Cruise to Barcelona 2016

I'm working on getting the pictures on here. It's been difficult...

Deb loves these cruises and they are pretty cheap. This is a re-positioning cruise which means they are moving the ship from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean Sea. (map)

March 26 we took our usual taxi guy to SFO - Praytap. We flew on Jet Blue directly to Fort Lauderdale. When we arrived we went to pick up our bags and found that they didn't make it onto the airplane. Some mechanical problem in San Francisco. We talked with the Jet Blue people and they said they had a relationship with Holland America and they would send our bags to the ship.

We stayed overnight at the Courtyard Marriot in Plantation Florida.

The next day we had some breakfast then took the hotel shuttle to the Holland America ship Eurodam. We've been on this ship before but it has been refurbished. Deb tried to check on our luggage. We were told it was there and would be delivered to our cabin.

We finally got on and went to the Lido deck for some lunch.

Later we went to our cabin. Our bags were delivered later.

The cabin is small, as usual. Deb had balloons on the door and flowers delivered. Perhaps some champagne too.

The ship sailed.

We know the drill on the ship. We went to our life boat muster and checked in. At 5pm we checked and found that martini madness was not going to happen tonight. However, they have a cocktail tasting that works the same. It was located in the Ocean Lounge. As usual drinks are $4, small, and three options. We shared all three.

Later off to dinner and later a show.

The next few days were routine. See my previous writeups.

- Breakfast in our room.
- Hike around and see what's going on or watch movies on the tv.
- Lunch in the dining room.
- Trivia competition then a nap.
- At five it's Martini Madness - they called it something else.
- Dinner around 7
- We go to the show or look at other things happening.
- To bed.

We met some really fun people at Martini Madness. Deb has all the names. I'll put them in here later.


The second day out we had a wine tasting sponsored by AAA because we booked through them.

We did get a bottle of gin for the room.

At some point we had a lunch for the "mariners".

We like to play trivia. We usually teamed up with this hilarious family. 

One of the best upgrades on the ship was the TV. It used to be small, not HD and in the corner. They now have a rather large HD TV mounted at the end of the bed. We watched quite a few movies. I'll bet some people spent a lot of time in their cabins watching movies.
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On day nine we landed at Funchel, Madeira island Portugal (link). We have been out of sight of land for NINE days! Once in a while we'd see a ship.

We've been here several times before. We did not take the cable car up the mountain today. We walked around. This time we got into the Cathedral and saw the gold altar. We visited the big market. The top area is mostly flowers and food. Down stairs is the most amazing fish market we've ever seen. We hiked around and looked at the arty doors. We had a bit of porto before heading back to the ship. We noticed a guy skinny dipping!

Back to ship life...

On day 11 we landed at Cadiz Spain (link). Cadiz is one of the oldest cities in Europe. It has a lot of Visigoth history. We sort of know our way around here. We wanted to visit the Visigothic museum attached to the old crumbling basilica. Unfortunately it was closed for siesta. No worry there is another larger museum back in town.
   After some hiking around we found the museum. It was rather amazing. Lots of Visigoth and Roman items here. Plus some art. Very impressive.
   We may have had a bite to eat but more likely just some wine. xxx and xxx found us and talked a bit. Much fun.

Back to ship life...

Day 12 we hit Malaga Spain (link). Another ancient city. We looked around at the Roman Theater then went into the Alcazaba and enjoyed that a lot. We sat down next to the Picasso Museum and had a drink and watched the action. We moved to the open square in front of the Alcazaba and had a bite to eat.  I seem to remember that they were charging money to enter the cathedral so we skipped it. We've seen it before.

Back to ship life...

Day 13 Cartagena Spain (link). This is a short visit. We had a great time last time we were here. Of course we visited the large man statue. Cartagena means new Carthage. We did not pay to enter the Roman Theatre. We've been here before and knew there was a way around and up for some views. Sure enough we followed around and climbed up up up to the top of the mountain for some good views. On the way we did see the Roman theater. I nearly lost my jacket.
   Back down along the waterfront we visited the Coyote bar. An Americanized version of a bar. Pretty neat with US license plates and various old west items on the walls.
   We saw some jellyfish on the way back to the ship.

Back to ship life...

Day 14 - Barcelona. We disembarked, stood in line for a while then took a taxi to our hotel.