The bus trip was a bit long and to top it off one poor lady coughed most of the way.  She sounded awful.  Later on the second leg of the trip up the Seine people were dropping like flies with the flu.  It turns out that’s what she had.  Probably needed a mask and antibacterial wipes….for us. Our cruise director from last year told us to avoid anyone with a cold etc and sit away from them.  We did the best we could.

It was so lovely to finally board our ship.  The ship the MS AmaCello was at the port of Arles on the river Rhone.

 

 

 

Check in was very quick and we had a quick shower change and went up for the “Port Talk” with our cruise director.  Oh dear and could he talk.  Port talks are a quick run down of whats going on the next day.  We also found out he expected everyone to come to the talks.  Last year, the cruise director was happy if just one person of each group attended.

 

The four of us settled in on the couches and had a few sparkling wines as he talked.  Not sure if we actually listened to it all.  It had been a long day.

 

As the talk was winding up we sent Peter down to the restaurant to find us a table. As dinner is at one setting it can get a bit hard to be able to sit with your friends.

Dinner didn’t disappoint, and as usual I was well catered for my dietary requirements.  No gluten, fish or peanuts.

Dinner is usually about 4-5 courses with wine with each course.

After dinner we made our way up to the lounge to listen to the music and have a few more drinks.  Perhaps even a bit of dancing! Oh and singing.  Muriel, the eldest sister didn’t disappoint and got up and sang along with our  resident musician who would be tinkling the ivories for the cruise.

 

One of the best things I like about traveling is you get to meet a lot of different people from all walks of life.  We were already traveling with our friends Peter and Tania who  we met on the cruise from the year before.  This year we had the pleasure of meeting Val, a wonderful inspiring lady who was traveling on her own.  Unfortunately her hubby was to have traveled with her but a few weeks out broke a leg.  Lyn does that remind you of anyone?

 

Eventually we went back to our rooms to finish unpacking as we would be on the ship for 7 days.

Our cabin was really nice. Enough storage space for 2 people.  Computer/TV with in house movies and news programs.  Shower and toilet.  Muriel and I had twin beds with plenty of room to move around.  We were on the bottom deck this time with just small windows.  That didn’t matter as the room would only be used for sleeping and showering etc.  We had wifi in our rooms although sometimes when in port the wifi was very slow.

 

On our beds was our Daily Cruiser.  This explains what we are doing the next day.  Some tours are for everyone and some you choose between 2-3 tours.

We had decided to do the morning tour to Les Baux de Provence and the Olive Farm visit.     We would do a self walking tour of Arles in the afternoon.  We would have plenty of time to wander around Arles as our morning tour was due back roughly by 1pm and the ship wasn’t departing Arles until the early hours of the morning.

Finally we were in bed and looking forward to our cruise up the Rhone.

 

Night night – to be continued: