14 Days of Excellent Service

Sumpoyo our excellent 5* Waiter in the fabulous Moonlight Sonata Restaurant on the Celebrity Eclipse. I am particularly proud of this shot as I used my Tamron 70-300mm lens at about four foot on Deck 14 of the Eclipse. Sumpoyo was expecting a full or half body shot and handed what he was carrying to a colleague. The best part was being able to wrangle a print of this shot on-board to hand to Sumpoyo before the end of the Celebrity Cruise. I managed to make the same gesture to 15 of the crew in all who we had befriended on our 14 night 5* cruise. I was only able to pay for 6x4 shots, but I think that all 15 were surprised and pleased to receive their photograph and gratuity envelope.

Celebrity Cruise Tip 22: We pre-paid our gratuities with our booking, but we also took along some money to say a special additional thank you to those who provided excellent service. It may be worth considering doing the same as the service is exceptional and you end up feeling like a million dollars. The recruiting programme for Celebrity Cruises must be exceptional for them to attract so many top class people who provide stunning service day after day

The African Bit

And now folks the African bit. It has been great blogging about Celebrity Cruises and Celebrity Eclipse, but the Blog is also about Africa so we need to find a suitable strand or strands from somewhere. Maybe it is the historical link and physical distances between our ports of call on the Celebrity Cruise and the African Continent would suffice. I must admit that I was surprised on our excursion in Gibraltar to be informed by our excellent tour guide just how close we were to Africa. It was hard to believe when he pointed out Morocco across the Straits of Gibraltar and I wonder just how close the Celebrity Eclipse had taken us to Africa as she sailed her curved route to the Rock.

Gibraltar was our first port of call on the Italian Mediterranean cruise. Gibraltar of course is linked to Spain while high speed ferries link the Straits of Gibraltar to Africa. With Africa only 14 miles away from Gibraltar: the twice weekly ferry from Gibraltar to Morocco takes just over an hour.

Our cruise then moved on to Provence in France. Of course France was one of the great Colonialist countries with French West Africa consisting of eight French colonial territories; Dahomey, French Guinea, French Sudan, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Senegal, Upper Volta, and Niger.

Our next port of call was in Italy and along its coast. Italy was also a colonial nation and Italian East Africa consisted of; Ethiopia with its four governed areas, Italian Somaliland, and Italian Eritrea until the end of the Second World War.

We then cruised to Sardinia; a Mediterranean island belonging to Italy that is situated between Africa, France, Italy, and Spain. Interestingly the distance between Sardinia and Sicily is some 280km but the distance between Sardinia and Africa, Italy, and Spain is some 100km less. I.e. Sardinia is closer to Africa than it is to Italy.

The last two countries that we visited were Spain and Portugal. Spain played a bit part in the Colonisation of the African Continent. Spanish Morocco, the Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea fell under Spanish control. Whereas Portugal was the first European nation that actively took an interest in Africa. There’s a good explanation of Portuguese influence in African affairs and colonisation including the ‘Slave Bridge’ at http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Portugal+and+Africa of course various countries means various currencies if it wasn’t for the Euro! Although watch out as although you can spend Sterling on the Rock at a ratio of 1:1 apparently Gibraltar notes are not legal tender in the U.K. although it is in pounds etc., I may be wrong on this one, as I am relaying what I was told by another guest on our Celebrity Cruise.


Celebrity Cruise Tip 21: Celebrity Cruise ships like the Celebrity Eclipse are cash free but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need cash on your cruise. Not all places take American Express so make sure that you top up your dollars and your sterling with some Euro’s. Especially if you want a beer during one of the short excursions, that are in isolated locations without access to an ATM.