We slept a little late, grabbed a pastry for breakfast, and then headed to Schooner Bar for morning trivia (we love the trivia games).
Afterwards, the kids opted to stay on board and let us adults scout out the port so we'd know what we were doing when we got off the ship the next week (and because if it were up to Rio he' never leave the ship, ever lol).
I have to give Marseilles credit for making it very, very easy for tourists to use the public transit. We walked off the ship and followed the green line painted along the sidewalk and signs to walk to the end of the pier, where the bus stop is:
The green line dead ends at the bus stop (where they have nicely posted signs in English, Italian, Spanish and German giving very precise directions on how to make connections to various sites). The signs said to take Bus 35 to the end of the line and then either stay in the old port area, or connect to various metro trains or buses to get to Notre Dame, etc.
A bus labeled "special" pulled up while we were still reading the signs. We wondered if that might go where we wanted to go and, like the others walking up, wandered over. One person spoke French and was translating into Italian for those with him. I speak Spanish and can puzzle out some Italian, so I told Dave that i thought they were saying that the bus would go within a 5 minute walk of something interesting. So, hey, it was early in the day so plenty of time to correct mistakes, so we got on and bought two tickets at 1.40 Euro each.
We sat a bit (but it was comfortable so it was fine) as the bus filled up. A large group of Spaniards boarded, most sitting behind us. One couple sat facing us in seats that went backwards and the man asked his group if anyone knew where the bus was going. He was answered with a bunch of shrugs and comments along the lines of "we don't know" or "must be somewhere"
This struck Dave and I as hysterical. Apparently not a person on the bus, ourselves included, really knew where we were headed LOL We decided it was a very good thing the kids were not with us -- Marika in particular would be very anxious with this level of uncertainty.
In the end, it turned out that the "special" was exactly what we expected; it took us to the same stop as the 35 would have, but without any stops in between. Perfect.
We decided to just take it easy and not make any connections. We started off by bopping into a pleasant looking cafe across from the bus stop for coffee/Coke and a chance to use the restroom.
It was a nice place and we were glad we stopped there. It was a holiday (Whit Monday), so the shops were all closed and only a couple of stalls were set up for the market in the square, so we headed off in search of the cathedral we had glimpsed from the bus. We came up to it from behind:
and circled around to the right
and finally made it around to the front:
We felt this was a particularly lovely, and very unique cathedral. As you can see, the entire thing was fenced off and undergoing renovations. Consequently, we were unable to go inside, or walk to the seaward side of the building. Here are some shots of the lovely mosaics in the front:
We didn't want to be gone too long while the kids were still learning their way around the ship, so we decided to find a cafe for some wine and then head back. We decided we liked the cafe we'd had coffee at, so went back there, were a liter of house wine was 9 Euro.
Then we went back to the ship, taking the public bus 35. NOTE, the drop off in the return direction is down on the highway level and across the street--you cannot really see the port or ships easily from there and cannot see the stop where you got on. I wish I had thought to take a photo of this stop, as on both weeks many people would have stayed on the bus and missed their stop had someone not shouted out that it was the cruise port (that was us on the second week, and someone else, as we were getting up to get off, the first week).
We were back to late for lunch in the buffet. We took a swim in the solarium and grabbed a small snack from the Park Cafe when it opened at 4:00. We played Where in the World Am I? trivia with the kids at 5:00
and then got ready for dinner (it was formal night) and had a drink on our balcony before heading to the dining room:
The first day onboard we had stopped by the dining booking table after boarding and asked about the "Chef's Table Dining Package" which includes a dinner at the chef's table (with wine pairings), a dinner at the specialty steak house (Chops) and a dinner at the specialty Asian restaurant (Izumi). Dave and I decided (having never eaten at any specialty restaurant other than Johnny Rockets on an RCI ship) to book this package as a special treat. We were told that they would send a letter to us telling us what night the Chef's table would be scheduled. In the meantime, we could book the other two for any night we wanted, and if it ended up conflicting with the Chef's Table, then you could change those reservations. We had booked Chops for the night in Palma but Melton (the Chef's table arranger) stopped by at our dinner this night and let us (and another couple from our table) know that the Chef's Table would be that night. We moved our Chop's reservation to the next night (Barcelona) and also booked 2 extra so that the kids could go with us.
Dinner was very nice. Dave and Marika say it was the best escargot that they have had on Royal. The food was markedly better than it has been on other RCI ships. Either the head chef was particularly good, or the smaller passenger number made it easier to keep quality high. One way or another, it was consistently high in both weeks.
After dinner we stopped by the Captian's reception in the Centrum, and Marika snapped some photos of us all dressed up:
The kids headed off to the teen club. The show that evening was The Emperors of Soul, billed as a Motown act. We took a seat that would make it easy to sneak out after a song or two, expecting it to not really be that interesting (we are not usually wowed by the musical acts, like Abamax and the Beatles knock off groups). Boy were we surprised! These guys were amazing. We loved every minute of the show and were enthusiastically part of the standing ovation. These guys were talented, and picked interesting songs and fun moves and even had good banter in between. Here is a little video of them that I found on youtube (but it doesn't really showcase how good they were):
And on that wonderful note, our day was done. Tomorrow, Barcelona.
--Hadley
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