Day 1 en-route to Marseille

Today we leave the Algarve to fly to Marseille to meet Rob, Paula Warren and Kelly in a hotel near the cruise port where the 9 of us will start our cruise with MSC on the Seashore in Yacht Club. Myself, Lorna, Sandy, Ken, and Tracey were picked up this morning at 10am by Roger and driven to Faro airport to catch our Ryanair flight to Marseille it left on time and the flight time was a little over 2 hours the guys in Marseille arrived yesterday evening and have already been out investigating the area and apparently we have a restaurant booked for all of us later today, it’s going to be noisy that’s for sure. So arrived at 4.30pm local time and got our pre booked transfer to the hotel to meet the guys. The trip was quite long due to traffic but we rocked up at around 5:15pm and checked in. The guys texted us to say they were on there way back from a bar a few doors down. A few minutes later, they rolled in and instantly the noise levels shot through the roof. Omg they had been drinking since lunch time and we were already at a huge disadvantage with very little chance of catching up. It was great to see them all, and after the hugs and kisses we agreed to meet in the foyer at 6pm. Our rooms were OK basic, but clean and quiet so no dramas there, we didn’t bother to change and headed down to meet the others.
We walked down to the bar they had been in previously but it was busy so we decided to walk down to the marina for a drink before going to a restaurant Warren had booked for all of us. We were told that the walk we had just done was fine during the day but seriously dodgy at night, last night they had walked the walk and felt quiet intimidated by all the homeless people and dodgy characters that seem to take notice, so today we all left our jewellery in the hotel and were very cautious of our surroundings. We had a drink on the edge of the marina which was not great  us guys had a ipa which was not nice  and Paula had the smallest wine glass of wine, but it was great to finally be all together catching up. It did rain a bit but we stuck it out, we didn’t stay for another drink and walked down to the restaurant, we had a good table outside but under cover and a large menu to choose from, the food was fairly good some of us better than others poor Tracey got covered in red wine when Warren knocked his glass over towards Lorna who reacted by flinging herself back from the table causing the glass to launch towards Tracey  her top  shorts and white trainers were covered, another issue was the drinks, we were asking for Bacardi and getting a cheap alternative but being told it was Bacardi so at the end it was a shame but Lorna disputed the bill and told them we were not paying for the rums and one of the meals as it was not good at all, they agreed to reduce the bill and got a bit stroppy when we tried to leave the tip they didn’t want it but we left it anyway. It was a shame but it was another example of how the French treat us Brits over there own. It wasn’t late so we found another bar for a few drinks and the guy in there was actually very friendly and told us they opened all day till midnight. We didn’t stay for long as those thst started at midday where now flagging and as we were walking home needed to get going  so we all left and headed back to the hotel. We agreed to meet at 10am tomorrow morning. So its great to be all together and can’t wait to get on the ship on Friday.