Friday 16th September - Marseille
A slightly different start to the day for us today as we didn't start with breakfast in Cabanas, which is a shame sitting out the back is one of our favourite things to do! We went up on deck and took some pictures of the port
Still quite industrial although there was some residential in sight this time. The reason we didn't eat in Cabanas was because we had a character breakfast booked, this was at 8 a.m.. Obviously this was meant to be a sea day which it fitted in well, we didn't want to miss it as we haven't had the chance to experience this on our previous Fantasy cruises.
We headed down to Animators Palate and were seated. I recognised our servers from the MDR, then I saw our servers working a few tables over.
We had 3 characters, Mickey, Minnie and Goofy and they all stopped for pictures. The food was okay, it was nice to have it all served but I did miss the selection of Cabanas. It was quite a rushed experience though, when booked it showed as being 45 minutes and I think that is what it took. Still, glad we did it though and I would do it again if it was offered on another cruise (but not Disney Junior characters)!
All ashore time was 7 a.m. so this had long passed when we were ready to head into Marseille.
DCL provided a free shuttle into the city centre so we went ashore and boarded the coach. The journey wasn't too long, it wasn't particularly clear though when we got there exactly where we would pick the coach back up and how often it ran.
We had a city map so had a wander round the city and headed to the old port
We decided to ride the Petit Train (which is a road train) up to the Notre-Dame de la Garde Basilica
The road train was not that pleasant, big queues to get on and they cram you on too, but the Basilica itself was worth going up to. We didn't go in the Basilica but wondered round the grounds and looked at the building and the views over the city were good too
We headed back down and wandered over to Les Terrasses du Port, a shopping centre which overlooks the port and not that far from where the coach dropped us off. We had a look round there for a bit and then headed back to where we hoped the coach would pick us up. This was the unpleasant part, it was a free for all when the coach arrived and no order or anything with the volumes of people wanting to go back. We did like Marseille and would consider going back there.
When we got back we had lunch at Cabanas then went for a typical afternoon of Rainforest and Cove cafe plus the inevitable packing, whilst looking out at the French coast as we sailed away
Dinner was in Lumiere's that night, I always find the last night sad and find it difficult not to think about getting off the ship the following day. In the last few days we had started having multiple deserts, I had read about people having them and although we quite often dropped hints (such as I really can't choose between...) our servers on previous cruises have never come through and said why not have both! So, I took my own destiny in my hands and started ordering more than one on some nights (and our servers didn't seem surprised at all)! Well on this night I can remember I ordered the Baked Alaska and something else and Giuseppe came back with a Mickey Bar too as he said they were a must on a
Disney Cruise! So that night we had three deserts, I was glad we had a table to ourselves!
Between dinner and the show we went to the Mega Jackpot Bingo in the hope we might win the money for future cruises but no luck! The show that night was Dreams and Junnk performed and adult only show in Fathoms which was good. Unfortunately all too soon our last day had come to end and we headed back to bed.