Cruise Review

What was our most memorable part of the cruise? 

Both Marg and myself agree that it would be the trip to Marrakesh.  Marg thought it was memorable but not in a pleasant way.  Although she found it interesting she also felt it was dirty, noisy and generally she did not feel safe.  I found it to be so different from anything that I had experienced before that even having a snake wrapped around my neck really didn't bother me.

Marg really enjoyed the camel ride in Lanzorate in the Canary Islands.   She will remember Paloma. She was our camel.

We also lucked out with our dining room assignment.  You couldn't ask for better dining companions than the people we sat with.

So how does Celebrity compare against other cruise lines we have travelled with.  I won't bother comparing them against Royal Caribbean and Holland America, who we've documented our negative reviews on other blogs.  And you can't compare this type of cruise against a river cruise because of the size differential and the number of passengers involved.  So I'll compare it against Princess which I believe is the best cruise line that we've travelled with up until this trip.

Ship's Condition

The Celebrity Constellation is easily a five star resort.  Everywhere you look there are crews cleaning and maintaining the public areas.  For a vessel that is constantly exposed to salt water and  the traffic generated by 2000 passengers, I did not notice any wear and tear.  Both Marg and myself believe it is the same quality as Princess.

.       Stateroom

The stateroom was a normal size for a modern cruise liner.  What I did find was that their use of mirrors made it seem bigger and brighter.  There was plenty of storage space for both of us.  Both Mary and myself rank it equal to Princess.

.       Facilities

The swimming pools and hot tubs were great.  The outdoor lounging areas were spacious and never crowded.  The gym and spa were modern and well equipped.  The library and the computer facilities were functional and we'll appointed.  The shopping concourse was OK, but then I'm not really a shopper.  Based on the pool area and its hot tubs , both us would give the edge to Celebrity.

.       Entertainment

The main theatre is an excellent facility.  During the day there were several guest lecturers with topics that ranged from ancient history to an intimate look into the daily life at the White House.  In the evening the live shows were generally good and some of the acts were outstanding.

During the sea days that were plenty of activities to keep you occupied and entertained.  We spent a lot of time at the trivia challenges but there were other activities such as the casino and wine tasting to name a few.

Marg points out that on our Princess cruise we were the Brunets and the Rockburnes and participated in a different set of activities and enjoyed other types of entertainment.  Therefore it is hard to compare the classic apples to oranges.

I would give the edge again to Celebrity, but Marg calls it a draw.

.       Bars/Lounges

There are two large lounges and several smaller more intimate bars on board the Constellation.   The service could use a little improvement but generally it was fine.  The bands at these lounges were very good.  They ranged from a dance band to a jazz band to a acoustic guitarist to a classical string trio.  We both would give a small advantage to Princess.

Dining

The food as you would expect on a cruise is outstanding.  The main meals in the San Macro restaurant were delicious and the wine selection terrific. The lunch menu in the restaurant was always interesting and tasty.  The food in the buffet was varied and of excellent quality.  We did not try the speciality restaurants.  If the best restaurant we've ever eaten in scores a 10, then Princess would be a 9 and the Celebrity Constellation would be an 8.5, only because Princess had better desserts.  Marg felt that overall she would give a slight advantage to Princess, but she still enjoyed the Celebrity's food.

Staff

As we've noted in the blog, the captain and his fellow officers are head and shoulders above any other ship that we have travelled on.  Captain Tasos was very involved with his passengers and his positive, friendly attitude infected the rest of his crew making it an outstanding experience.

Our dining room staff on our Princess cruise were outstanding and I believe that they can never be topped.  Our dining room staff on the Constellation were personable and efficient but just seemed to lack that little extra personality that we had on the Princess cruise.  Marg also pointed out that our table on Princess had three staff for six people, where as our table of ten had a crew of three on Celebrity.

Our maitre d' on the Constellation attended our table each night to ensure that we had no complaints about the food and the service.  Although he was friendly enough, he didn't strike us as being someone who added anything special to the cruise.  Marg still raves about the maitre d' on the Princess cruise.  Marg says he looked and sounded like Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy and often greeted Marg, Joan and Heather a hug and a kiss when they entered the dining room.

Our stateroom staff were extremely friendly and very thorough.  As the standing joke goes, if you left your room for than 5 minutes, you would come back to find it cleaned.  The other onboard staff were always friendly and smiling.  It just made you feel good and relaxed to be onboard.

We split our vote here.  I would give the advantage to Celebrity and Marg likes Princess better.

Overall we both would recommend either cruise line, but I would give a small edge to Celebrity and Marg would give the advantage to Princess.  Would we do another cross Atlantic cruise.  Yes, in a heartbeat.

December 10 - Home

We arrived home early this afternoon after staying in Toronto overnight.  It was a long trip home.

The ship asks that everyone vacate their cabin early in the morning so that they can clean and prepare it for the next set of passengers  who will be arriving around noon today.  So we were off the ship around 9:15am and had to wait until 10:30 for our shuttle bus from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale  to the Miami airport.  Our flight from Miami to Toronto was delayed from 3:30pm until 4:00pm because American Airlines had not scheduled a flight crew for this flight and they had to call up a crew from Dallas to fly the plane.  So that meant we didn't get in to our hotel until 8:30pm.

When we disembarked from the Celebrity Constellation, we noticed a Princess cruise ship docked beside us.  It turns out that this is the ship that Ken & Joan Rockburne had taken for their Caribbean cruise and had we left our ship a little earlier in the morning we might have bumped into each other.

Our flight home took us over the Daytona Speedway.  It is monstrous in size.  It must be quite the site when all 170,000 people are in the stands.

It is a real culture shock when you leave the boat.  For two weeks, you are treated like royalty with service that is beyond your wildest expectations. The you come ashore and it seems that everybody is either angry at something or don't care about their jobs.  And of course onboard almost everything is prepaid and when you came back to reality you have to start grabbing for your wallet.

December 8 - Western Atlantic

It is hard to believe but we are in the last day of our cruise.  The seas are calm and the temperature is very warm.  It is a perfect day to relax by the pool.

The captain’s morning briefing was about how much we consumed on this cruise.  The boat travelled over 5,000 nautical miles and used $1,500,000 in fuel, we ate 16,000 eggs and 1,200 lobsters, just to list some of the numbers I remember of the top of my head.  I would love to know what the operating budget for the ship is on an annual basis.

At the trivia challenge this afternoon we did OK and finished 6^th for the whole tournament.

In the afternoon we finally saw another boat.  This is the first sign of humanity that we have seen since the Celebrity Equinox, which was several days ago.  We will be passing the Bahamas sometime this evening and be in Fort Lauderdale at 6:00am tomorrow.

It was sad at supper tonight as we said our goodbyes to our new found friends.  But we’ve exchanged contact information and I’m sure that we’ll keep in touch.  In fact Norm has asked if we wanted to go another cruise with them, but believe it or not we’ve already booked trips for the next two years.

December 7 - Western Atlantic

This is our third 25 hour day in a row.  We keep crossing time zones each night.  Currently we are in the Atlantic time zone.

The ship has slowed down and Captain Tasos says is it because we were approaching the Bermuda Triangle and he wanted to have the Celebrity Equinox pass us and enter the triangle first, just in case something bad would happen.

The adoration of Captain Tasos continues.  Today at the pool there was a volleyball contest between the officers of the bridge, which included the Captain, and the staff of housekeeping.  The crowd was huge and the pool deck was packed.

Marg is feeling a bit better.  All our new friends were relieved when she appeared on deck.

Unfortunately the progressive trivia contest was not held today.  It has become a pleasant habit.

Two ladies have brought their stupid little dogs on board and we're not talking service dogs either. They push them around in little baby carriages and take them into the dining areas and lounges, where we saw one of them allowing their dog to drink out of a martini glass.  Given my allergies to dog hair, I can't imagine how bad it would be if I had their cabin in the next cruise.  Marg has written a complaint to Celebrity complaining how unhygienic this is.

Tonight was the formal captain’s night.  We had our picture taken with Captain Tasos before adjourning to the dining room were had their best meal of the cruise.  I had Oysters Rockefeller, Tomato Bisque , Lobster and Baked Alaska.  Marg had a Blue Cheese Soufflé, Caesar Salad, Lobster and Apple Pie.

December 6 - Western Atlantic

The boat is starting take a slightly more northerly course.  We’re about 2/3 of the way between the Canary Islands and Fort Lauderdale.  The waves are about 3 meters in height but the ride has not been too rough.  Today I saw our first form of civilization, outside of the ship, in three days.  I saw a jet contrail heading towards the southwest.  We are not alone.

Captain Tasos is a becoming a rock star.  He is easily the most accessible and entertaining captain of any cruise ship we’ve been on.  His approach is also reflected in how his staff perform their jobs.

Each day there is a lecture by various speakers on topics as diverse as the daily life in the White House or ancient history.  Usually the theater is about ¼ full but today the Captain held a Q&A session on how the ship is run and the auditorium was packed with 1,000 people to hear his explanations, which he delivered with his usual mix of intelligence and humour.

After the lecture, the staff held their talent show.  As usual with these types of shows it was a mix of good singers and bad comedy.  At the end several members of the bridge came out and danced a Greek folk dance.  About half way through Captain Tasos joined them on stage and brought the house down.  The loyalty of his passengers is amazing to see.

In the trivia challenge today we finished 3^rd  but we are too far behind the leaders to catch up with only two rounds left.  Maybe next time.

Marg passed on dinner tonight.  She still is feeling ill and didn’t feel up to leaving the room and instead order in room service.

I went to the evening show, which was a London West end musical theatre star named Lindsey Hamilton.  You have to remember that they use the term star very loosely.  She had a good voice but her selection of songs was very predictable.

Sometimes reality has a way of interjecting itself into the present.  At dinner tonight there was a group of passengers sitting next to us, who were dressed up in bizarre / fancy hats and costumes.  They were having a good time.  During dessert we heard a distress call over the ship’s intercom for an emergency in the dining room.  It turned out one of the passengers in that group was having a heart attack.  We have no idea what his condition is but it didn’t look promising.


More photos from Celebrity Constellation

December 5 - Mid Atlantic

Last night at 2am we crossed the midpoint of the Atlantic Ocean.  Bermuda is now the nearest land to us at about 800 nautical miles.  

The staff is a diverse ethnical group.  There are from Turkey, Arabia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, United Kingdom and the Philippines.  They are all fluent in English and are always cheerful and polite.  It seems that they are always either cleaning the rooms and the hallways or offering to get you a drink or take your empty dishes away.

The ship had a full brunch laid on for us today.  I’ve never seen such a spread.  There were multiple tables full of cereals, fruits, cheeses, eggs, meats, waffles, sushi, caviar, hot luncheon entrees and any type of pastry or dessert you could imagine.  

As entertainment they had an excellent classical guitarist playing during the meal, followed by a string quartet.

During the brunch we met a couple from Florida.  He was a retired Coast Guard officer.  He has been to each continent with the exception of Antarctica.  He told us that he and sons are taking an adventure tour there within the year, where they will see various wildlife and visit some of the research stations.

At the trivia tournament we failed to gain any points.  It was a geography quiz where you had to identify a building and its location in twenty photos.  We scored 33 out of 40, but it was not good enough.

The headline act at the theatre was Jon Courtney. He is a British pianist who’s act is similar to some of the old borsch belt acts, such as Victor Borga and Liberace.  It consists of playing part of song and then telling some jokes in between.  He was “pee your pants” funny.  He interacted with the audience and told jokes and stories that ranged from Suri and Apple IPODs to his relationship with his grandparents. If you ever see him at local comedy club, please take the time to go see him.  You won’t be disappointed.

Late in the afternoon I noticed that the pool staff were securing the deck chairs and that there were dark skies to the north.  As the evening has progressed the seas have been getting progressively worse.  It could be an interesting night.

Marg has come down with the same bug I had earlier in the week.  She spent the afternoon resting and not too far from the toilet.


More photos from Celebrity Constellation - Click here

December 4 - Mid Atlantic

Captain Tasos has set a more southerly course and the seas have been very calm today.  The waves are about 1m to 1.5m in height.  The oceans depth is 4km.  The temperature is very comfortable but there is still a strong breeze.

Marg started the morning with a visit to the spa, where she had a massage and a beauty treatment.  I went to the Spa’s healthy breakfast buffet where I had Apple Cider Oatmeal and a chocolate beet muffin.  It tasted better than it sounds.  I then visited the gym to get back into the weight lifting exercises for my tendonitis.  The gym has most of the equipment that you would find in a regular gym, except it is just a scaled down version.

I’m not sure if it is cruising in general or just this particular cruise, but there seems to be a significant number of older gay couples on board.

In our trivia tournament we finished fourth in the today’s round.  It was questions based on music and movies spanning the period from the 1940’s to today. So we are still in contention for the championship.

Every afternoon "Friends of Bill W" meet.  It turns out that this code for AA.  I'm not sure if this is an universal code or just for this cruise.  I can't imagine how hard it must be for a member of AA to have all this alcohol available.

There were two shows for this evening entertainment.  The first show was called White Magic, which was an illusionist and his partner who was a contortionist.  The magician was good but the contortionist was great.  She would not have been out of place in any starring role at any Vegas show.   For her climax act she balanced her whole body on a thin rod by only using her mouth to grab onto the rod.

After dinner we went a show called the Liar’s Club.  On the panel were the captain, the cruise director named JC and the activity director named Mark.  They were given four obscure words and they had to come up with a definition.  Each of them is a very talented joke/story teller.  It made for a hilarious hour of entertainment as they gave us their definitions and told us their associated stories.

I think that captain must have some groupies in female staff.  At the liars club I saw several females in the audience who were much younger than the average passenger.  I can only conclude that they were part of the staff, whose duties had concluded for the day.


More photos from Celebrity Constellation

December 3 - Eastern Atlantic

Today was spent relaxing and participating in trivia challenges.  Our team in the second round of the progressive trivia challenge finished third, so we are still in contention.  These trivia challenges are lots of fun and you get to meet a large number of the passengers.

The last few days Celebrity has been hawking their future cruises by claiming huge discounts and signing bonuses for booking a future cruise on-board. Given that we have booked a Mediterranean cruise with Celebrity next summer, we went down to their kiosk to check what savings we might be able to get and found that Anna Oliva  from Merit had been able to get us a far better deal that what they could offer.  Our cost through Anna was $2,000 less than what Celebrity was asking and Celebrity was only offering up to $800 in credits.  Thanks Anna.

The seas have been a little bit calmer today.  The waves are about 2 meters in height.  So people are not feeling as queasy as they were yesterday.  Norm though seems to have caught a sinus infection.  It seems to be going around the ship.

The passengers are a mix of Americans, Canadians, Brits with a small number of Europeans and Arabs.  Surprisingly there isn’t a large number of Japanese or Chinese.  At times it seems that we are back in Port Stanley as everyone says hello even though they don’t know you from Adam.  I’m disappointed with Marg.  There are at least 3000 passengers and crew and she is only friends with a 1000 people, but the cruise isn’t over yet.

The evening’s show was a comedian / sound effects impersonator named Steven Scott.  His comedy was a bit lame but when he combined it with his sound effects he was very funny.

More photos from Celebrity Constellation

December 2 - Eastern Atlantic

Our captain’s name is Tasos Kafetzis.  The captain has a wonderful sense of humour.  He gives a daily update on the progress of the ship and a marine report on the weather and sea conditions.  

During this report he always manages to slip in a couple of jokes or witty comments usually based around Greek mythology.  One day he was saying that he was going to be performing a portside swing into the dock and that was not his favorite maneuver as he preferred a starboard swing instead.  When asked the difference, he stated “180 degrees”.

This is the first full day of our Atlantic crossing.  In the morning we listened to the 10am captain’s briefing were he described how he intended on navigating around a cold front that was descending from the North Atlantic.   The course will roughly be on the 29^th parallel.  Unfortunately as the day progressed the ocean got rougher.  By evening the waves were getting to be about five meters or more in height. 

During dinner there were more than a few green gills around the table.  This included both Marg and myself.  I also think that I may have caught some type of bug as I was wiped most the afternoon and evening.  This was unfortunate timing as tonight was another formal dining night.  They had Chateaubriand and I was only able to eat about a half of the meal.

In the morning we went to a lecture by the captain on how Celebrity had built their Solstice class of cruise ship, which includes the Equinox – the ship we’ll be taking in our next cruise.  Captain Tasos was the safety officer in that project.

More photos from Celebrity Constellation 

December 1 - Las Palmas in Gran Carnair

This morning we arrived at Las Palmas, Gran Canaria in the Spanish Canary Islands.  This will be the last land we touch until next week when we disembark in Fort Lauderdale.

We took a bus tour of the island, where we were amazed at how populated the island is, with Las Palmas being a city the size of London Ontario along with many smaller villages. Las Palmas is a very modern city, with tall apartment towers and shopping malls.

From the top of tallest mountain you can see that the island is very lush with lots of vegetation.  It is very different from Lanzarote.  Even though it is volcanic island, the soil is not covered in thick ash and lava stone.

As we descended from the mountain, we drove along an extremely curvy road.  It seemed that there switch backs every 50 meters or so and the driver pushed the bus through them at a very fast pace.  

Unfortunately Marg’s stomach couldn’t handle it and she had to take a Gravol.  Along the way our guide pointed out some cave homes.  These are caves in the hills that are inhabited.  They have false fronts on them to make them look like actual houses.

After our descent we arrived at the market town of Teror.  The Sunday market was in progress in the main village square.  Given how busy the traffic was, this must be a major event in the village life.  Marg bought some souvenirs and a couple delicious macaroon cookies.  I walked around the town to look at the architecture.  This African town would not be out of place in southern Europe. 

We then went to Arucus, which is home to the island’s main basilica.  It is a tall imposing church made of black volcanic stone.  We arrived just as mass was over and we got to see the locals in their Sunday bests.

We returned to Las Palmas, where we had the guide drop us off close to the beach.  We walked to beach where we had lunch at one the many boardwalk restaurants

On our return to the ship we could not find the shuttle bus to the Celebrity Constellation.  Our guide had given use inaccurate directions and we couldn’t get a taxi to take us to the dock. We started to feel panicky because if we missed the boat we would have had to fly back to Fort Lauderdale, which is the next port of call.  Luckily we found some other passengers from the Constellation, who directed us to the buses and we got back in plenty of time.

On the TV there was a program that showed how the captain was plotting the course to Ft. Lauderdale.  There are two major storms in the mid Atlantic Ocean and he is setting a course south of these storm fronts.  He had also stated how much fuel the ship had taken on.  For trip across the Atlantic the boat took on 250,000 gallons of fuel and the cost was $1,000,000.  We found out that the ship uses a gallon of fuel to go 10ft.

The evening show was a very interesting Irish violinist named Craig Haliday.  He played a wide selection of songs, from Gun & Roses, John Williams and of course Riverdance.

More pictures from the Canary Islands

November 30 - Lanzarote Spain

Today we landed on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, which is part of Spain.  This is a volcanic island where civilization was wiped off the map when the island erupted in a ten year long series of volcanic eruptions in the late 18^th century.  Even today the volcanic ash makes up the main component of the island’s soil.

We started our tour of the island by visiting a vineyard.  The first thing we noticed was that the farmer’s field consisted of circular pits surrounded by a small rock walls to protect the pits from the prevailing winds.  In each pit, which was dug down past the volcanic ash into the soil, was planted a grapevine.

At the vineyard there was a fitness contest which involved athletes from all over the world.  Some the activities included long distance running, weight lifting and chin ups. Given the number of spectators this competition is very popular.

We then went to the base of one of the volcanoes where we took a camel ride up the mountain for about 30 minutes.  These camels have been trained very well and it was exciting to be on top of one of these ships of the desert.  We rode on a camel named Poloma.  She has reputation of being a bit of renegade with a mind of her own.  The camel behind us loved the smell of Marg’s hair as she was nuzzling up to Marg’s neck for most of the trek.  This is one of Marg’s most memorable moments of the cruise so far.

We then went into the Tinto Fire National Park, where we got a close up view of the volcanoes.  At one of the demonstration sights, the guide place some pebbles dug from just below the surface into our hands.  The pebbles were very hot.  At this site there was a geothermal oven which was used to BBQ chicken.  The pit was dug to a depth of 20m and the surface temperature was a constant 150c.

More photos from Canary Islands

At dinner tonight, Norman jokingly paid a complement to Marg by calling her Mrs Wonderful, because she enjoys everything with no complaints.  I can’t think of more accurate complement to describe her.  

Later we went to a karaoke contest.  One of the female singers had an amazing voice and she made the show.  I hope she wins the final contest later this week.

  

November 29 - Marrakesh

Today we touched the soil of Africa for the first time in our lives.  We’ve been looking forward to this day since we booked the cruise.  It’s is going to be a great experience to discover the culture of Northern Africa as we expect it will be very different from anything we’ve been exposed to before.

We landed in Agadir Morocco.  This city of about one million residences was levelled by an earthquake in the 1960s and since it has been rebuilt it has become a very a popular European tourist destination.  Unfortunately much of the Arab culture was replaced with European friendly shops and restaurants.  So we decided instead to take a trip to the city of Marrakesh.  Marrakesh is about 150 miles northeast.

The bus took us up and over the Atlas Mountains into the sub Sahara desert.  The land is very rocky and as you would expect dry.  On the west side of the mountains the ground is red and filled with iron.  There seems to be some agriculture with the main crop being the Argane tree.  They use the nut from this tree to produce skin oil for beauty products.  As we passed one farm, the Argane tree was filled with several goats.  Apparently they are trained to climb the trees and knock the nuts from the branches.

The farm houses are flat rectangular shaped buildings with a distinct reddish colour.  It seems that barns that house the sheep and goats are attached to the houses.

The road between Agadir and Marrakesh is a modern four lane highway but it had very little traffic.

More photos from Morocco

Our tour guide, Najib, was an informative and entertaining actor.  He gave us an interesting history of Morocco and how the major towns were developed based on which tribe ruled Morocco at the time.  He told us about the recent politics of Morocco and how the royal family has been progressive and liberal, so that problems that caused the Arab Spring revolutions in other Arab countries did not take root in Morocco.  He stated that the progressive nature of the Moroccan government had also encouraged foreign investment and that many European, American and Asian companies now had factories in Morocco.

He explained that women’s rights have been greatly improved in Morocco. This included advances in education, family law and the workplace.  Unfortunately, he then followed up this explanation with a series of comments and jokes that were very chauvinistic and insulting to western women. 

Marrakesh is a strange city.  It is a combination of ultra modern and very old architecture and roads.  It is human zoo wrapped around a very powerful spiritual Islamic culture.  During the tour Najib took pains to explain the Islamic religion, or as best can be done in a single day.  He explained that faithful must pray five times a day.  There are five major pillars of the faith and that the Moroccan flag has a five pointed star that equates to those beliefs. Each mosque has a pool or fountain so that the faithful can cleanse themselves before entering the mosque for prayer.   

We started the city tour by visiting the outside of the city’s main mosque.  When we arrived the imam was calling the faithful to prayer from the minaret.  We then went to a royal palace where the medieval king had four wives and 20 mistresses in the same palace.  The tile floors and archway entrances to each of the wives houses was very unique.

We then went for lunch, in the old Jewish quarter, where we were entertained with a performance of local culture that included a percussion band, singers and a belly dancer.  Usually these types of meals are insulting to both your intelligence and your palette, but this had very interesting entertainment and the food was good.  It was Moroccan chicken and Couscous with mint honey tea.  As we left a vendor with a cart of dead chickens rolled his cart pass the restaurant and we all joked that he was bring them to the restaurant for the next group of tourist.

This was followed up by a trip to an 300 year old Islamic school, where we got to see the architecture of the school and the spartan rooms where the students stayed and studied. We also visited a private school for 5 year olds where we got to see them practice their alphabet.  It was very special.

When we left we took a maze of crowed and narrow alleyways to the main city market square.  Here you could find snake charmers, whirling dervishes, Moroccan bands, fortune tellers and just about any type of street performer or con artist that you can imagine.   It is loud and colourful and everything I had expected.

As we passed a snake charmer, I took a picture of the cobra.  Of course you are expected to pay for the experience and I was immediate accosted by one of the snake charmers, who placed a live snake around my neck and offered to take my picture for good luck, and a fee of course.  I had read that these cobras have had their fangs removed and are mostly safe, so I wasn’t too freaked out. I also had a feeling that it was a fake snake, although Marg assures me it was real.  It took me three times to ask him politely to remove the snake before he did.  I think he realized that next time I was just going to take hold of the snake and toss it.

Marg was not all that impressed with old city.  She found it dirty, noisy and extremely crowded.  The narrow alleyways are shared with pedestrians and young men who go whipping down the streets on their motor scooters.   The shopping stalls are filled with junk that was described as rejects from an American flea market by one of our group.  The so called bargains we not in evidence, at least not in the shops that we saw.

We were not particularly impressed with our guide once we got into Marrakesh.   We wasted a lot of time as he took us to two shops where he said they offered the best products at the best prices.  Of course we all knew he was getting a kickback, because he kept asking us not to tell his boss that we had gone to these stores.  Also the merchandise was nothing special.   He also loved the sound of his own voice and wasted our time as he explained everything several times over.  The highlight for most people on this tour was the town market square but because of these delays we only had 30 minutes there to observe the surroundings and shop for souvenirs.   With all this wasted time, we arrived back ninety minutes late to the boat and missed our dinner seating.

As Marg was to say, we’ve seen it and we don’t need to see it again.

More photos from Marrakech

Later we went to the evening show in the theatre.  There we saw a British musical impressionist named Gary Thompson.  He did a very good Tom Jones and David Bowie.  His other impersonations were just average.  His comedy was hilarious though.  I thought Norman was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard.

November 28 - At Sea

This morning we left the Mediterranean Sea and entered the Atlantic Ocean.  We sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar at about 9am.  We had a good vantage point from our balcony to view the famous Rock of Gibraltar as we sailed by.  Unfortunately it was very cloudy, so what else is new, and the rock was somewhat covered in a light fog.  We could make out the coast of Morocco but it to was shrouded in a heavy mist.   

While we were viewing the Rock of Gibraltar a school for dolphins passed our ship.  This is the first of what we hope will be many sightings of marine wildlife as we cross the ocean.

There are eight hot tubs on board.  Four are outdoors and the other four are in an enclosed area where they are protected from the weather.  I’ve been in the hot tubs every day that we’ve been at sea.  The swimming pools are not very large but because of the cool weather that we have been having they are not too crowded.  One of the pools is a therapeutic pool but the waves in that pool are too powerful when the seas are rough and it is quite dangerous to be in that pool at that time.

We are getting along very well with our dining room partners.  They are a very diverse group of people. There is couple from Ketchikan Alaska.  Keith, who is a lawyer, and his wife Gillian are very interesting.  She has an autoimmune disease that has caused her to have trouble with her motor skills, but despite her difficulties she is always smiling.  Keith is also an avid sailor who has taken boats from Alaska to Hawaii.  Felice and Norman are from Florida, formerly Rochester NY.  He is the class clown, who always has a quick funny remark for most situations. He is also a very caring person. He is one of those rare Americans that I have meet that doesn't believe that caring about the disadvantaged of this world is a sign of weakness.  Terry and Mary Anne are from Hamilton.   He is very proud of his Scottish heritage and goes to most of the highland games in Ontario in full Celtic warrior custom. This includes chainmail vests, helmets and kilts.  He wouldn’t look out of place in Braveheart.  Gary and Sherri are from LA.  He is a retired lawyer who has gone into acting and appeared in many plays in the LA area.  Sherry was a senior executive with several American companies and a cancer survivor.  Both Felice and Sherry are big time football fans.

This afternoon we played in a trivia contest with our new found friends.  The questions were extremely hard and we only scored 10 out of 20.

Today is American Thanksgiving, so of course we had turkey for supper.  Unfortunately the evening was spoiled for a couple of moments when a group of Americans started singing “God Bless America” in the middle of the meal.  You could tell most Americans in the restaurant were embarrassed this uncalled for display of patriotism.

After the meal the lawyers started playing word games to test each other’s oratory skills.  It was fun to watch them battle it out.

It is also Chanukah and our American friends went to a service to celebrate with other passengers of the Jewish faith.

The evening show in the theater was a music and dance show based on Hollywood movies.  It was fun and the singers were quite talented. 

November 27 - Cartagena Spain

The boat is taking on a festive look.  The main foyer is now decorated for Christmas complete with wreathes and Christmas trees.  It looks a lot better than their selection of modern art that they have on the staircases.  On our floor it is a persevered Dandelion.

Tonight we joined the glamorous life of show business.  We went to the Constellation theatre to see Johnny Balance, a magician from Australia.  He was very good at sleight of hand card tricks.  For many of his tricks he required members of the audience to assist him.   For his first trick he asked Marg and myself to join him on stage.  When we got up there he took Marg aside and had her give him 10 cards.  While she was doing this he had me shaking my booty on stage.  As everyone knows, I can’t dance so I’m praying that no one took a video and is putting it up on the Internet.  He then gave the cards back to Marg and had me give him 10 cards.  He then made a big production of magically moving three cards from Marg’s deck to mine.  We then counted our cards, Marg had seven cards and I had thirteen cards.   Of course my dancing acted as the distraction that allowed him to palm three cards from the cards Marg had given him and when he returned the cards that I had given him, he just added the palmed cards to my deck without me noticing.  Many of the other tricks were very good as ours was just the opening trick.

The bad weather has followed us to Cartagena Spain.  The farmers can thank us as we brought the first measurable rain to the region in seven months.  I guess this is better than the heavy snow that has blanketed Port Stanley,

Cartagena is a city of 100,000 residents and is a sea port on the south eastern coast of Spain. It was settled by the Carthaginians 2000 years ago.  It was noted for mineral deposits such as silver and lead.  Unfortunately the area is now mined out and the mines have all closed. 

There is a tourist area close by that was developed by the British and it is now a leading golf resort in Europe. 

The town centre and main shopping area are quaint but other than that the rest of attractions are lame.  There is an old Roman theatre and a medieval fort that people have told us are nothing to write home about.

We went on a tour called Handicrafts and Wine cellars.  We thought it would be trip to a pottery factory and an elegant vineyard with an old wine cellar.  It turned out to be a trip to large retail pottery store outside of Cartagena, followed by a trip to a small vineyard housed in a large converted garage.  It wasn’t a complete waste of time as we learnt how they make sparkling wine.  We had never seen that before.

More photos from Cartagena

I’m hearing from many people that the onboard Internet service is worst than pathetic.   Because the connection is over a satellite uplink, the speed is about 1/1000 of the normal household connection.  It is good for sending text only emails and not much else.  On days when the seas are rough the satellite uplink has been very inconsistent.

November 26 - At Sea

Last night we left the Port of Livorno Italy for Cartagena Spain.  We went north of Corsica and then travelled southwest toward the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.  In the middle of the night the seas turned rough.  By morning the ship was battling 10m waves.  With all this rockin’ and rollin’ going on you just don’t feel right.  No one that we know has seasickness but you’re constantly aware that you’re not stable.

As the evening has progressed the sea has claimed down and it has started to feel normal again when walking through the hallways.

This is our first full day on the sea, so for entertainment we went to three trivia contests.  The questions are unbelievable hard. Our team tied for first in the first contest.  We didn’t rank in the second round but in the third contest, which was based on 60s music, we scored 38 out of 40 and finished tied for second.

Marg and myself both agreed that the staff is the friendliest crew that we’ve encountered on any of our cruises, with the possible exception of the Scenic river cruise that we took a couple of years ago.  They are always smiling and are very helpful.

Tonight was our first formal dinner.  Terry Wallace from Hamilton, who sits at our dining room table, went in full Scottish attire.  It came complete with jacket, puffy shirt and a kilt.  Larry who is a lawyer/actor from Los Angles wore his tux.  Joan R. would be happy to know that I wore my black suit with a white shirt to match my hair.  Marg wore her long formal black gown with her elegant red, black and gold top.

For dinner Marg had lamb chops and I had seared duck with a dry Riesling from Australia.  I was especially happy because they finally had cold fruit soup as the second course.  Tonight it was Pear and Honey soup.

November 25 - Pisa and Florence

This morning we arrived at the port of Livorno Italy, where we started our tour of Pisa and Florence in the Tuscany district of northern Italy.  The first thing we noticed when we woke up and looked out our window was that you could see the Italian Alpine mountains and they had lots of snow on their peaks.  We knew we were in for a cold day.

Last year during our Italian tour we stopped in Florence for a day and a half but we missed Pisa. So we were excited for this second chance.

Our bus trip to Pisa took about 30 minutes where we first passed by an American military base which was home to about 1000 families and was 400 km²  in size.  I guess the cold war is still not over. 

After departing from our tour bus in Pisa we had quite a long trek to get to famous Leaning Tower.  Here we took a lot of pictures including several of usual ones with one of us pretending to hold up the tower.  The cathedral was under repair but the tower and the baptistery were in their full magnificent glory.  While we were there, an engineering crew was measuring the slant of the tower.  I guess this a periodic safety check to ensure that tower remains stable.

More pictures from Pisa

The tour then travelled to Florence, which is about an hour drive from Pisa.  After lunch in S. Croce Square, Marg went shopping and I went to some of the famous sites that I missed last year.  I went to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge to see the goldsmiths in action.

 

I then followed the path through the major sites of the old part of Florence that are described in Dan Brown’s novel “Infernal.”  Most of the museums were closed as it is their custom to close on Mondays. 

It was so cold in Florence that it started to snow for a short period of time.

Walking on these cobblestone streets really is hard on the joints.  Everyone on the bus seemed to be limping, by the end of the day.

More pictures from Florence

For dinner we had a Spanish Rojas wine, which Marg really liked.

After dinner we went to the stage show and saw a Welsh comedian/singer named Mike Doyle.  It was a very funny and entertaining show.  Head and shoulders above the shows that we were subjected to on the Holland American cruise we went on last year. 

November 24 - At Sea

As we write this entry we are in the Tyrrhemian Sea between Corsica and Grosseto Italy, on our way to Livorno.  There is a bright half moon rising to the east over the water.

Today we boarded our ship the “Celebrity Constellation” for the Three Continents Cruise. The ship at first appearances is excellent.  There are lots of recreation areas, many spacious lounges and wonderful dining facilities.  There many hot tubs and a therapeutic pool, which should help my tendonitis.  The room is a normal size for a cruise ship but the mirrors on the wall make it seem to be much larger.

The embarkation procedure was very quick.  There were no hassles and the documentation process was quick and painless.  When we boarded we were met with a very tasty lunch buffet.

At the hotel we talked with several couples who were also going on this cruise.  They all had travelled with Celebrity before and gave it high marks.

At dinner we were seated with four other couples.  They were from California, Florida, Alaska and Hamilton Ontario.  The Hamilton couple were wondering if there was a sports bar because they wanted to know the results of the Grey Cup.  I told them that even though it was 9pm on the boat, the game still had yet to start in Regina.   The Americans loved to talk politics and of course Toronto’s mayor Ford was a topic of conversation.

The diner was a four course meal.  Marg had shrimp Louis, Gazpacho soup, seared salmon and a dessert.  I also had the shrimp, along with a salad and a thick pork chop with a banana/blueberry crepe for dessert.