in retrospect it appeared to us that he had no mechanical skills with tools or anything. In a telling generational sign, our young driver immediately began playing an instructional YouTube video on how to change a tire while I searched the glove compartment in vain for an owners manual. Fortunately my wife and I had some experience from many years ago with changing tires (we leave that to AAA now). My wife found the scissors jack and she began jacking up the van. Once we raised the back end of the van high enough, we lowered the spare tire from beneath the van. We then instructed our driver to remove the lug nuts from the flat tire (he didn't know which direction to turn the tire iron to loosen the nut). We then removed the flat tire and I was amazed at what I saw. The blown tire was completely bald on the outer half and nearly bald on the other. It was clear that the tire was not road-worthy and it should have been caught by a simple visual inspection. The damage to the tire was a very long slit that exposed the underlying steel belt. And then it got exciting. While attempting to put the new tire in place, the scissors jack slipped--twice. We were fortunate that no one got hurt. At this point, it was around 1:30 pm and the four of us were done, hungry, and (for me) in need of a bathroom. We probably had been by the roadside for an hour by then and we decided to ask our driver to call for a taxi to come take us back to the ship. Our driver called for one but was told that it would take a while for a taxi to come up from Toulon to get us. While we were looking at our Uber options, a Good Samaritan stopped to help us (above photo). More importantly, he was a mechanic. He secured the parking brake and proceeded to finish with the tire change without incident. Ok that was dumb that we didn't use the parking brake. We were back on the road by 2 pm and we asked to be taken directly back to the ship. By 2:45 pm we were back at the pier.

We spent some time walking around the streets and admired the classic French sidewalk cafe's Only the lack of blue sky and brilliant sunlight prevented the scenery from being perfect. My wife and I spent half of our time at Aix checking out the Farmer's Market. The mushroom stand was eye opening. My wife and I purchased goods at a vanilla booth and from a merchant selling jam.

We hired a private company to take us to Aix-en-Provence, Cassis, and Le Castellet. We pre-arranged this with two other passengers. Getting everyone together was a bit challenging. Constellation started allowing passengers off the ship at about 9:20 am. When we got off the ship, we walked out of the terminal and proceeded to walk out of the gate for the pier where our van was waiting. The other two passengers were wrongly told that the van would pick them up at point closer to the ship, inside the gate, where the Celebrity shore excursion buses were waiting. It took about 30 minutes to get it straightened out. During the 30 minutes that we waited, another couple from Constellation walked toward our van. When asked, the driver informed them that they were not part of this tour. They showed him their Viator paperwork and asked our driver if he knew the tour guide. The answer was "yes" and he called the guide up and handed his phone to the passengers so they could discuss the situation. It turned out that their tour originated at Marseille which is an hour away from the port. After they glumly hung up, they asked me if they could join our tour. I accurately told them that we did not have the space and that we were waiting on two other people to show up. Little did any of us know that I saved them some trouble! Our two passengers arrived at about 10 am and the driver headed off to Aix-en-Provence. We were all smiles and everything was puppies and kittens. We arrived there at 11 am. It was a Sunday and many of the stores were closed. However some stores and all the restaurants were open. The farmer's market was also open. When we arrived, our driver dropped us off and went to park his van. He instructed us to wait for him at the Apple Store and so that was technically the our first stop at Aix-en-Provence!!

sorry for being radio silent. This was an independent private excursion. We blew out a tire on the way from Aix to Cassis. We made it back on the ship. I will give details and photos in a little bit as this needs to be done on a laptop and not my iPhone!

Yes, a water shuttle is available for people who want to go to town. Celebrity shorex buses pick up right at the pier. Private tours can pick up outside the gate.

Vicky, here's our photo: Poster child for Celebrity's marketing campaign for their shore excursions.

We are in the process of docking at Toulon.

Our missing bag got delivered to our cabin right before dinner time. No naughty room visit. Our cabin steward, Angeline, helped us retrieve it.

We have Early Seating at the MDR. Our wait staff seems good. I presume that "0" means no Sommelier for our table? Select Seating is downstairs on Deck 4. Early Seating is up here on Deck 5. The whole port side of the bDeck 5 dining room is empty.

There are 120 members that introduced themselves to this sailing's roll call. We seem like a good group. Good thing since we are stuck with each other for 15 nights. Here are some general information about the group. The state/province claimed the most frequently as home was........Florida by a huge margin--around 37. Second place was Ontario, Canada with 9. Here is a breakdown on where our roll call members stayed right before the cruise (among those that reported what they were doing): 1. 26 members were on the prior sailing (9 night Ravenna to Civitavecchia). 2. 13 stayed in Civitavecchia. 3. 6 stayed in the Albergo del Senato Hotel in Rome. 4. 6 stayed at the Hilton Rome Airport. @baluchistan splits her residence time between Velletri, Italy and Baltimore and so she wins the prize for the most convenient pre-cruise plan which was to be at home. To give you an idea of cabin type distribution, here is frequency chart for the 88 members who declared their cabin number.

Most of our bags got to our room fairly quickly. There is one bag that we haven't received but it is on board according to the Apple Airtag (mushroom symbol). The other three bags (eyes, flower, red backpack) are with us (blue dot) My guess is that it's being detained. Naughty room. I cannot think of a reason why. No alcohol, weapons, or electrical extension cords. We will find out.

After arriving at the terminal at 11:16 am, we made it to our cabin at 11:41 am. So the whole check in process was a breeze.

Special secret sail away deck for Retreat guests......

Private transfer for the 5 of us went smoothly. We left the Albergo del Senato at 9:55 am and we arrived at our cruise terminal at 11:16 am. Our official check in time was 11:30 am. There were no crowds and other than a short wait to get through security, there were no lines. We haven't been on a cruise since the pandemic, so the whole thing was thrilling. I was so excited that I was tempted to do the Pope thing and kiss the ground (deck) once I stepped foot on the ship.

On our way to the pier.

My wife and I tested negative for COVID yesterday, so we have cleared that hurdle to be able to board tomorrow. I purchased two BinaxNOW kits that we brought with us. Even though I have been warned on Cruise Critic and even though it is prominently displayed on the box, in our hotel room I opened up the sealed container before I called the proctor to receive instructions on when to open the box. In other words I made the kit useless for a certified COVID test; however it tested me negative for intelligence. Very embarrassing. So my wife and I immediately made a trip to a Antica Farmacia del Corso (thanks to biggerboat47 for posting that pharmacy on our roll call) and we were successfully tested negative for COVID. However my wife still considered me to be negative on intelligence. Oh well. We got tested as walk-ins without needing an appointment. The pharmacy is an easy walk from the Albergo del Senato and the two tests cost me a total of 44 Euro. Whew.

They look good to me.