Cruise The World With Us

Well…the moral of today is…unless you like to wait in a long line, don’t board with any luggage. We received notice that our check in time was changed from 3:00 pm to noon so needed to contact the tour company that had arranged our transport. They are located in Portland, Oregon – 9 hours behind us – and for some reason they were not open at 11:00 pm on a Sunday. Fortunately there was an emergency number we were able to call in Barcelona. They moved our pickup time and we arrived at the dock at 12:05 pm. We thought we were doing great until we entered the building and saw others who must also have been told to come earlier. The featured image for this post is Kelsey waiting in line with her luggage. The 3 of us waited for over an hour and a half to get our bags checked in. Then we went upstairs in the terminal for the passport check and VISA stamp from French authorities. Next we took the gangway to the ship (see photo) and went to our room (another of today’s photos). Our ID cards were in a pouch hanging from the door handle. After dropping our carry on bags in the room we went to Kelsey’s room and found her ID card. We noticed that she was scheduled to eat in a different restaurant at a different table. So we went to see restaurant manager for deck 5 Ugo Sorrentino (see photo) to see if he could get us at the same table with people that speak English. We got our assignment to table 482. Next came the required safety drill which includes watching a video on our TV, dialing a number on the phone to confirm we watched the video and going to our assembly station (E for Jan and I and H for Kelsey) so our ID cards could be scanned by the staff to prove we had completed the safety training. It was getting late and near departure time so I took a quick photo as we left the Marseille harbor. You can see Norte Dame de la Garde that we visited Sunday near the center of the photo on the top of a hill. On to dinner. We met Jeff and Karen from Florida (near Kennedy launch complex) and Leo (Fort Lee, New Jersey). Jeff looks like Jeff Bridges did in The Big Lebowski. Can’t wait to wear my Lebowski’s t-shirt for him. Dinner was welcome, tasted good and finished with a wonderful raspberry mousse (see photo). Went to a musical show by Mimma Barra with a tribute to some of the greatest female singers (see photo). After a tiring day it was time to sleep. Click on any of the (see photo) references above to see photos from our first day on MSC Magnifica.