Freedom of the Seas - Villefranche

 Sunday was our first day in a port and it was Villefranche, France. This port is a tender and so you must get into a small boat to the Pier. I must say they are very efficient at getting everyone off and back on the cruise ship. On my other cruise we played everything by ear and had nothing booked through the cruise line. This time I decided to book everything directly through Royal. I had suppliers I could use and contacts in Europe but figured I would give this a try. I was not disappointed in this method at all.
So let's start with the Cruise Compass every evening you will receive a pamphlet in your room and it will tell you everything that will be happening on the ship for the following day. On the first evening you will also receive a booklet with a list of all the excursions available in the ports that can be booked. In our case we pre-booked all of our excursions for the week online from our account for each port. We did save some money by doing this as the weekend I booked everything there were discounts on most excursions.

 Page 1 of Day 2 of the Cruise Compass

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The ship arrived at 9:00 am and the first tenders started at 9:45 am give or take. Getting off the ship always depends on clearance by customs of the country you are in. When you get off the ship you must always take your seapass card as well as photo identification or proof of citizenship. The only place I have every been asked for my passport/proof of citizenship to get back on a ship has been Bahamas but all countries have the right to ask.

Villefranche is a very small town there is a Chapel to see as well as the Citadel and shops. Most of the excursions took you out of the town to explore what the Cote D'Azur/French Riviera have to offer. Some of the agents I was travelling with chose to do just that.

So I forgot to mention in my earlier posts that this cruise was special as it was the 2017 2nd Annual President's Cruise. What this means is that Michael Bayley the President of Royal Caribbean was on board this cruise along with a lot of senior members of Royal's Leadership. So there were special excursions offered that included time with him.
I am going to list a few of the excursion that were available so you can get an idea. Cote D'Azure Wine & Dine with Michael Bayley, Best of the French Riviera, Discovering Monaco & Monte Carlo, Nice, Eze & Monaco Discovery, Monaco & Monte Carlo, Easy going old Monaco & Eze Perfume Factory, Nice & Cannes on your own and many more...The excursions were as low as $59.75 USD per person to as high as $319.00 per person.
Most of these tours require walking of at least a mile and over cobblestone paths. This of course is a common theme in Europe. My mother has knee problems and suffers from sciatica and so we had to be careful with what excursions we chose.
My next blog post will discuss the tour we took and what we thought of it.

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slough@exclusivetoyoutravel.com