Ode to Italia cruise – day 2 (Monte Carlo Corsica)

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

The port at Monte Carlo was closed due to high winds, so the captain was able to “pivot” the boat and the crew scrambled to pull together an excursion that we could take in Corsica.

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We were up at 6:30 this morning and went down to breakfast at about 7:30, where we were some of the first people there and easily grabbed a table by the window.

I had today’s raisin French toast special:

At about 11 a.m., we left the cabin to allow Lester, our suite attendant, to service it, and we walked around the track on deck 12, which is “the sports deck,” which includes:

A miniature golf course

A tennis court

A grassy area for bocce ball or croquet (back) and one for cornhole

And the cruise-ship-cliché shuffleboard

There are several of these “lounge chairs for (at least) two” around the perimeter of the deck

A view of the pool and jacuzzis one deck below

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We stopped at the library on the way back to our room, where I found a large-print edition of a The Accidentals, a book that’s actually on my “Want to read” Goodreads list, so I grabbed it.

We hung out on our veranda until lunch up at the Pool Grill restaurant and bar, and witnessed this incident:

Asshole who created the drink drama back at the hotel…

Server stops by his table to tell him his order is almost ready, to which he replied, “Oh you mean the order we put in 30 minutes ago?”

His and his wife’s food orders arrive shortly after that and she complains that her hamburger isn’t hot enough and sends it back. Asshole mansplains to the server taking it back that “they cooked hers first and then put it aside while they cooked mine and hers got cold.”

At this point the manager has come over to their table, and 3 ship personnel are involved in these people’s maddening drama.

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Today’s excursion in Corsica:

Ajaccio City Sightseeing Tour (55 minutes)

Welcome to Ajaccio, the cultural and political capital of the island of Corsica—and the city where Napoleon Bonaparte was born. With the privatized open-top bus, which will pick you up at the pier, get a panoramic visit of all the unmissable sites commented on in English. Pass by the old town; Cours Napoleon, the main street Ajaccio; Austerlitz Square with a statue of Napoleon; Casone; English Quarter; Greek Chapel; Sanguinaires roads, a cemetery; and all the wild beaches, La Parata. On the way back to the ship, see the cathedral where Napoleon was baptized and the citadel of Ajaccio.

Excursion pictures:

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Seth’s activities

We had a fun dinner tonight with 4 other members of our group‐Susan (from Medford, Massachusetts), Rich & June (from San Francisco), and Marie (from Farmington, Michigan).

Janice said at one point, “Let’s go around and each tell how we ended up on this cruise.” The answers involved a lot of “how I first discovered Seth” and “previous of his cruises I’ve been on.” And, we talked about a million other things during our 1.5 hours together.

I had a mixed green salad, a lobster and avocado appetizer, and a lobster tagliolini pasta dish, followed by a chocolate-caramel-mocha torte dessert, all of which were delicious.

Lobster and avocado appetizer

Dessert

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Seth’s show tonight was the ship’s general entertainment. Usually, the ship has its own entertainment for the people who aren’t in his group, but on this cruise, his shows with each of the stars were the ship’s general shows.

Tonight was with Bonnie Milligan, whome we’d never heard of Bonnie, but who was phenomenal.

Seth is convinced she’s going to win the Tony for her upcoming show Kimberly Akimbo, and if what we heard tonight is any indication, the buzz certainly seems warranted.

A “belter,” she’s definitely got a set of pipes on her. Seth loves belters, and I think he tries to have at least one on each of his cruises. On our last one, to the Southern Caribbean in 2019, he had on Andrea McArdle, a lifelong belter who started her Broadway career as the original (child) Annie in 1977.

Photos weren’t allowed during the show, but as he usually does, Seth let us record one number. I can’t upload the video here, so this is a (washed out) frame of Bonnie singing the song, Beautiful, which she sang in the Broadway musical, Head Over Heels, and which Seth allowed us to record.

Other songs in her repertoire included:

• Don’ Rain on My Parade (Barbra Streisand)
• Why Haven’t I Heard From You? (Reba McEntire)
• I’ll Never Stop Loving You (Doris Day)
• The Man That Got Away (Judy Garland
• I Have Confidence (Julie Andrews)
• My Man (Barbra Streisand)