BARBADOS TO MARSEILLE APRIL 2006 by Tom Brown

We were offered an upscale cruise across the Atlantic at a last minute price and we decided to do it.  Here is how it went.

The line is Oceanic which bought three of the Renaissance 600+ passenger ships after the 2001 bankruptcy.  This cruise offered a trip from Barbados to Marseille, France with a single stop in Funchal, Madeira.  Essentially 9 sea days which is a good test of the service and facilities on the ship.

We arranged our own air: to Barbados on BWIA, a Trinidad-based airline, one day early and from Paris to Newark on Continental one day after the end of the cruise.  The delays were to reduce the risk of a misconnect and to see some sights. We used the Barbados Hilton at the beginning and the Paris-CDG Hilton (Charles de Gaulle Airport) at the end.  We arranged a TGV (train a tres grande vitesse) train ride from Marseille to Paris.

The flight  from JFK to Barbados was at 7:45am, so our car  and driver came at 4:30 to pick us up.  The service up front on BWIA was excellent, with a very friendly Caribbean Islands staff.  One of the highlights of the trip was a video on the culture and life in the southern Caribbean that they serve.  So we learned about Carnival, Jazz festivals, Cricket matches and lots more.  Two different Caribbean people told us that Trinidad is very intense, very wealthy and very corrupt; that it is not a good tourist destination.

It was an easy taxi ride to the Hilton which is on a point across a bay from Bridgetown and the ship terminal. The Hilton has beach access to the ocean with waves on one side and to the bay with no waves on the other side.  Great late lunch, then a few waves and then a great dinner.  Restful night, jogging in the AM around the nearby horse racing track (but separate from the horses), great breakfast in the club and some time on the internet.

Left the hotel about 11:30 by taxi.  We had a friendly driver named Junior, who explained lots of things but especially the game of cricket.  I had mentioned seeing a match in Australia where there was a nude streaker; he said he had seen the same thing when the Aussies came to Barbados!

We checked  in for the cruise at the opening and got right on the ship.  Our rooms were not ready so we lunched.  It was a buffet but there was a lot of service, set up tables with placemats, cloth napkins and stemware.  The staff was super friendly!

Our stateroom was nice as well.  It had a couch, coffee table, lots of drawers and a balcony.  We soon learned that we had a 25% load of 160 passengers.  The opening show was fine with a cruise director talk.  We saw that they had a 5 piece dance band and a string quartet, both from Poland, that played both together and apart that were very good.  There were also four resident singer-dancers and a guest singer-actor and a guest gypsy violinist.  As it worked out there were two shows with the resident company, two shows with each of the guests and a show with the string quartet.  All very good.

There was a time change almost every night, 7 in all including the change in Barbados and the change to daylight savings time. So there was a need to get to bed early, at least for some!

So our days started with walking/jogging then breakfast at 10, then reading at the pool, then lunch some other activities, then the hot tub, cocktails and dinner.  They had two specialty restaurants, Italian and American Steak House.  Both were excellent.  Sometimes we dined alone, sometimes with others.  The main dining room, also very good, was no reservations.  The specialty restaurants may have been better than other lines; the main dining room just as good as other lines. The wine list had perhaps slightly better and more expensive selections than on some other lines.

You quickly got the idea that the people liked Oceana and also that they were well traveled.  A man, Clive, who lives on St. Thomas takes a cruises almost monthly!

The weather was really great.  We had 4 days of high 70s weather, then it cooled to near 70 and then high 60s, always with sun.  And for our day in Madeira it was 80!

We used up all our books and then hit the library which was large, comfortable and well supplied.

When we got to Madeira we had time for a long walk into town and then an afternoon tour.  Some highlights:

--There are really two inhabited islands and about 250,000 inhabitants.

--It is an autonomous territory of Portugal that sets its own taxes.

--The island is growing as a world class collection of destination resorts, with direct air service to far away places such as Venezuela.

--There are no sand beaches, but combinations of pool and swimming platforms at the edge of the ocean for many of the hotels.

--The traditional occupations are fishing and agriculture.  Lots of fishing ports and every free inch used for agriculture, often on terraces on steep slopes, as there is virtually no flat land.  We saw citrus, bananas, vegetables and grapes.  Beautiful flowers grow wild in many places.  We especially noticed the nasturtiums.

--There is an unemployment issue with the locals due to the decline in the traditional industries.  So beggars and drug dealers.

--It is a very dressy city for the professionals.

We saw much of the island from high and low places.  It is spectacular. We went to a Madeira Wine seller and tasted many different types of Madiera Wine.

We left at 9pm for the Strait of Gibraltar and France.

The next big event some 36 hours later was passing the rock of Gibraltar.  We woke at 6:45 as we were passing Cadiz, where we have fond memories of a family wedding some 6 years ago.  Proceeding through the strait we passed the 'Rock' at about 8am with a perfect view that we had not seen before.

In the meantime there was a lot of confusing activity in the strait.  There were perhaps a hundred small boats, most likely with Moroccan fishermen, but one would perhaps think that a few boats had their eyes on dropping illegals in Spain.  There were also lots of small cargo ships taking needed goods point to point.  Unlike air travel, shipping has historically had very few hubs due to the cost of transferring cargo.  Containers have only changed this practice a little.

For the remainder of the trip we hugged the Spanish and French coasts.  And unlike during the crossing of the Atlantic, we saw lots of ships.  Still great weather, but in the 60s.  We arrived in Marseille at 5am.  We were not on the dock side and barely noticed.

It was the usual rush.  We had a breakfast much earlier than needed and then got off the ship at 8am.  It was really easy...no immigration, no customs, we got our bags and walked to a taxi and were  very soon at the train station.  Marseille is an old city.  Well worn I would say.  It has hills and it looks good in the sunshine.  The station is a classic open air (with a roof) European station.  There is an inside room where you buy or pickup tickets, and another room where you can sit if you have a ticket.. 

We found seats  in the open air part and then I went to change our 11:30 reservation to an earlier train.  We got reservations on an 8:55, which somehow I thought was 9:55, so of course we missed it!  Back to the ticket office where they booked us on a 10:30 that required a change in Paris, but the lady said no change of stations.

We got on the TGV without difficulty, a double decker no less!  We made a stop to pickup at another Marseille station and then went to Paris non stop.  At 175mph no less.  The terrain was incredibly varied from California-like desert to mountains and valleys.  The train was able to maintain its speed because it is on dedicated tracks and didn't go through any cities.  The railroad had constructed bypasses for this purpose.

We enjoyed seeing some 'typical' French people on the  train with wine, bread, salami and cheese totally enjoying themselves.  There was a car where you could buy food as well.

We arrived at Gare de Lyon, a similar station to Marseille with a few  tracks that dead ended that all had TGV trains on them and nothing indicating any trains for the airport.  'Information' told us we needed to take the RER 'D' train to Gare du Nord and catch our train there.  We thought he said that they would give us tickets at the entrance for this train.

We had to descend several levels.  It was pretty bad carrying our bags down stairs, then there was a lift to the next level. And we had to buy another ticket to Gare du Nord.  When we arrived there there was a train across the platform for Charles de Gaulle
Airport.  It was not clear that it was the train we had the ticket for, but we were not inclined to take our bags up two levels to find out that we must come back down!  So we boarded the  train on the other side of the platform and were at CDG in 15 minutes, with a ride through immigrant neighborhoods.  We saw lots of  people of color, essentially immigrants and all speaking French.

Our observation is that France has at least as big of an immigrant problem as we do, except it is more focused on French-speaking Muslims from its former colonies.  A lot do low end jobs and a lot have no jobs.

When we arrived at CDG we needed tickets to exit.  We put our Gare du Nord tickets in the machine and the turnstiles wouldn't turn.  So I went over and Alice went under.  Not everybody were successful turnstile jumpers like we were! There were some people with lots of baggage that were using the handicapped turnstile, which is actually a compartment where you are locked in and need to insert your ticket to get out.  As we left we noted a man stuck in the compartment with no way out!  What an exciting life!

The point of egress was near to the Hilton and we  walked.  We told the reception person our adventure.  She thinks that there are really two trains from Gare du Nord to the airport and if we had gone upstairs we would have found ours.  We may never know!

Anyway we had a a real exposure to Paris and the French.  I suppose that is what visiting another country is all about!

The Hilton was most welcoming.   We were given a very large corner room on the club floor.  We had a welcoming letter from the manager offering us a free bottle of wine with dinner.  The wine and the dinner were delicious.  After dinner we went to the club room and got engaged in conversation with a Scottish couple and a German man.  They were all big fans of Hilton.  The couple seems to have a hobby of spending weekends at Hiltons.  And you wouldn't believe how thick their accents were!

Great night's sleep.  No rolling of the ship.  We watched 'telematin' on channel 2, with the same host as when I was going to Belgium in the 1990s.  It is the French “Today” show, now with a very high tech studio.  A guest was being interviewed who was very passionate about a new Napoleon exhibition.  And believe it or not, there was a traffic report of the entire country.  Also believe it or not, there were only four major problems in all of France, including one 'social manifestation'.  Then a little jogging and then breakfast.  The jus de pamplemouse (grapefruit juice) was outstanding.  It always seems to be available and outstanding in French hotels.

Left at 11:30 for the terminal. The Continental flight was on time departing and arriving in the US.  Good food on the flight.  Our only complaint was the sound and movie system was very bad.  The flight attendant said it would be better if we reported the problem.  We have!

Great trip as usual.  Quality time on the ship.  Quality time ashore.