Well we and the Hall's are onboard, had our pool girll lunch, in the suite and unpacked. So far so good.

Great dinner last night with the Hall's and Andrea, lots of laughs and stories about their three days touring Rome.

Frank had a steak sandwich today Marc, but he had to put it on a hamburger or hot dog roll. Said it was great though.

Not much else to share so far. Shio sails at 7 and we are meeting for drinks at 6:30 in the ovservation lounge for sailaway, then first dinner onboard.

So far, so good JoAnn! I will look for some stalking opportunities :)

OH I am envious - you will have a wonderful cruise enjoy enjoy!!!!!

Marc, the man at the next table was asking, why don't you have the steak sandwich on the menu. At least they have bovine on the ship.

Our tour guide in Rome did not eat "bovine", did not like Texans or the oil industry. We were hosed.

We did have a great time with Andrea for 3 days. The Vatican after dark tour was beyond wonderful. There were only 14 of us in the Vatican for 2 hours from 6-8. We saw the museums for about 1.5 hrs and then had .5 hrs in the Sistine Chapel. It is the way to go.

Russ will try and post some pictures soon.

Here you are from the bow of the MSC Melody

Have a great time, everyone. Wish we were there! :bv:

Have a wonderful cruise all...........yes, we are all jealous....Ngaire will tell you, I wanted to go on that cruise badly when we discussed in Africa. too much work, too little free time.

Good morning all. We are just approaching Monte Carlo and should dock around 8:30.

Enjoyable dinner with Russ and Susan last night, then they headed to suite and we wandered around for awhile, I made my contribution to the Casino to find that nothing has improved there. Then we headed to Horizon for some dancing and then finally up to bed around 11pm. Slightly rocky sailing, but nice for falling asleep.

We are doing the St.Paul de Vence tour this morning. Apparently since we don't leave until 11pm tonight there is no Captains night, am thinking they will have it tomorrow instead, or maybe not at all????? That doesn't sound right, so probably just postponed due to late departure and people wanting to go into town and the Casino.

Hopefully Andrea will get a picture posted from our Rome dinner, we have one, but have no clue how to do it. Maybe will see if Frank can download the picture onto my desk top I will email it to Karen.

OK well breakfast is about to arrive so more later.

Sorry JoAnn - crashed early last night after my long day of travel back home. Of course, wide awake now at 4:00 am!

Here we are at dinner on Monday evening. We dined at Alla Rampa which was wonderful. More details to follow!

lovely

Thanks Andrea, looks like we were having a lot of fun, not to mention wine. LOL.

Great photo, Andrea! Looks like a good time!

Back from St. Paul deVence, a very lovely medevial walled city with lots of walking up and down narrow streets, but very charming. After getting back we walked over to Rue de Princess Caroline and had salad nicouse and wine, perfect. Talked to a couple of interesting couples and then headed back, arriving just as the rain started. Off to teatime and trivia in a few minutes. No Captain's night since we don't sail till 10pm, so we are going to try for a walk in table at Prime 7, hopefully it will work.

Tomorrow - Livorno. We are doing the Hills of Lucca and winery tour with tasting - sounds like my kind of day.

OH my sounds wonderful! We loved Livorno and St Paul - I want to be with you! :mecry: :mecry: :mecry: :mecry:

Wow that photo is out of focus - edited it down a few sizes!

Frank & JoAnn were very nice to let me influence their wine choices. Susan & JoAnn had a lovely Sardinian Vermentino while Frank & I shared a Corvina from the Valpolicella. Both were wonderful!

Love the picture of the 5 of you :)
So happy Cleo is off to a good start...love your ports and seamail.

Well Joanna, just get on a plane and get here for CLEO, still time! :D :app:

Just got back from our tour to Lucca and wine tasting. Loved Lucca, it was charming we just didn't really have enough time to really explore all the little back streets and such. Stopped long enouhg for a delicious sweet pastry filled with ricotta cheese, I can still taste it. Then on to the winery up in the hills sort of, Buonamico, cute place and we had a tasting of three wines, lots of meats, parma ham, salumi, cheeses, tomatos, bread and olives, very nice. We shipped a half case home and brought two bottles of wine, one red and one white, back for our cabin. Nice relaxing ride back and the ship is pretty quiet right now, as of course many passengers went into Florence and won't be back for another three hours or so. We will just relaxe and try to sit on our verandah although its fairly windy. Really a lot of rocking and rolling last night, with thunder and lightning all night, our guide said they had a very big storm last night. Hope its a bit calmer tonight, but with the wind its hard to say.

Have met some other couples, one was on our tour yesterday and today and he chatted up Frank who was wearing his BAMA hat, and chatted with about three other couples as we were leaving observation lounge last night, so hope to see them again tonight maybe. Tomorrow is a sea morning, as we don't arrive until noon or something and I am having a massage, then we will be doing the Amalfi Coast and beautiful Positano with the Halls.

No "Captain's night" so to speak, the Captain will introduce his officers at 9:00 tonight just before the show.

Life is tough here on Mariner, but hey someone's gotta do it.

Ciao for now.

Loving your posts JoAnn!!!! Miss you and Frank keep enjoying life -

Hi JoAnn,

Glad you enjoyed beautiful Lucca! Keep enjoying!

Hi JoAnn, Thanks for all your seamail....sounds like you're seeing some wonderful places!

JoAnn, I'm so glad you and Frank are having so much fun. Your post brought sweet memories of our cruise, last fall, in that area. Such a beautiful part of the world.

Keep enjoying the great ports and the wonderful Mariner and please keep sending seamail, when you can.

If Sweet Elsa McLean is on board, please tell her that Betty & Larry say "Hi".

Sounds great, JoAnn. We visited Lucca a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.

Today is dry cleaning and organizing day for me. See you in a week!

I just found this thread, and I'm so glad! Thanks for the reports, JoAnn and Susan. We can't wait to join you next week!

Enjoying Joann's posts, and can't wait until the group is together for CLEO!

Just signed up today for a med cruise next year with 2 of my kids. Oh my, love those med ports!

Olivia that will be as geeat criuise!!!!!!

I love Regent and the Mariner.

Yesterday we had a 7:15 am excursion, so we ordered room service at 6:30 - 7:00 which was the earliest time. Well, by 6:55 it had not arrived, so we left and stopped by the coffee bar for a muffin and on our way for the day. That was fine with us.

When we arrived back at our room at 5:30 PM Carlos the dining room manager had sent us an apology note and 12 chocolate covered strawberries. Wow, was that not nice. He then called a few minutes later to express his apology again and make sure we had received the strawberries.

I had assumed that because we left before 7 and it was our decision to miss breakfast. Anyway, it was very special Of Carlos.

Second bit of news from the Mariner for all of you coming on Cleo. They have new shampoo and condition. The bottles are much better. The old bottles are there also, but as hard as they were to get stuff out of, I figure they will still be there for years to come. Anyway, once again I loved that they solved the problem.

We are having a great time, a nice morning at sea today before Pompeii this afternoon.

http://web.me.com/susanghall/2011_Cruise/Welcome.html


Here is the link to Russell's blog.

Well last night as we were leaving Livorno, the Captain came on with a "special announcement", whick of course brings back not so great memories of TUT, so we were holding our breath to find out what it was, turns out that due to high winds and such we could not go to Amalfi, which was a disappointment for sure, but it wouldn't be safe to tender, so we are instead in Naples, having arrived a couple of hours ago. Frank wanted to go to Heraculem, but I didn't need to see another version of Pompei, so decided to just stay onboard and relax and such. Had a great massage this morning, althouh wasn't sure if I was going to make it, it was very rocky again last night and I was feeling it when I got up (I'm sure all the wine I drank didn't help either), took a pill which didn't stay down, but by then I was feeling a little better, so went to my massage which was great and I think helped a lot. So now just sitting in the cabin reading and such, its nice to have some down time.

Mariner is having a deck barbeque tonight, then a dance party under the stars both of which sound to be fun.

Hi Halls:

Neat Blog! Easy to navigate and enjoyed the photos with descriptions as well as the touring notes. Lots of good effort and discipline and am looking forward to reading more.

See you soon.

Cheers! Ray & Penny

Hoping for no more "special announcements" JoAnn! I hope they do a deck barbecue on the next segment.

Love Russell's blog format - he has taken some wonderful pictures and wow, that is fast to get all that done already.

Blog is wonderful - great job Russ!!!!!

Yes the blog is wonderful Russ! Photos and narratives are great.

Bummer about Amalfi, but you will enjoy Pompeii too. Cruise sounds wonderful so far. Can't wait to hear more. Amazing how they can make a change late one day and have new tours set up for early the next day.

JoAnn your day sounds like heaven to me!

Ditto, love the blog!

Russ is very dedicated with his blogging & pictures. It's certainly appreciated!

Really enjoying Russ's blog!

I am too......great photos. Love the ones from Eze!

Great blog Russell your photographic skills are indeed fantastic! See you VERY VERY SOON.

Great photos, great trip reports, Russ! We can't wait to make a possible appearance on your blog in just a few days. Enjoy and keep the Mariner ship-shape until we arrive!

This morning's NYT had an interesting article about Jerusalem that I thought might interest the CLEO people given your itinerary; see NYT Jerusalem article .

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Eugene