Marseille and heading home.

The day we arrived in Marseille was miserable, it started raining as we left the ship and didn't stop all day. We were dropped off in a side street and we headed down to the quayside. By the time we arrived we were soaking wet. The photo above is a huge picture painted on the side of a building, it was the only blue sky we saw all day!! It is a tremendous picture, very realistic, people just stood and stared at it, like the couple with the umbrella on the left.

We soon found lots of life size animal models, all painted in a different style. I am not sure that we found them all, but we did find a Giraffe, bull, elephant and rhino. After a lot of searching on line I have found out that the animals belong to 'The Funny Zoo' take a look HERE to see what its all about!!

  

If it had been a nice day I think Marseille might have been very interesting. 

So what do we think about the holiday?? Well I am a confirmed Cruise fan and I do love the way MSC do cruising. They are a young cruise line that cater for children and families, so the entertainment is suitable for all. Its not too formal a good mix of activities and a spotless beautiful ship (as the MSC Opera had been the year before.) The value is incredible as they don't charge for children until they are 18 and hopefully we won't have any children wanting to come with us by then!! We booked a holiday which included the flights and transfers and that went without a hitch. If we had booked the flights separately we might have looked for flights to a closer airport, but I am not complaining. So what are the negatives? Only one that I can see and that is the size of the ship, it was absolutely enormous, far far bigger than I expected. On balance I think I prefer the smaller sized ship, but it wouldn't put me off going again. One day we might be able to take advantage of the cheaper school term prices, who knows!!!!

Oh and the other negative is that we didn't have our friends with us this year which is a shame, I am hopeful that in the future they will come again, I missed Rod doing the conga around the bar, John looking out to sea with his binoculars, Madeline listening to music while sunbathing fully clothed and Tina trying every possible food combination in an effort to get Bobbie to eat.

This year they also changed the practice drill at the beginning, this time you had to have your cruise card swiped to make sure you had been ;)  ;)  ;) !!!!