mahdnc

We spent some time walking around the streets and admired the classic French sidewalk cafe's Only the lack of blue sky and brilliant sunlight prevented the scenery from being perfect. My wife and I spent half of our time at Aix checking out the Farmer's Market. The mushroom stand was eye opening. My wife and I purchased goods at a vanilla booth and from a merchant selling jam.

We hired a private company to take us to Aix-en-Provence, Cassis, and Le Castellet. We pre-arranged this with two other passengers. Getting everyone together was a bit challenging. Constellation started allowing passengers off the ship at about 9:20 am. When we got off the ship, we walked out of the terminal and proceeded to walk out of the gate for the pier where our van was waiting. The other two passengers were wrongly told that the van would pick them up at point closer to the ship, inside the gate, where the Celebrity shore excursion buses were waiting. It took about 30 minutes to get it straightened out. During the 30 minutes that we waited, another couple from Constellation walked toward our van. When asked, the driver informed them that they were not part of this tour. They showed him their Viator paperwork and asked our driver if he knew the tour guide. The answer was "yes" and he called the guide up and handed his phone to the passengers so they could discuss the situation. It turned out that their tour originated at Marseille which is an hour away from the port. After they glumly hung up, they asked me if they could join our tour. I accurately told them that we did not have the space and that we were waiting on two other people to show up. Little did any of us know that I saved them some trouble! Our two passengers arrived at about 10 am and the driver headed off to Aix-en-Provence. We were all smiles and everything was puppies and kittens. We arrived there at 11 am. It was a Sunday and many of the stores were closed. However some stores and all the restaurants were open. The farmer's market was also open. When we arrived, our driver dropped us off and went to park his van. He instructed us to wait for him at the Apple Store and so that was technically the our first stop at Aix-en-Provence!!

sorry for being radio silent. This was an independent private excursion. We blew out a tire on the way from Aix to Cassis. We made it back on the ship. I will give details and photos in a little bit as this needs to be done on a laptop and not my iPhone!

Yes, a water shuttle is available for people who want to go to town. Celebrity shorex buses pick up right at the pier. Private tours can pick up outside the gate.

Vicky, here's our photo: Poster child for Celebrity's marketing campaign for their shore excursions.

We are in the process of docking at Toulon.

Our missing bag got delivered to our cabin right before dinner time. No naughty room visit. Our cabin steward, Angeline, helped us retrieve it.

We have Early Seating at the MDR. Our wait staff seems good. I presume that "0" means no Sommelier for our table? Select Seating is downstairs on Deck 4. Early Seating is up here on Deck 5. The whole port side of the bDeck 5 dining room is empty.

There are 120 members that introduced themselves to this sailing's roll call. We seem like a good group. Good thing since we are stuck with each other for 15 nights. Here are some general information about the group. The state/province claimed the most frequently as home was........Florida by a huge margin--around 37. Second place was Ontario, Canada with 9. Here is a breakdown on where our roll call members stayed right before the cruise (among those that reported what they were doing): 1. 26 members were on the prior sailing (9 night Ravenna to Civitavecchia). 2. 13 stayed in Civitavecchia. 3. 6 stayed in the Albergo del Senato Hotel in Rome. 4. 6 stayed at the Hilton Rome Airport. @baluchistan splits her residence time between Velletri, Italy and Baltimore and so she wins the prize for the most convenient pre-cruise plan which was to be at home. To give you an idea of cabin type distribution, here is frequency chart for the 88 members who declared their cabin number.

Most of our bags got to our room fairly quickly. There is one bag that we haven't received but it is on board according to the Apple Airtag (mushroom symbol). The other three bags (eyes, flower, red backpack) are with us (blue dot) My guess is that it's being detained. Naughty room. I cannot think of a reason why. No alcohol, weapons, or electrical extension cords. We will find out.

After arriving at the terminal at 11:16 am, we made it to our cabin at 11:41 am. So the whole check in process was a breeze.

Special secret sail away deck for Retreat guests......

Private transfer for the 5 of us went smoothly. We left the Albergo del Senato at 9:55 am and we arrived at our cruise terminal at 11:16 am. Our official check in time was 11:30 am. There were no crowds and other than a short wait to get through security, there were no lines. We haven't been on a cruise since the pandemic, so the whole thing was thrilling. I was so excited that I was tempted to do the Pope thing and kiss the ground (deck) once I stepped foot on the ship.

On our way to the pier.

My wife and I tested negative for COVID yesterday, so we have cleared that hurdle to be able to board tomorrow. I purchased two BinaxNOW kits that we brought with us. Even though I have been warned on Cruise Critic and even though it is prominently displayed on the box, in our hotel room I opened up the sealed container before I called the proctor to receive instructions on when to open the box. In other words I made the kit useless for a certified COVID test; however it tested me negative for intelligence. Very embarrassing. So my wife and I immediately made a trip to a Antica Farmacia del Corso (thanks to biggerboat47 for posting that pharmacy on our roll call) and we were successfully tested negative for COVID. However my wife still considered me to be negative on intelligence. Oh well. We got tested as walk-ins without needing an appointment. The pharmacy is an easy walk from the Albergo del Senato and the two tests cost me a total of 44 Euro. Whew.

They look good to me.

No, our guide took us a different way. We went down a long set of indoor steps that was recently opened to the public. I know the shortcut you speak of. We used it years ago during our last trip there.

It is a nice lens, indeed. You are wise to not buy the DX lenses from a long term investment standpoint. I wish I had done that with my DX camera. My daughter has inherited it along with the DX lenses when I purchased my current FX camera.

Thank you. I am using a Nikon D780 body. I've brought two Nikon zoom lenses for this trip. Up to now I've been using the 16-35 mm wide zoom as my walking around lens. My iPhone Pro 12 is also put to use. I also brought plenty of patience. Last night, I stayed up until 2 am to reshoot the Pantheon at night. The photos I took two nights ago had three large lighter spots in the dark sky that came from dust and dirt on my lens filter. I didn't notice them until yesterday when I had a chance to view the photos on my laptop. Even though I use Lightroom for light post processing, I feel you should never post process "today" what you can correct by reshooting "tomorrow". So I went back out last night. I wasn't able to get my retakes done until about 2am because of a lot of interference. As I said, you have to bring patience. I had taxis parked at the taxi stand with their headlights stubbornly on as they waited for their next fare. I also had people that insisted on sitting down in my field of view for long periods of time which is their right--you just have to be patient or find another spot. Two of the people were a couple who were quarreling. The male wanted to leave, but the female refused to leave and would just lay on the fountain steps in protest. Unlike the night before, there were a group of seagulls that were a nuisance that night as well as some weird people that I had to endure. Once everyone finally left, I was able to take my photos fairly quickly! A technically better photo reshot last night.

After we finished at the Vatican, we took an Uber over to the Testaccio Market for lunch. We arrived at around 2pm which meant that about half the stalls were closing or were already closed. We found a nice place to enjoy a Roman pizza for lunch. For dinner we went to the Armando al Pantheon. The restaurant is located extremely close to the Albergo del Senato Hotel. We had a nice meal there. With the tables for two situated so close together, we struck up a long conversation with both tables next to us. There was a very charming British father/daughter pair who were concluding a trip that centered around Umbria including Orvieto. The trip was for his 70th birthday. On the other side was a gentleman from Honduras. He was staying at the Waldorf Astoria for a convention. Our 3 tables had a lively conversation which was a pleasant bonus to a nice dinner. We will be heading back there tomorrow (I checked on the reservation to make sure that everything was good. It was). The afternoons for our whole week so far in Rome has been fairly warm especially if you were standing under the sun. That with our jet lag put a damper on any afternoon sight seeing plans. So we decided to pay a visit to the Trevi Fountain after dinner to see it at night. The fountain was predictably jammed with people taking selfies and throwing coins over their shoulder. Still, it was at least very comfortable to view without the heat and glare of the mid-day harsh sun.

Today was our day at the Vatican Museum. We did not book our tour through the Vatican, but rather 3rd party tour provider. It was a small party group tour of 6 people plus a guide. The tour started at 7:30 am and it concluded by around 10:45 am. The tour was designed so that we would enter the Sistine Chapel before the general admission ticket holders were allowed to enter. It did allow you to see the Sistine Chapel in a relaxing way with no rush and no crowds. I wanted to climb the basilica dome, but Marcia's feet an for the entrance for the Scavi Tour that we would take tomorrowd ankle were too sore for that so we skipped it. Before we left, we looked for and found the entrance for the Scavi Tour that we would take tomorrow.

I did not have time to update this thread and it is 230am here now. Our trip to Ostia Antica went well. Ostia Antica is the ancient sea port for Rome and is a very well preserved archeological site. Very much like Pompeii but without the volcano stuff. We spent 3 hrs there with Marisa. It is a very impressive place. Most amazing to me were the preserved tile art and the store signs that you could easily read like it was made a few years ago. I will review it more later. For now I will post this photo:

My wife and I just did a self Covid test and we both tested negative. We are going to take the proctored test (final exams) tomorrow afternoon.

The front desk told me that in November the roof top bar is only open on days when the weather is good enough. So you cannot count on it being open, but it is not just simply shut down for the season either.