September 27 Cannes, France cancelled
Today a visit to Cannes, France was scheduled. However, looking out the window as the sun rose, even though there were just wispy occasional clouds in the sky, the sea looked very choppy with mist blowing off the wave crests, spattering seawater on our Deck 11 window. The captain has remotely suspended the opening of the balcony windows for the morning.
Captain Costas Nestoroudis announced the decision to omit Cannes as a visited port, on an unprecedented 8 a.m. broadcast piped into staterooms. He mentioned that the waves were over two meters high, but winds were 35 knots per hour with gusts over 50 knots (64 km per hour to 93 km per hour). This is a tendered port and in consultation with the local marine pilot, it was agreed that it was not safe to launch the tender boats into the undulating waves, even on the lee side of the ship, let alone transfer passengers into them or onto the pier. The excursion which we had chosen was called the Villages of Provence. All Celebrity shore excursions were cancelled and excursion fees automatically refunded. People who had made private tour arrangements were on their own to get refunds. For that reason, we usually have tours arranged with the ship.
The Sea Day to Barcelona has been moved up a day. Tomorrow will be an extra day in Barcelona, which is a great place to explore. The ship’s berth will be within a twenty minute walk to Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas street. It is a large boulevard which runs over one kilometre. The tree lined street is primarily pedestrianized with only two narrow one-way traffic roads which run on either side of the central Ramblas Boulevard.
This morning, a new revised daily program was inserted into the “mail” slot by all stateroom doors before the captain’s 10 a.m. announcements. It was too windy to walk outside on the jogging track on Decks 14 & 15, so we walked the lengths of both sides of decks 6 to 11 climbing the stairs between floors. We made a point of looking at the framed photographs in the corridors, deciding if any could be used for an “Art of the Day” photograph. We recognized photos from Egypt, other parts of Africa, India, southeast Asia, and Europe. We attended the 11:15 a.m. 30 minute basic Cha-cha ballroom dance lesson in The Club on Deck 4. There were about 55 passengers attending. Wearing our N95 masks, we felt comfortable there. After the class four or five couples stayed for 15 more minutes of Cha-cha dance music. We had a light lunch in the Cosmopolitan Dining Room, where we have a dinner reservation this evening.
When we returned from lunch, Toni, our steward, had already brought our daily small canapé plate, which is included as a Concierge category benefit. We nibbled the contents during the afternoon. We opened the bottle of Brut sparkling wine. We spent the afternoon adding details to yesterday’s journal entry and reading in our stateroom with the window slightly open to listen to the waves crashing against the ship’s sides. The afternoon sky contained lots of wispy clouds with the sun breaking through at times, still windy. The temperature was 22°C.
Tonight, we dined in the Cosmopolitan dining room on Deck 4, the fourth of the four dining rooms. With the ship only 40% full, there is never a problem getting a seat in any restaurant of the ship’s ten restaurants. The special dessert for this venue is a layered carrot cake which we ordered. After dinner we went to The Club at the other end of Deck 4 to take advantage of the one hour of pre-recorded ballroom dance music. There were a bartender and a server in the room when we arrived and we ordered Dark and Stormy cocktails for in-between dances. The playlist was good ballroom dance music. The cruise director, Lewis Power Stannard, is a former professional ballroom dancer and is in charge of the ships Entertainment and Activities. We danced for about 40 minutes and another couple who also came in to dance. The was plenty of room for more people. Once the music ended we went to the Theatre to watch Toni Warne’s show and then to Café al Bacio, also on Deck 4, for evening decaf coffees and we listened to the band, Soundtrack, playing nearby in the three deck high Grand Plaza. We finished our coffees and took the stairs from Deck 4 to Deck 3 where the dance floor of the Grand Plaza is located. The Grand Plaza is surrounded by several decks of overlooking tables and the Martini Bar. The uncarpeted part of the dance area is about 50 square feet. To Waltz or Tango or Samba, you need to dance on both surfaces. We were the only dancers for the final 30 minutes of the set. We danced Tango, Cha Cha, Waltz, Swing and even danced a Merengue, although we were a bit rusty. The singer of the band mentioned, after the first tune, to the assembled passengers that she remembered us from a previous voyage. I caught my shoe on the metal strip separating the carpet from the flooring and tripped losing a shoe, but quickly put it back on and continued dancing Cha Cha. We got a round of applause for continuing to dance. We spoke to the singer after the set and concluded that it was on the Celebrity Constellation cruise of the Adriatic Sea back in 2018 where she remembered us from.
The evening dancing enabled out daily steps to top 11,000.
Total steps = 11,970
Aside: Russia has declared compulsory conscription for adult men under 60 for fighting the War in Ukraine.
King Charles III of Britain announced his royal cipher
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