Tight flights to cruise on new Carnival Breeze

Hello from Marseille, France, where I’m lucky to be sitting aboard the new Carnival Breeze on the first day of a Mediterranean Sea cruise. Lucky, because I broke one of my basic cruise rules on this trip: Never plan to arrive at the port on getaway day, as you might miss the ship.

Carnival Breeze was to begin a 12-night cruise at 5 p.m. on Friday.

Feeling a significant measure of comeuppance, I watched my flight to Europe take off without me on Thursday night. Due to mechanical difficulties, my connecting plane from Cleveland was 90 minutes late arriving in Philadelphia. The Cleveland plane was still sitting on the tarmac of the Philadelphia airport, waiting for a gate, when my scheduled flight to Barcelona taxied out to the runway.