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Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands 2015 |
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Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands 2015 |
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Having toured part of the USA by car earlier in the year, we decided on a cruise where you check in to the "hotel" once and it moves from location to location.
We had a good journey down to Southampton apart from the last two miles. There was a boat show on and the traffic was very heavy.
After boarding the ship, we thought one of our cases had been lost but it turned up after dinner. We had opted for anytime dining on a shared table, where you just wait for it to be filled and are then served. We like that as you get to meet lots of people. Unfortunately they put us on a table that was not the current one for being filled so we sat there wondering what was going on. After a while, I spoke to one of the waiters and they realised their mistake. Throughout the journey I could not fault the waiters and waitresses for pointing out to me anything that was high in sugar.
I had bought a GoPro camera for our earlier trip to the USA so I decided to attend a demo. Meanwhile, Gill attended a diamond presentation and won some tanzanite earrings in a raffle. They were said to be worth a few hundred dollars but our local jeweller raised an eyebrow at that.
After lunch in the Ocean View, we spent the afternoon in the Sky Lounge.
We had breakfast with a gentleman named David who was on his 70th cruise! We asked if he was travelling alone and he explained his wife Elaine was unwell. The crossing was rough and whilst it didn't affect us, there were noticeably fewer people than usual at breakfast. David estimated this to be his third worst cruise from that point of view.
We both had a massage later in the morning and spent the afternoon reading and watching a film.
We met Chris and Ann at dinner with Ann's brother John. His wife was unwell, again the rough crossing.
We read for a while and watched a film before going on an organised coach trip to Ribeiro Grande, Fire Lake and a pineapple plantation.
At dinner we Su and Kevin, a couple we had met on our St Petersburg cruise.
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After breakfast with David, it was a day for the gym, reading and watching a film. We had dinner with Margaret and Jim from Scotland, and Hazel and John.
The must do here is the cable car and the botanical gardens, so that is what we did!
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In the morning we went of the Mount Teide tour (a World Heritage Park) and in the afternoon we did some shopping in the large El Cortes Ingles shop.
We dined again with Chris and Ann, and Tony who was now joined by his wife Pat.
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I was unwell and confined to our stateroom.
Today was my birthday but by the time I was cleared to leave the stateroom, it was too late for any of the tours so we took a taxi for not a great amount of money more and certainly worth the luxury of big Mercedes-Benz. Our driver was Abraham from the Cameroons and he looked after us very well.
We visited the Timanfaya National Park (where we had to transfer to a coach tour) and then onto Jameos del Agua and Mirador del Rio.
After dinner, we had drinks again with Jim and Margaret.
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We went to a shopping mall but there was nothing of interest to us there and seemingly no other shopping in the area. It was very humid so we decided to return to the ship, as did many others for the same reason.
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Reading and films!
We started with the organised coach tour of the city and then went to the Gulbenkian Museum. After that we took a taxi to the shopping area. After walking around there and having some lunch, we walked down to Commercial Square. By then we were ready to return to the ship which could be seen in the distance. I judged it to be much further than it might appear but Gill was adamant "it's not far". Famous last words. It was a good few miles off.
We were ready for another enjoyable dinner with Chris and Ann, and Tony and Pat.
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Reading and suchlike.
Sadly back home but a very enjoyable holiday. As before, Celebrity Cruises did an excellent job. The most impressive thing was one day when we were returning to the ship. They had staff outside with a choice of orange juice or water as it was hot and everyone needed a cooling drink. The waiter who served as at dinner the night before turned the tray and said you can't have the orange juice, he had remembered I am diabetic and that would contain too much sugar. That did impress me given the number of people on board.