Land Ho!!! St Maarten internet connection!

Friday, Sept 17

After updating pictures and the blog, we really didn’t do too much in Salou because it rained a good part of the day.  When it stopped for a few hours we ventured out.  A block away from our hostel is beautiful beaches on the Mediterranean Sea.  We walked along the beach looking at the restaurants and shops along the main drag.  I decided on El Toro for lunch, a nice second story restaurant overlooking the beach and water.  We just had some pizza and yummy garlic bread and made our way back to the room because it was clouding up again.  We rested and relaxed so we would be ready for the cruise.

Saturday, Sept 18

We woke up early, crammed our suitcases closed for the last time for the next two weeks and made our way the block to the train station.  It is fantastic how easy public transportation has been in the places we visited on this trip.  I don’t know how tourists make their way around the US after getting use to the efficiency and ease of public transport outside the states.

After a little over an hour and a half on the train spent traveling along the Mediterranean Sea passing beaches and industrial areas we arrived at Estacio de Franca, our stop and the end of the line for the train.  When Jessi and I arrived at this station three years ago, we walked the rest of the way to the ship because it seems like it was close.  It ended up being an hour and 45 minute walk.  Lesson learned.  This time, we hopped in a cab and 10 minutes and 11 euros later, we were at the ship.  There was an extremely long line for check in, but then a lady said, “US citizen? That line.” And we walked right through a queue with no people in it to five people waiting to check us in.  After five minutes we were making our way onto the ship.

We were very excited to be able to unpack our bags and do our laundry.  First though, we had to get in line to make brunch reservations for Palo, the adult only restaurant on the top of the ship.  While we were waiting I saw the couple who was at our table on the last transatlantic cruise.  I haven’t seen them for three years.  I had exchanged a couple of emails so we could sit at the same table again this time.  We were catching up with them and found out that by coincidence our room was right across from theirs’ on deck 5 forward.  We made our reservation, told Mike and Pat we would see them at dinner and made our way to the lunch buffet at Topsiders.  We ate our first of many, many meals on the ship that we were excited we didn’t have to pay for.  Then we went to check out our room, number 5509.  It is the cheapest room; I always just get a standard inside room.  This was the biggest room I have been in because it was a unique layout.  There must be service areas around the room or something.  We have also been in tiny hostels and homes for two weeks so that made what usually seems like tiny rooms appear larger.

After a few minutes in the room we got off the ship to go to Las Ramblas, the major shopping road in Barcelona and get some tshirts for people and alcohol for the cruise.  After an hour and a half, we were back on the ship and ready to rock.  We made our way to the safety drill and saw that another couple that was at our table in my January cruise was on this cruise too.  And they were right across the hall in the room next to our other friends.  It is a small world after all!

We worked on our laundry and saw the welcome aboard show with an amazing ventriloquist and another guy who did unique juggling.  After the show we made our way to the first of what will be many delicious four course meals.  Our server Cornwall from St Vincent and assistant server Eric from India are our dining room staff for the cruise.  We went to bed in nice comfy beds for once and called it a night.

Monday, Sept 27

Well I have been terrible about updating the old blog during the cruise.  I keep intending to get to it but it never seems to happen.  Nothing overly exciting happened during all our sea days so I will just hit the memorable highlights.

After our first night on the ship we had one day at sea before we got to Gibraltar.  It was so nice being able to sleep in and enjoy a day with no theme park or airport to run to.  Dinner was the Prince and Princess menu and it was a formal night so we were looking good in ties and I was rocking my new Express pants (that I got on sale… woot!)

The next morning, Monday, Sept 20, we arrived bright and early in Gibraltar.  It was an overcast day and you couldn’t see the top of the rock let alone across the channel to the coast of Africa.  I wasn’t overly inclined to do too much here because three years ago I went on a shore excursion to the top of the rock and saw the wild monkey’s jumping from person to car to wherever and running all over the place.  I also toured the Great Siege Tunnels on that trip.  It was completely clear then so the view was fantastic compared to the overcast day we were experiencing on this trip.  At any rate, we ended up just getting off the ship for a few hours and walking to the main city center and looking at the shopping area.  It was pretty much a random mish mash of alcohol, tobacco, jewelry and electronic stores for blocks and blocks that were selling things for the exact same price as every other store.  My highlight was once again seeing the airport runway that was built on land reclaimed from the water.  It runs perpendicular to the two lane road and is where the Gibraltar and Spanish borders meet.  When a plane needs to land, the railroad like barricades come down, stopping traffic, the plane lands and then traffic proceeds.

Back on the ship, they brought on a UK Beatles tribune band which people seemed to love.  They really know their target audience, because these people loved this show.  We were at Animator’s Palate for our show dinner, when the restaurant starts in black and white and slowly changes to in color over the course of the meal.  It is a unique environment.

Tuesday, Sept 21 brought another sea day and another day of sleeping in and relaxing.  It also brought the first of six nights we turned the clock back an hour which I find one of the coolest parts of this cruise.  Lots of 25 hour days!  It would be difficult crossing east from the US and losing all that time.  We skipped the early show, a night of Spanish dance and music, went to our Island dinner at Parrot Cay and then went to bed fairly early because we had a big day ahead of us.

We woke up on Wednesday in Funchal, Madeira a Portuguese island off the African coast.  We made our way off the ship and met up with Alex, a couchsurfer I found to give us a crash course Madeira tour before the ship left at 6:30.  We were originally scheduled to leave later but there were hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic that Captain Thord wanted to get ahead of. 

Our stop in Madeira will definitely be the highlight of our stops on this cruise.  Alex was an amazing tour guide and the terrain was unbelievable and very memorable.  We started out with a drive out of Funchal.  Madeira has about 300,000 residents; half live in Funchal and the other half in the rugged sides of mountains and the few flat areas in the rest of the island.  We stopped at a few beautiful overlooks where there were a lot of tourists before we stopped and took a half hour hike up a mountain to the third highest point in Madeira.  It was beautiful.  We were above the clouds and could see down to a city 1600 meters below us, as well as the Ocean in the distance.  It was stunning and beautiful.  We made our way past a wind farm where we learned that 50% of Madeira’s energy is derived from here and the other 50% is from Hydro energy.  They are definitely energy efficient here.  We then stopped at the edge of a crazy cliff.  There was a cable car that went straight down to a little grouping of houses and farming area.  Alex said the only way to the houses was by boat, cable car or to hike down the side of the cliff, about a hour and a half walk on the way down.  We then made our way to another touristy city on the northwest side of the island where there were interesting pools filled by the Ocean water since the beaches suck here.  They are all rocky and black stone filled with no sand.  No one was swimming because on this side of the island there were the biggest waves I have ever seen.  Good surfing Alex told us.  We then started taking the quick route back to Funchal.  Instead of driving through the mountains for hours, we took the more modern (built in the last 10 years,) tunnels through the mountains.  We stopped at a Poncha tavern which is a unique drink that they make and everyone drinks in Madeira.  It is firewater (rum as far as I can tell,) mixed with honey and lemon.  It is decent tasting but has a very high alcohol content so I would never be able to drink too much of it.  We resumed our drive and took the scenic route through Funchal.  Alex told us that 500 years ago the primary moneymaker was sugar cane, then it changed to bananas and now wine plays a small part of farming but tourism is the source of income on the island now.  There are 27 five star hotels in Funchal, a higher concentration than anywhere else in the world.  It is the vacation destination of choice for wealthy Europeans.  We finished our tour with a walk through old Funchal and had some yummy traditional bread from a sidewalk stand.  We thanked Alex and said goodbye and got back on the ship with amazing memories of one of the most unique places I have ever been.  Another successful couchsurfing experience even though we did not stay on anyone’s couch!!!

Back on the ship we had our French dinner at Lumiere’s and went to bed early after an exhausting day ashore.

From Funchal it would take five sea days traveling 400-500 nautical miles per day to get us across the Atlantic Ocean.  Currently, we are on our last day at sea.  It has been a fantastic few sea days of sharing great dinners with our retired friends Pat and Michael, seeing comedians, production shows and musicians and relaxing watching movies in the movie theatre.  They premiered “You Again” the same day as on land and I thought it was pretty funny.  My mom would definitely love this movie!  They have a drink of the day that we try just about everyday and if I don’t like that there are always the raspberry daiquiris I make in my little Wal Mart blender in the room.  I have also been kicking Matt’s butt at Yahtzee.  All in all, this is just a fantastic relaxing time after the craziness of all the exhausting places we went before the cruise!  I love this ship, it is definitely my second home after Madison!

That’s about it for now.  I’m off to see another movie.  I won’t be going outside because I left out of the story getting absolutely sunburned to a painful degree at the pool a few days ago.  We are definitely feeling a little better day by day and will be ready for fun and excitement with Kyle and Gene in a few days!