Up and ready to go – not going to miss anything today. We get a call from the excursions team – do we realise that we’ve booked today’s excursion and Cannes is only accessible by tender? (A tender is a wee boat that takes you to the dock – they use this at ports where they are unable to berth.) Eh, yes, we are. But you have a wheelchair. Yep, and we told you that when we booked and you said it wouldn’t be a problem. She says that’s fine. I take the opportunity to tell her what happened about Barcelona. We don’t do refunds. I explain, again, exactly what happened, how it wasn’t, in our opinion, our fault, and that we would like her to reconsider. She says she’ll get back to us. She never does.
We decide to skip breakfast and just have the shortbread and coffee that’s provided in the room, then go to Tamarind Lounge where everyone is meeting to be allocated coloured stickers and numbers and told where to go to get the tender. This is much more efficient than yesterday’s debacle.
I’ve never seen a tender before, but Mum assures me she’s used them loads of times and has no bother getting on and off them. When I actually see the wee boat, see it bobbing about alongside our ship, which is also shifting a bit, I seriously doubt this. One member of the crew takes the wheelchair and folds it up; two others get either side of Mum and tell her to step across when they tell her to. She does that thing she does – just kind of launches herself and hopes for the best. I’m terrified, but, amazingly, it’s fine, and there she is, standing on the wee boat, hanging onto the rail, perfectly happy.
There are no seats at the front, but two people see Mum’s condition and move to let us sit down. There really are some very nice, helpful people on the cruise. The couple opposite are from Largs, so that sets off many memories and conversations (we’re typical ‘Glasgow folk to Largs’ types). When we get to Cannes we are allocated our guide, Nathalie; very smiley, masses of black, frizzy hair, clip board hugged tightly to her chest. Her English is good - not quite as perfect as you’d expect from a professional guide, but she’s so smiley I don’t really notice.
Nathalie tells us we’re going on the little train around Cannes. Mum is confused – last time she did this tour it was the bus round Cannes and the little train round Nice. She’s not happy with this change. It’s a bit of a walk to the wee train and a lot of people are complaining as they hadn’t expected this and aren’t very fit. Mum’s in the wheelchair, so she’s fine … until we get to the wee train and realise there’s nowhere to put the wheelchair. The guide talks to the driver and he says he has a basket he’ll put it in – no problem. The next problem is actually getting her on to the wee train – it’s a very high step. The driver produces one of those wee steps for toddlers, the ones for reaching the toilet/sink, and between us he and I manage to get Mum on the train, not helped by the fact that she’s having another giggling fit.
The little train is not actually a train and doesn’t run on tracks – it’s just one of those things you see at theme parks that looks like an old steam train from the front and has open carriages attached. As it pulls away I see our wheelchair sitting on the pavement. Oh dear. Hope for the best that the driver had a plan and it will still be around when we get back. The little train is very bumpy. Very, very bumpy and the driver is wheeching us up and down hills and round corners and along narrow streets. I’m beginning to feel a bit sick. Fortunately Mum has brought the travel tablets, so I take a couple and hope for the best.
Cannes is absolutely beautiful, especially in such glorious weather. Nathalie is keen for us to see The Carlton Hotel, which is where all the top stars stay when they come for the film festival. She mentions Brad Pitt more than is strictly necessary. The beach looks small, but gorgeous, with some very fancy sun loungers dotted around. We stop at the top of a hill where we can get out and take some photographs of the spectacular view.
Once we’ve ‘done’ Cannes we head back to get on a bus for Nice. Nathalie has this disturbing habit of talking directly to one passenger when she’s giving out info, and when we get on the bus it’s me and my mum. We feel obliged to nod and answer questions, and smile way more than the information warrants. Eventually Mum just falls asleep – good tactic.
We stop in Nice and Nathalie tells us we’re going to walk down to the market, we should get off the bus and follow her. More grumbling from those with disabilities as the market is about a ten minute walk and involves going down some stairs. Mum and I fall behind as moving the wheelchair around these streets isn’t easy, and Mum has to get out and walk down the stairs, very slowly. We catch up with everyone at the market. We have 45 minutes to spend on our own. Yay. We go and get a coffee and a croissant and watch the market (we couldn’t get the wheelchair through market – no chance) and the people going by.
We spot one ‘character’ – an old guy with bizarre hair and a very fancy white, handlebar moustache. He’s wearing a suit and a hat and riding a scooter. He’s got ‘eccentric’ screaming from every pore. A sudden roar comes from the Irish pub (yes, I’m afraid so) opposite – that’ll be the rugby again. We know that we can’t really spend the full 45 minutes here as it will take us longer to get back to the bus, so we set off and get there at just the right time.
Cannes and Nice really are beautiful and I would love to go back there for a proper holiday. I think this is probably all you’d ever get out of cruise excursions – the chance to get a feel for somewhere, to know if you’d like to spend more time there. It’s a good way to check out possible holiday destinations, but nothing more.
Back at the dock in Cannes there’s a massive queue to get to the tenders. The sun is at its hottest and everyone is feeling tired and irritable and really not keen on hanging around here for ages. The queue snakes forward slowly and after about half an hour we’re almost at the front. A couple of people ahead of us point out that there’s a separate entrance for the disabled lift. We thank them and move over, but just as we get there, two people walk in front of us and start complaining to the staff that they paid for priority boarding and shouldn’t have to wait here with all these people. They want something done about it immediately. They ignore us and the fact that they’re blocking the disabled entrance. Two more people join them and start up the same complaint, one of them adding that she’s actually officially disabled, just doesn’t have her badge with her. Eh, yeah, but she’s not in a wheelchair and is still blocking the lift. They pretend they can’t hear me asking them to let us through. Mum suggests we just ram them with the wheelchair. It’s very tempting. The rest of the queue start yelling at them to get out of the way, to get back to the end of the queue, they’re not jumping ahead etc. Eventually I raise my voice and ask them if I can please get through. They pretend they hadn’t seen me and move, but only enough for me to squeeze past them.
By the time we get down in the lift to the next queue, we’re way at the back. The people who were in front of us up on the dock spot us and shout to us to come forward – they’ve kept our space. Like I say, some people are lovely, others are selfish gits. Such is life.
Finally back on the ship we head up for tea. Mum has her usual, but I don’t feel quite right, so I just have an orange. The orange tastes odd – like the flesh tastes of orange skin. Instead of throwing it away, I keep on eating. This proves to be a very bad decision. We go up to sunbathe, but after lying down for a few minutes I’m feeling really rough and tell Mum I’ll go down to the cabin for a while and come back and get her when I feel better. It soon becomes apparent that I’m not going to get any better, so I get Mum and then lie down, hoping that a sleep is all I need.
I start throwing up at 6 pm and and continue to do so at fairly regular intervals until 5 am. For a tiny orange, it certainly made its presence felt and somehow reappeared eight times throughout the night. We miss dinner, we miss everything. Mum goes and changes our Rome excursion to an afternoon panoramic bus trip. I hope I’ll make it tomorrow, but can’t be sure.
Did I say today could only be better? Well, mostly it has been, but tomorrow is looking like being a cancellation. Rome is the one place Mum hasn’t been before and she really wants to see it.
Fingers crossed.
Oh well...
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