Ajaccio

The view from my cabin as I opened the Curtains today. No winter blues here!! This is the port of Ajaccio coming into view.

The Napoleonic Exhibitions at Ajaccio.

Bonjour!

Ajaccio is a beautiful port of call on the Island of Corsica. This is where Napoleon was born and everywhere around the town you are reminded of their Hero with tributes to the great Emperor. The population is around 280,000 people and this is a French Island however it used to belong to the Italians before Napoleon came along. As our Agent told me Napoleon won many battles but also lost a few - but sure isn't life like that?! The Island is divided into two areas - the North and the South - how unusual! In the north there is BASTIA and this is the administration Capital and all the Ferries operate from there. In the south AJACCIO is the commercial centre and the focus for all Cruise Ship activities. It would take you 2.5 hours to drive from Ajaccio to Bastia via a range of mountains some as high as 2500 meters . You can imagine how wonderful it is here with the French and Italian influences.

The Calanches of Piana.

A busy day on board for all as we are at anchor and operating a boating service to the town. Passengers find this very exciting as they get a change to view their Ship ARCADIA from the water. All the local shop keepers and Coffee Bar owners must love to see the ARCADIA pull into port!!!

The Sanguinary Tower at Ajaccio. See the crystal clear waters!


On board ARCADIA we have our team of BUTLERS! When I was working in the P&O Cruises Southampton Office in 1999 I had all the fun of setting up the Butlers Job Description, the Service Standards Manual and then interviewing 36 candidates for the position. The Butlers have been a very welcome addition to the top suite services. Did you know that all of our Suites have their own individual names on the door and are named after famous ports which we visit?For example The New Orleans Suite, The Athens Suite, The Auckland Suite and such like.

ARCADIA's Suites are served by a Team of five Butlers. Between them they provide various services to 35 Suites around the ship. They organise the Concierge service, special items and requests making sure are all is at hand even before the passengers embark on the ship. They start the cruise by meeting the passengers and escorting them to their Suites and helping them unpack and settle in. In a typical day the Butlers start with early morning tea and breakfast service, organising advance booking in our Speciality Restaurants, Tours bookings, Spa appointments, organising parties right from arranging the canapés to delivering the invites, serving lunch and afternoon teas, drinks& canapé service in the evening, and finally ending the day serving an intimate dinner on the balcony. They still find time to deliver laundry and to clean shoes. The butler is only a phone call away and will even help you pack and escort you to the gangway as you disembark the ship. The Butlers Team on board the Arcadia consists of Rajesh Kumar Sharma, Satya Sahu, Anoopkumar Purshottam, Rohit Pinto and Santosh Kiran Barboza.

My grateful thanks to Laurent Sicard, managing Director of Medacruise for the French lessons and some of the beautiful photographs. Laurent takes care of Corsican Ports.

And finally my thanks to my good friend and Colleague Peter Thomas, Executive Purser on board AURORA for this fantastic picture of AURORA at Anchor. The Butlers first went live in 2000 on board AURORA, the year AURORA was named by HRH Princess Anne, and guess what I was there!

Meilleures Salutations,

James

It will soon be Christmas and we will all be singing 'When the red red Robin comes Blog Blog Blogging along'!