Momof3gurlz

The food has been good, not great. It’s easy to think it’s better than Royal, but I think it’s more that the menus are different and a little more varied. Also, as I said initially, the overall dining experience is more enjoyable and relaxing. We only did one specialty dinner which was the Rooftop Garden. It was very, very good and like Royal’s specialty restaurants, definitely a notch or two above in quality. If you and Linda decide to do this one, don’t miss the dry rub smoked chicken wings!

Palma de Mallorca today, our last port. We end the cruise in Barcelona tomorrow. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here are a few pictures from our ship excursion in France to the villages of Seillans and Feyonce. Two for @Ocean Boy, the first is the lighthouse at the port of Cannes. And of course the obligatory foot photo. It’s been a great cruise. I have quite a few pics from around the ship to share as well as my final thoughts on Celebrity vs RCI. Spoiler - it’s closer than I would’ve thought! Probably won’t get to that post for a while as we plan to make the most of our two days in Barcelona.

Sea day today, the weather is perfect once again. I typed out a whole long post with pictures but it went poof, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to try again. @helen haywood I finally visited the internet desk. Turns out it’s not a setting on my phone that prevents access to these boards, you need Premium WiFi. So right now I’m using some of my 90 minutes of Premium which is one of the Elite benefits.

@dani negreanu what a wonderful surprise you arranged for your grandsons, I’m sure the visit with the whole family was appreciated by all. By the way, such handsome men!

Also, great news @mo&fran. Best wishes for your continued healing and happy upcoming 80th birthday!

I’m reading quickly while on a bus tour into the French countryside, but had to comment here. Your words reminded me of one of my favorite sayings: ”Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have”.

@Ozark_Kid I. hope you have a great cruise and no more hiccups!

Oh my gosh, I had a minor panic when I couldn’t find the hair dryer anywhere! Had to flag down our room attendant who showed me the secret drawer. I haven’t made it to the internet desk yet, but will let you know for sure when I do. We have only Classic with the ‘All Included’. If upgrading to premium is required for accessing this board then I’ll only be posting while in port on my AT & T 5g. Today was Portofino Italy. Such a beautiful little town to wander. And if you happen to be a millionaire, there’s some nice shopping here - Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Dior, etc. I guess if you own one of the luxury yachts docked in the marina, you need to wear the designer stuff. @Coralc also wanted to mention, I wore sneakers with my flowered dress in Rome. It’s a thing now and I honestly think I’ve seen more women (of all ages) in casual dresses with sneakers or flat sandals than in shorts. I found the lightweight fabric to be very comfortable in the heat.

It’s an E2 Infinite Veranda. Yes, bathroom is in back of the closet.

No there’s a bed lol, forgot to include this picture. The cabin is quite spacious.

From around the ship Grand Plaza (centrum) Solarium pool Outdoor seating at the back of Ocean View Cafe (buffet) Rooftop Garden First drink on the Magic Carpet. Meh - one and done for me. Twice a day room service and chocolates on your pillow in the evening. Food in the OV Cafe has been great. Dinner in one of the dining rooms last night was enjoyable. The food quality was about on par with Royal, the big difference was atmosphere. Quiet and relaxing, no servers rushing and scurrying around trying to take care of more guests than they should have to. Today we just walked around Ajaccio a bit. Pretty little town but not much was open being a Sunday. We stumbled upon a big farmer’s market and enjoyed all the sights and sounds of that.

As promised, below are a few pictures from the ship. But before I get to those I wanted to add a couple more from our Rome Hotel. I just can’t say enough good things about this place. These are from the morning breakfast buffet, included in the room cost. This beautiful piece was tucked into an alcove walking to the breakfast area. Andy guessed it was a furnace of some type, the exterior appears to be porcelain. Easiest embarkation ever. From exiting our shuttle service vehicle at 12:30 pm to walking onto the ship was less than 5 minutes. Also, Celebrity allows you drop any carryon bags in your statement right away, they just ask that you not linger so any remaining cleaning etc can be done. Well at 12:40 our room was already made up. The bathroom is pretty spacious.

Good morning from the Edge docked in Ajaccio, Corsica, FR. The ship is beautiful. I love the Infinite View Veranda, it makes the room feel so much bigger. Andy’s not crazy about it. We’re impressed with Celebrity so far in almost every aspect. The only negative is I cannot access these boards using ship WiFi. All other websites are fine and I can get to any other area of CC, but if I click on ‘Boards’, it completely freezes. I’m on now because we’re in port using our 5G. I’ll visit the internet desk later because this happened last year on Voyager and they changed a setting in my phone which took care of it. Photos later today, we are off to explore Ajaccio. @dani negreanu I’m so sorry your DH was in the hospital and hope he’s on the mend. I was getting worried that we hadn’t heard from you but now understand why.

A few pictures from the past couple of days. Moi at Piazza Navonna Trevi Dinner tonight. The waiter was horrified that Andy asked for ‘extra sauce’ for his pasta and meatballs, lol.

It’s been a very busy couple of days in Rome. Yesterday we visited Piazza Navonna, the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. Last night was a twilight food tour through the Trastevere neighborhood. I booked this with Eating Europe and would definitely recommend them to anyone. There were five other couples on the tour, our guide was great and the food & wine were fantastic. Today we had skip the line tours for the Vatican and Sistine Chapel in the morning, a break for lunch, then another skip the line tour of the Colosseum this afternoon. In hindsight, I should have done the opposite because it was blazing hot at the Colosseum. Tonight we’re having dinner at a restaurant in Campo de Fiori called Giordo’s. It’ll be our third time eating there since we arrived! Dinner the first night, lunch yesterday and dinner again tonight. Really great food and the staff is awesome. I’ll try to post some pics tonight. We’re looking forward to boarding Edge tomorrow and not having to walk a lot, for tomorrow anyway.

@bobmacliberty and anyone else interested. Here are a few photos of our room at the Damaso Hotel. It’s really lovely. They also have a rooftop terrace bar which we will check out at some point. And I may have mentioned, my maiden name is Damaso!

So, Rome. I feel like I’m in Manhattan. The same noise, traffic, crowds, areas of filth and bags of garbage piled up. But also so much beauty and history. I messed up with tonight’s plans. We had a reservation at Oro Bistro which I somehow thought was at the top of the Altar of the Fatherland. It’s actually a terrace on top of a hotel with amazing views of the Altar. Anyway, some pics from today. Laughing that we made it to the train with a couple of Venice Vaporetto snafu’s Lunch in Campo de Fiori. Cacio e Pepe and Spaghetti Carbonara. A quick video of the Italian countryside from the train, exactly as I pictured it IMG_9893.mov Drinks and snacks at Oro Bistro

We made it to Rome today via Italotreno. Then taxi’s to our hotel. If anyone thinks NYC taxi’s are crazy, you should try Rome’s! Our hotel is amazing. Right near Campo de Fiori. I have quite a few pictures to post but we are off to Altar of the Fatherland, reservations for the top, hoping to catch sunset there. I will catch up on photos tonight.

We board Celebrity Edge Saturday 9/30, ending in Barcelona. Greg I’m so sorry you’re suffering. I know from experience how bad they are. I sure hope you’re getting some pain relief or getting that sucker zapped if it hasn’t already passed. @A&L_Ont Andrew I’m sorry you’re in pain also. Hoping you see some improvement soon.

Venice is just gorgeous. We keep saying ‘it’s so beautiful it doesn’t seem real”. We were exhausted last night and both fell asleep by 8pm. I’m hoping to get out for a bit tonight to see it after dark.

A few more pictures of all the touristy things we’ve done. Andy has mastered the art of the twirl

Andy says the problem with flying premium is it’s like a cruise ship balcony cabin - once you have it, it’s hard to go back! Here are some pictures from the room. The bed looks very basic but is very comfortable. You enter into this little vestibule area, bedroom is to the right, bathroom to the left. Included in the rate is a small breakfast buffet which you can eat inside or on this nice little outdoor terrace. @Ocean Boy We paid $300 per night for the room with the terrace. The address is: Campo San Provolo 4701 Castello. We have found it very conveniently located.

We made it to Venice! Our flight was on time and pretty smooth. Venice is just gorgeous and we love the Hotel Fontana, a great recommendation from @dani negreanu. @Ocean Boy, look what we flew on. It was a great flight. The size of the engines is unbelievable! Approaching Italy over the Swiss Alps Hotel Fontana entrance and our cute little balcony

That’s awful Debbie. Thank goodness he didn’t drive you to the airport, THEN say it was $65! Safe travels home. It’s been light but steady rain the entire drive from RI to where we are currently (about to get on the PA Turnpike).

I don’t even know how far behind I am. I just read back a page or so and @Jimbo I have to say those pictures are amazing. I’ve been busy with final packing, we had our pool closed for the winter and got all the furniture put away. Andy did all the fall trimming back of shrubs, etc so we are ready to go! Our flight is scheduled for 7:15 pm tomorrow night and hoping no major delays because of this tropical storm. We fly out of Philadelphia, it was the only nonstop flight I could find to Venice, not even from JFK or Newark. We’ll drive down early tomorrow morning, spend the day with our oldest and her family, then they’ll take us to the airport. So bonus - free parking at their house 🙂. We ended up with one checked bag, one carry on and we each have a backpack. I could’ve done it with just two carryons and the backpacks but we’d have no room for any purchases. I plan to post some updates and photos here and I may do a post vacation Trip Report in the form of a comparison between RC and Celebrity. It’ll tough to sleep tonight!