October 17, 2015

We are back, we arrive FLL at 05:00 as scheduled it is warm and tropical, with a nice breeze.  Still dark.

We are not going to go to breakfast, as both of us are too full, from dinner. Very nastagic saying good-by to Ken and Claudia not sure when we will see them again. The rest of the table, Val, Jim, Bill, and Irene, we will see in the near future. 

So now it is on to the car rental, and our first day driving home. Tonight God willing we will be in Savannah.

October 16,2015 At sea almost home, Happy Birthday Eddie

Happy birthday Eddie and also Happy Anniversary to you and Jennifer.  

It is a quite day at sea, we have been lucky this trip, not much weather on the high sea. 

I think it is about 7:55 AM ships time we are still an hour off east coast time, as far as time goes we are not sur what time it is as our iPads still read Europe time, not sure why, as they changed right away when we got to Europe, but have not changed back. Jim's has stayed on east coast time the whole trip, go figure. 

Well I guess I better get dressed, to go to our last breakfast in Sabatini's and wake up Ed. 

October 15th 2015

ships time 7:53AM      28* north and 66* west and 760 nm to go, To FLL

Today is not as pretty this morning, looks like we are moving into a storm, but an interesting sky none he less. 

Today is our last formal night of this cruise, and I am not sure what else. We had a great dinner last night at the Crown Grill, and we saw two wonderful shows, we bought a CD from the violinist Greg Scott. He was great, and great looking all 6 foot 4 of him!

I was right we are in a big thunderstorm!  How quickly the sea can change!  But it appears to be just rain as the sea is still pretty flat. 

Ok I just looked at the Patter, and there is a lot to do today so I guess I better go get a shower, before Ed wakes up. 

October 14th again

Ok we are finely caught up for the moment. It is 1pm and our position, is 30 degrees north and 60 degrees west or there abouts and the temp is 80 degrees and we are in the dull drums, seas are very calm. 

 Our day will consist of eating at the Crown Grill tonight an this afternoon seeing a show Paul Baker who was in La Mize and fantom of the opera. So it will be a full day. 

Funchal, Madeira the last port before FLL

We had planed to buy Madeira wine at this port and other goodies, but it was not to be as I reported eairler, it rained so hard all we did is waste $20 to go into town. In the past we loved this stop. But it was not to be, even sale-away was in the cabin, not on the deck. 

All and all we have had a wonderful cruise, good friends,  good food, and great service. Next stop FLL!

October 14, 2015

Now to try to finish theses last to port stops that really didn't amount to a whole lot, but here goes.  We arrived in Lisbon about 8 AM, Ed went upstairs to take pictures of the bridge we pass under. This is Portugal's answer to our golden gate. 

We had a tour to Santra & Cascals we spent a half day exploring Portugal's coastline. We drove to Cascais, stopping for a bit at Guinco Beach, and we had a coffee, and did a wee bit of shopping, then it was back in the buss to go to Santra which is set high in the mountains. 

From the central,square in Santra, we could see the 8th-century Castle of the Moors fortress. But we had more shopping to do. This place had purses and shoes mad of cork! I have never seen any thing like before. 

When we had our sale-away, we saw,hundreds of squid!

Happy Birthday Tim

Good morning Tim and every one, I took a great sunrise again, but lost it, 

So here is another one that isn't as good but shows how flat the sea is. 

Oct 12 more catch up, Lisbon

Good morning, I didn't finish and it is now October 13 and this is the view from my window. I don't know what time it is as the iPad has it all wrong and my watch is in the sleeping area and Ed is still asleep. And we set the clocks back again last night. Anyway I will continue the tale after a shower and breakfast.

October 12, 2015

Good morning, I will now try to catch up some more. Ed is at a lecture, on all things technical about the Emerald Princess. And Dariusz has cleaned our room while we at breakfast. So I will try to continue my catch up. We are having very nice calm seas, and the wi-fi seems to be performing well. 

Oct. 6th found us in Cadiz, and we booked a sherry tasting and the Royal Analusian School Equestrian horse show!  

Cadiz is one Europe's oldest inhabited cities, dating from 1100 B.C. And is the gateway to Seville and Andalusia. It is a really a beautiful city, and we wished we had a longer visit, the weather was warm and sunny, very welcomed. 

We started at Sherry Bodega, to see how sherry is produced, and stored, you can buy a whole berral if you are famous enough, or rich enough, and they store it for you in the right conditions. It was all very interesting, and we bought a couple bottles. 

The it was on to see the Andalusian horses, that are no longer called that, they want to have them known as Spanish Horses!  What ever they are the most beautiful things, we loved this hour and a half show it was worth every penny. We were not allowed to take pictures in the show, but I got a couple outside in the practice area It was a great show.

October 11,2015

Today we are having a very nice sea day, not many waves and just being lazy. Went to the pool for a while, after breakfast, met Val and Jim, but then after an hour or so I knew I needed to get out of the sun.  So now we are on our balcony and it is in the shade, and we just ordered lunch, what a life!

OK, now going back once again. I think I left off at the Paestum Excavations.  The next day 10/02/15 we were to be in Cannes France, and once again the weather did not cooperate and because of high winds and rough seas this port was skipped.  So we had a much appreciated sea day. 

The next day was Barcelona and Ed and I had planed to go into town, as it is one of our favorite places, but again weather,,,,,, it was really raining, and the shuttle bus was $15 PP each way, so we decided we could spend $60 on something better. So we stayed on board. We looked for Irene and Bill and Ken and Claudia, as they were boarding here, but didn't see them, and forgot we were to meet Bill and Irene in Adagios as the patter posted that there was a LGBT get together up there. Any way we all got together the next day when we went to Valencia. 

So now speaking of Valencia Spain, another diapointment, when we received our tour tickets on the second segment, they informed us the tour we had booked to the beach at El Saler, had been changed, and there were no chairs or umbrellas as the concession had closed for the season, and since we had already paid for that we could cancel, so, we did, and had lunch on our balcony. And that was fortuitous as we saw Bill and Irene returning to the ship, and Ken and Claudia too, and then Val and Jim came back too, so we had the first sail away party, fun, fun.  

Next stop was Malaga Spain, we had a tour here to go up in the mountains to Ronda. This tour was wonderful, but weather was NOT. It was cold and rainy. 

We wanted to go to Ronda to see the oldest bull ring in Spain and maybe the world. Along the way we saw a lot of other things. We traveled along the Costa del Sol and then climbed up the mountains to Ronda. When we arrived it was raining and we walked about two miles in the rain to see the the Puente Nuevo bridge that cross over the river Guadalevin and the El Tajo, a gorge that separates the old part of town from the new part of town. 

We then went to the Plaza del Toros, considered the birthplace of the modern Corrida del Toros. The arena the largest and oldest in Spain also houses the Antonio Ordonez Bullfighting Museum. It was very impressive and I wish we had not been so rushed, but often these tours promise more than can be seen in one short day. 

It was then time for shopping, but once again that got skipped, as we had to go to lunch and back to the bus, it was another mile or two.