Barcelona to Ft. Lauderdale Transatlantic Cruise – 2013

It was a rough night on the Mediterranean Sea on our transit from Barcelona to Toulon, France, our first port of call. Although we were not too far offshore, and the wind was blowing from the shore out into the sea, it was gusting to around 30 knots according to the ship’s weather information on the TV. Our cabin as a little forward of mid-ship, and we may be above a stabilizer, which they must have been using  help keep the ship steady since the wind was blowing from the port side, which is our side of the ship. Most of the night there was a strange shuddering sound which we have not heard on any of our previous cruises. Our cabin is a little more to the middle of the ship than on past cruises, but only by about 15 cabins.  I doubt the noise we heard was specifically localized to this part of the ship and only being heard by us based on where our cabin is located  on this cruise. We heard the noise at times all during night, but were too tired to let it bother us much.

Port of Toulon

We arrived in the port of La Seyne Sur Mer at about 7:00 AM, and the ship proceeded to back into our spot along the pier. It was as we had surmised, we were not actually docking in the portion of the port closest to the city of Toulon, it was across the harbor, and the city was only accessible via a $15.00 round trip ticket on a special port ferry. How nice and convenient for some ferry businesses, have the ship dock far away and then charge $15.00 to get to the port city listed.

We did not care, we were heading to the Europcar car rental office in La Seine Sur Mer, close to the docks we were at. We finished getting ready and headed off to the breakfast buffet for a hardy breakfast prior to our journey in the rental car. It was not the best weather in the port this morning, it was windy, about 45 degrees with overcast skies, and 70% rain was forecast for the afternoon. However, the sun did come out a little, there were some patches of blue skies between the clouds, so we decided to go ahead with our plans to rent the car.

We headed for the gangway at about 8;00 AM, and had to wait for about 10 minutes before everything was in place to allow passengers to disembark the ship. While waiting, we started talking to a couple who were from Dallas, and they were also going to the Europcar office, so we decided to split a taxi ride, which I had read was about Euro 10.00. They had actually emailed the rental office and were told to call them for a pick-up from the ship.  We all decided it would be quicker to go by taxi and not take the extra time waiting for a shuttle, which we have historically found to be delayed in getting anywhere on-time. I had read where the rental agency would reimburse the taxi fare, but in our case, when I mentioned that we had ‘”arrived by taxi” when checking out the car, the rental agent did not seem inclined to offer any reimbursement, but did offer to drop us off back at the ship after we returned the car.

We rented a Toyota Yaris Hybrid, which had an automatic transmission, rare for European car rentals.  It was my belief that these hybrid cars must all have automatic transmission in order to run efficiently between the electric and motorized modes. It turned out to be nice having the automatic as we eventually ended up on some very narrow and steep roads, more on that later.

Harbor in Cassis

We had programed several of our destinations into the GPS we brought from home, which includes Europe Maps.  However, when we tried to find them in the “favorites” on the GPS, they were gone. We never did figure that out, but did not end up needing them anyway, we just used the “search nearby” feature on the GPS to find our first stop in Cassis.

We were trying to head to the Cassis Harbor, since it was the starting point of some of the accesses to the Calanques, which are inlets in the natural rock cliffs. We took some very narrow winding roads as instructed by the GPS, and made it to the small harbor. There were a lot of tour boats there, but not many people since it is the off season. The tour boats were large, open boats with bench seats to transport people on water tours of the calanques.

Since it was fairly early in the morning, just a few of the locals were out and about having coffee and breakfast in the open cafes. We walked around some, mainly looking for the WC, or water closet (toilet). Stephanie asked about a public WC at the visitor information center and we were told it was near a fountain in the small square, however, after searching all sides of the square, we could not locate it. We went into a small grocery and asked another man inside, who we found out could speak good English, and his response was it was by the waterfront. Again, we searched a lot, but did not find it anywhere, so we resorted to asking at a restaurant, and they were kind enough to let us use their facility.

Chuck & Stephanie – Calanques Port Miou

With that task accomplished, we got back into our car and headed to one of the Calanques, which is also used as a harbor for boats, called Calanques Port Miou. We found a parking lot and started hiking the trails to find some of the more scenic areas along the coast. Some of this area had once been used as a quarry according to the trail information signage. Initially the trail was smooth and somewhat flat, but then it started to go uphill, and was quite rocky. The rock formation in the area seemed to generally be limestone, and in some areas, it was worn very smooth from the hikers. We were glad it was not wet, the rocks would have been extremely slippery.

We walked quite a way and took a lot of pictures. Part of the trail went down into a small Calanques, and there was a sandy beachfront about 60 feet wide. We did not go any farther along the trail, and headed back, but found another trail heading in a direction to go farther out onto a peninsula.

Small Sandy & Rocky Beach Area

By this time, we had already spent about 2 hours hiking and taking pictures.  We decided that since this was such a nice and peaceful area, we did not want to go into any of the other large cities we had originally had  planned to drive to on the port of call, especially since the weather forecast was calling for some rain later in the afternoon. The weather actually cleared some while we were hiking, and added to the scenic views.

Port Miou Calanques

We found another trail along the harbor that stayed lower down and closer to the water, so we walked along that trail for about a mile. Afterward, we headed back to the car to try and go by road to the area across the narrow inlet of the harbor to the other side since it was more exposed to the views of the Mediterranean Sea. Once o=n the other side, we ended up in a large parking area.  From there, and we walked up to a small area on another long, narrow peninsula of land. Along the way, we visited a small restored church,  and past the church was a large open area looking out onto the sea.

The Walking Trail

After a few more pictures, we headed back to the car to drive back to La Seyne Sur Mer. It was only about 28 kilometers, so we were back into the city area in less than 30 minutes since the speed limit on the roads was  130 km/hr. We saw a grocery store, and decided to stop in and have a look at what they had to offer. However, it was a very small store, mostly fresh vegetables, and some dry goods, but not much in the way of sodas and juices.

Port Miou from Alternate Side of the Calanques

We located another grocery store using the GPS, and it was just a few kilometers drive before we arrived to find what ended up being the French equivalent of our WalMart called Carefour.  It was more crowded than any WalMart Superstore we had ever been to, it was hard to even find a parking spot. We went in and spent about 30 minutes looking around and purchasing a couple of bottles of French wine since this was our only French port of call. They also carried Canada Dry Ginger Ale, so we picked up about three bottles of that, finding it much cheaper than purchasing the cans of ginger ale on the ship.

Upon leaving the store we found that it had started do drizzle, so after packing up our supplies in our backpacks, we headed back to the rental car agency. There was a gas station right next door, so we filled up the tank, not having used much gas since we had not traveled very far, and the car was a hybrid. Unfortunately, no one was at the car rental office when we tried to ask where to leave the car.   There was not any room to park it out in front of the office, so we took it across the street to another lot, but no one was there either. We waited several minutes and the lot attendant arrived in another rental car, probably having dropped another renter off at the cruise ship. We were a little concerned about the gas gauge, it was very delayed in showing the tank was full, so much so that the attendant wrote that it was only 7/8 full on the car return form. We tried to explain that we had filled it up, but between his limited English, and our even more limited French, it was not working. We went back across the street, and the rental office person was also back, and could speak good English. We convinced her that they did not need to charge us to fuel the car, that it was the “slow”gauge. However, I think there was still some doubt in their minds. The attendant took us back to the port in our same car, and after driving a couple of kilometers, the gauge was now reading over full, and he pointed that out, understanding finally what we had been trying to make them understand. He now seemed happy and so were we.

Chips & Salsa Happy Hour

He dropped us off at the ship and we were back on board by about 4:00 PM. We headed to the room to relax a little before going to the buffet for a late lunch. We brought back some chips and salsa to our cabin to have with some adult refreshments, it was too cold, windy and rainy to enjoy this snack on the balcony.

In a bit, we headed to the hot tub, our legs were quite sore from all of the hiking on the hilly trails in Cassis. After getting cleaned up, we headed to the buffet, again too tired to spend time going to the dining room for a more formal dinner. Again, we were not the only ones tired from the day at port, the buffet was very crowded. Plus, we had not seen many items of interest on the dining room menu for last night or today.  It is possible that they are not offering any special meal items due to the long port days, and late port departure times. People don’t want to miss any “special” meal items, and they are also too tired to go to dinner after a long day off of the ship.

After dinner we went to listen to a great classical guitar player in the atrium, and then it was back to the room to work on the blog, and turn in early. We did notice that the seas had become very rough, and when we looked at the ship’s weather report we could see why. They were reporting winds of about 45 knots, with gusts to 60 knots. We felt that most of the night on the way to Livorno, our next stop.

Since the internet on the ship is slow, we will not be posting many pictures until we have time to get onto the internet when usage is low, and the seas are hopefully calmer. We will go back and place pictures in each post, and also add photo albums for the ports of call, as we are able.

To view more photos from today’s post, here is a link to the Photo Album for Toulon, or you can access it via the menu on the top right.

Well, this was our last “early” start port for the trip, and at 5:30 AM, we were up and getting ready so we could depart the ship as close to the 7:00 AM posted disembarkation time as possible for the long day in Rome. We went to breakfast at about 6:15 AM, and the ship was still moving toward the port, which was common for a 7:00 AM port arrival schedule. Once we were back at the room, and fully packed to go, we looked out of the sliding glass door and realized we were still quite a ways out of the inlet to the port. It was just getting daylight, so this was our first opportunity to see how far we still were from the port, and that the 7:00 AM scheduled arrival was not going to occur.

Waiting Outside The Harbor

Shortly thereafter, the Captain came on the loudspeaker and informed us that it was too windy to enter the port, the winds were gusting over 50 knots. Initially they thought we would be delayed until around 8:00 AM, then it was 9:00 AM, and at 9:30 AM, we were still in a holding pattern outside of the port entrance. Finally, around 10:00 AM, we started toward the port, and by 10:45 AM, the ship was secure alongside the pier.

Of course, all of the tours were now close to four hours behind schedule, and everyone was impatiently waiting to get off the ship, and all at once.  Normally, with the early arrival time, not many people are ready to get off as soon as the ship is cleared for disembarkation, there are usually just small staggered groups ready to go ashore that early. We usually only have about 20 people waiting with us to get off the ship that early, which makes it nice, there are no lines and getting off of the ship is quick and easy. Today, however, was a totally different experience.

People were lined up and waiting by the time we were secured to the pier, and the gangway was lowered. We had about 200 people ahead of us waiting in line to get off, and to then board the free port shuttle buses that dropped passengers off at the port entrance. We were informed that the ship was not going to depart until 9:00 PM, which was two hours later than initially scheduled. However, the additional port duration time was not much benefit since sunset is scheduled for about 4:45 PM today; making it hard to see many of the sites in the dark.

Once off of the ship, it was a mad rush to the train station to get the first available train into Rome. The next train scheduled for arrival was already running 15 minutes late by the time we had our tickets and were at the platform, which did not help the situation. Then, due to normal local crowds, and the release of several hundred cruise ship passengers that were all trying to get to Rome at the same time, the train was VERY crowded. We were able to get seats, but they were not together, and the aisles were jammed with people standing right over you for the 50 minute trip into the Rome San Pietro Station, the train station for St. Peter’s Basilica, our initial destination. Of course, it seemed like everyone standing over us and sitting around us was coughing and sneezing for the entire train ride in the very crowded conditions. We surmise that with the changes in the weather this time of year, a lot of people are dealing with colds, including me. The weather had been sunny when we left Civitavechhia, but unfortunately was turning cloudy by the time we arrived in Rome.

Waiting In Line To Enter St. Peter’s

We walked the familiar few blocks to St. Peter’s Square, but as we approached, the normal entrances were blocked off, and there were a lot of policemen on the streets, as well as barricades to direct the pedestrian traffic away from the main street. We finally found an opening in the barricades to cross into the square, and got into the long line for security screening to enter the Basilica. We were not sure what was going on, but even the crowds seemed larger than normal. About 20 minutes later, some type of motorcade drove by with several police cars in front and behind, and then it was over, and the police left, and the barricades were taken down. We were not sure who it was, but certainly it was someone important, thereby requiring all of the additional security. We do not think it was the Pope, more people would have been lining the street next to the barricades.

After about 45 minutes of waiting in the long line, we went through the security screening and then walked into the Basilica, It had gotten even more cloudy by this time, so the natural sunlight illumination inside the Basilica was not as good as it could have been for photos. However, it is still an impressive sight, as it had been when we were here before. Unfortunately, since we were so late arriving, we were unable to attend Mass inside the Basilica as we had planned, masses are only held in the morning, and by now it was about 12:45 PM.

Inside St. Peter’s Basilica

Stephanie had wanted to get some holy water from the Basilica, so we headed over to the Sacristy entrance, which was where we had read online that we needed to go to accomplish that task. There was a small gift store there and we purchased a small bottle to fill from the font. Unfortunately, by the time we got to that part of the Basilica, the Sacristy had just closed, and was not scheduled to reopen until 4:00 PM. Fortunately, there was a holy water font outside, and we were able to fill the small bottle from that. There were several other people doing the same thing. We were fortunate that by the time we got into the Basilica, even though the lines were long, there were really not many people inside. It appeared that we were in between the morning and afternoon “tour group time zones”

Chuck & Stephanie – St. Peter’s Square

After walking inside the Basilica, we went downstairs under the Basilica to the Crypt, where many of the past Popes are interned. This was also one of the exits to the Basilica, over toward the location of the queuing area for  going to the top of the dome. However, since I have had a head cold for a couple of days now, and it was getting very cloudy, we decided to skip that on this trip. Too many stairs to climb feeling somewhat under the weather, and with skies looking more and more like rain.

Inside St. Peter’s Basiica

We visited the Basilica gift shop and Stephanie purchased a few items while I waited outside. Since the threat of rain seemed ever increasing, we decided that it would be better if we just headed back to the ship early. On the way out of the square, we did stop for some pictures in front of St. Peters before walking back to the train station. On the walk back, it did start to drizzle some, and was getting cooler. It was about 2:45 PM, and seemed even later with the cloud cover, almost like it was already starting to get dark. Of course, we were not too far from sunset scheduled for 4:45 PM today.

High Dynamic Ramge Photo – St. Peter’s

We boarded the 3:00 PM train back to Civitavechhia, and it was a much more relaxing return ride than this morning’s train trip had been. In anticipation of the large number  of commuters heading home for the day, the train company  had already switched over to the double deck train cars for the start of the afternoon commuter crowds.  Since we were early for the commuter passenger peak time, there were plenty of seats available, another benefit of heading back early.

The return train made a few more stops than the morning train had made, I guess another change due to the anticipated increase in passengers starting to return home from their daily commute into Rome. We did notice that it was starting to rain more heavily at times during the one hour return trip to Civitavechhia, but once we got there, it has stopped.

We started the walk back from the train station to the port entrance to catch the port shuttle bus back to the ship, but decided we would try and find the grocery store we had visited when we were here in 2008. We made a few wrong turns, but eventually found our way there. We were looking for some Vicks for my cold, and some hot chocolate for Stephanie, neither of which they had in the somewhat small store with limited selections. We ended up going to a pharmacy for the Vicks, being somewhat astonished by the price of Euro 16.00 for a container of Vicks and a Vicks inhaler. It was a larger container than we normally get, but since these types of items can only be purchased from a pharmacy in most areas of Europe, they are probably priced higher than we are used to compared to when we purchase them at a WalMart of Target at home. These items are not typically stocked at normal  stores here. We should have looked yesterday at the Toulon “WalMart” equivalent Carfore, but we did not think about it then.

Our Last View of the Dome of St. Peters

We walked the few blocks back to the port entrance and got onto the free shuttle bus back to the ship. Once back on board, we headed to the buffet for another late lunch. With the late timing of our arrival in Rome, the wait in the line at St. Peter’s, and the time it took to walk around inside the Basilica, we never really had an opportunity for grabbing a bite to eat, and there were not really any places to eat around the areas where we walked to and from the station in Rome.

After lunch, we headed back to the room to relax and have a glass of wine, and to do a load of laundry to wash whites/light colors. We thought since we were back on the ship earlier than many of the tours, the laundry mat would not be crowded, and we were correct. In addition, the laundry mat  is only a few cabins down the hall, so it is really convenient. We had some wine while we waited for the clothes to wash and then to dry, yeah for clean underwear!

After finishing the laundry, we got ready to make our daily visit the hot tubs near the spa, but when we arrived, we found that they were closed. Apparently, due to a forecast of rough seas, these particular hot tubs were closed off and drained in order to avoid overflowing and flooding the spa/salon area. We have seen the flooding occur on other similar ships, but mostly  from the lap pool, which had been drained for several days already.  We had never seen the hot tubs drained. This was the information we got from the spa personnel when we asked. We headed for some other hot tubs near the main pool, but it was really windy there. We then walked back to the hot tubs on the stern decks, but they were not very warm, and it was also windy in that area of the ship since it was not protected. The winds had picked up again, similar to this morning, ergo the forecast for rough sea conditions once we left port. Nothing like running around in your bathing suits in the cold wind, already suffering from a cold. We went back to the main pool and tested the temperature of the hot tubs there. These were warmer than those on the stern, but not warm enough to offset the cold breeze, so we abandoned the hot tub plan for health reasons.

We went back to the room and changed before heading out to find a quiet area so our room steward could prepare the room for the night. We headed up to the Skywalkers Nightclub at the top of the stern of the ship, which is usually a quiet area until it opens at 10:00 PM for dancing. There were just a few other passengers there, and Stephanie read while I worked on the blog. The ship departed around 9:00 PM as scheduled, but with the high winds, the ship had to have assistance from two tugs to pull it sideways away from the pier. The thrusters were apparently not strong enough to push the ship sideways into the strong wind. We had not ever seen this happen before, but, prior to today, we had also never been late arriving into a port due to high winds.

We were surprised that once we got out to sea, it was not nearly as rough as it had been last night, probably due to the fact that the ship was now heading westward with the wind as we start our total of three days at sea heading out of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and into the Atlantic Ocean and the island of Madeira.

To view more photos from today’s post, here is a link to the Photo Album for Rome, or you can access it via the menu on the top right.

We experienced another smooth sailing night on the Mediterranean Sea last night as we head toward Gibraltar and passage from the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean. According to the Captain’s daily report, we are scheduled to pass by Gibraltar tonight between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM. This will be our third time passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, and the third time it has been at night. Maybe one day we will actually see Gibraltar during the daytime.

We were both a little slow getting going this morning after last night, we had stayed up well past our normal bed time visiting  with our new friends and taking the photos in the Atrium.  I also think we are both still adjusting to the time difference, although we did get back one hour last night, our first time change back towards Eastern Time as we cross the Ocean. Apparently, Madeira, our next port of call,  must be on a different time zone, so we are adjusting to that time zone as we head there.

We ate breakfast in the buffet once again, but tried to eat a little more healthy today, cereal, fruits and yogurt. No eggs, sausage and pastries. After breakfast, we headed to the Purser’s Desk to see if they could have someone fix Stephanie’s shoe, it was her turn for shoe problems on a formal night, like I had experienced on our last cruise. The toe strap on one of her shoes had pulled out, an easy fix at home with some white glue or epoxy, but without supplies here on the ship, it was impossible to fix ourselves. They were going to send the shoe to the “upholstery shop” for repair, and were not sure how long it might take. If need be, Stephanie has another pair of shoes that can be worn for casual nights in a pinch, but they are not really dress shoes for the next formal night on Saturday.

With the shoe issue taken care of, we spent some time walking around before going back to the room to put on our exercise clothes and head to the gym for some elliptical time for me, and treadmill time for Stephanie. This is our first visit to the gym for this cruise, but only the second day we have not been on the go, and getting our exercise walking around in ports. None the less, it was not the funnest thing we have done so far on the cruise.

After cooling down, it was time for showers, and then heading out for some lunch. Today is “fish & chips” day for lunch in one of the lounges, but we decided against going. After having just exercised, it was hard to give it all up for fried fish and french fries, so we opted for slightly healthier food from the buffet.

Sunset At Sea

It started out as a sunny day, but soon turned cloudy, then partly cloudy. Overall, it was not a bad day, but not as nice outside as yesterday had been. The winds are still from our stern, so at least it was not windy out on deck, just cooler when the sun was not out.  We did spend a little time on the balcony later in the day, the sun was out a little more in the late afternoon. However, with the sunset being around 5:00 PM, it cools off quickly once the sun starts heading below the horizon. Of course, with us being as close to the Straits of Gibraltar, there were a lot of cargo ships entering the Mediterranean Sea, passing by us heading in the opposite direction to ports unknown.

Sunset At Sea

We did get a fairly nice sunset from the balcony, but there was a layer of low clouds on the horizon blocking the last portion of the sun as it set below the horizon. It is nice to be able to see both the sunrise and sunset from our balcony without having to leave the room and head to the upper decks. With the sun being more southerly this time of year, and with our heading, we get both the sunrise and sunset on our side of the ship.

We did go to the dining room for dinner tonight, opting to get a table for two, and enjoy a quiet dinner together. However, since the small two person tables are only about 18 inches apart on either side, it is almost like eating with your neighbors since they are just about as close to you physically as when you were sharing one large table with other passengers. Our server Marco was very good, and Stephanie enjoyed a fajita entree and I had the prime rib. Both were excellent.

We decided to attend the show in the Princess Theater, the entertainment was a ventriloquist, based on information from Barb and Mike, who had attended the earlier show, and told us about it when we ran into them earlier heading to dinner tonight  They were with two other couples that we had also met last night, one of the men was a dentist from Miami Beach. Both of those couples had been very nice to chat with the previous evening, and once again heartily greeted us and invited us to sit with them for dinner, not knowing we had already eaten. Once they realized we had already eaten, they invited us just to visit and have dessert. We were  full, so we declined, but it was nice for them to offer. Instead, we headed to the show, which thy had attended before dinner.

The show was one of the best we have seen on a cruise. It was really funny, and they actually got two passengers up on stage, and they wore masks that basically consisted of moving mouths, similar to what a ventriloquist dummy mouth would look like. The performer used a squeeze bulb to activate their mouths and he spoke the part of their voices.  They were left to be embarrassed by whatever he said, but being good sports, they also did attempt to provide some additional animation to go along with their “dummy” roles. It was hilarious, and  both passengers did a great job playing along.

After the show, we went back to the room and made a couple of “to go” adult beverages, and headed to the Explorer’s lounge to catch the last half of a show by a lady from Ireland, who was sort of a comedian, but a better singer, mixing some comedy with songs. This was her last show, she was scheduled to get off of the ship in Madeira on Friday. She was good, but the volume was too high for the size of the room, we both agreed she was probably better the night before when she performed in the larger Princess Theater venue.

We looked in a couple of the bars to see if we could find the group from last night and earlier in the dining room, but could not. By this time it was around 10:30 PM, and it seemed that as the entertainment ended for the evening, so did about everything else on the ship, many of the lounges were empty, so we called it a night. Back at the room, we headed out to the balcony to look at the stars.   It was a really clear night, and we actually even saw a couple of shooting stars. Unfortunately, a lot of people leave their balcony lights on, and with that and the added general ship’s lighting, it is not as dark as one would like for star gazing out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We have tried, on past cruises, to find some really dark area on the ship to be able to reduce the ambient lighting and give us better night vision, but there is just too much lighting out on the decks, surely there for safety and security.

I will be getting up early tomorrow morning before sunrise to try and see the Comet ISON.  We are not sure it survived its passing around the sun on Thanksgiving Day since I could not get onto the internet tonight to do a search for that information. Stephanie told me to “have fun”, I guess she will be sleeping in.

The seas were calm again last night, and we slept well before getting up at about 6:30 AM to get ready to go ashore on our last scheduled port of call in the city of Funchal, Madeira. After getting ready, we headed up to get some breakfast in the buffet. The port was small, and we were already tied up alongside the pier before we got to breakfast. The official start of the port call was 8:00 AM, so we were not in any rush even though the ship appeared to have arrived early. Unfortunately, they were not allowing anyone off of the ship until the designated departure time.

After breakfast, we gathered up our usual port stop gear and packed it into our backpacks. The plan for today is to walk into town, and eventually head over to the cable car for the ride up to Monte, a small town up in the mountains above Funchal. We had done this the last time we visited here, and the cable car is a quick and scenic way to get to the top.

Funchal Seafood Market

The ship was docked about 1.5 miles from the center of town, and our plan was to walk into town since most of the shops and the cable car do not open until 9:00 AM anyway. As we were getting off of the ship, we ran into Julio and Elena, our Pisa travel partners. We walked with them into town before splitting up, they were trying to find a city bus to go to a church outside of Funchal that they had wanted to see.

Seafood Ready For Purchase

We headed towards the cable car, but first stopped at the seafood/vegetable market nearby. We took some pictures of the strange fish they catch and eat here called the Espada, something that is caught in waters over 1,000 feet deep. They also had some large Swordfish and what looked to be Tuna. Stephanie visited some of the small vendor booths and bought a couple of small linen hand towels for souvenirs.

Ugly Funchal Fish – Espada

Funchal Vegetable Market

The grocery store was also nearby, so we went in and scouted around to see what they we needed to pick up later in the day on the way back to the ship. We certainly did not want to tote anything for the entire day as we planned on taking a Levada walk at the top of the mountains near Monte.

View of Port From Cable Car to Monte

Since it was now after 9:00 AM, we headed over to the cable car and bought a one way ticket to the top. The views were fantastic, although we could see some of the damage from some heavy rains and flooding that occurred here in 2010. Once at the top, we walked over to the Nossa Senhora do Monte Church. We went inside for some photos, and them climbed up one of the bell towers to a balcony area for some better views of the harbor and of Funchal.

Nossa Senhora do Monte Church

After that, we walked by the area where the wicker basket toboggans are leaving from for their ride down the mountain.

Inside of Church in Monte

There were a couple of bus loads of cruise passengers that had taken the cable car up after us, and it appeared they were heading over to the toboggans for the ride down. We had done that the last time we were here in 2009, so we opted to do something different, to try and find the Lavada Walks that started nearby.

We had downloaded some directions and pictures from a another blog site, but still had a little bit of trouble verifying our location since we could not find one of the landmarks used in the write-up, a small chapel.

Walking Along the Lavada

Some of the signage had either been replaced, or was missing, because the pictures in the write-up were different from the signs we saw, but eventually we sort of figured it out, not however, until we actually hiked over to one area, thought we were not going the right way, and hiked back.

Stephanie finally asked a woman in a ticket booth selling tickets for the nearby botanical gardens cable car, and she informed us the small chapel we were looking for had been washed away in the 2010 storm.  She pointed out the location of where it had been before the floods. We then followed the remainder of the downloaded directions, although at times, even they were a little sketchy on details.

The Lavada and Trail On The Right

The walks were nice, although it was a little muddy in some areas. You are basically walking along a stone channel, with an inside concrete overlay, about 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep. These channels carry the water from the mountains to various areas on the island, where it is used as drinking water.

The initial portion of the walk was on a trail that was quite steep in some areas, both uphill and then downhill. We walked for about 30 minuted before we finally found the actual lavada. You end up walking beside the water channel as it winds across the faces of the mountains. Mostly,  these channels route through forested areas.

Ship View From Lavada Walk

Every once and a while we got a good view of the city of Funchal and of the harbor where the ship was docked. You could also tell that some of the forested areas had been damaged in the 2010 storm. There were some uprooted trees along the path, and some of the other trees looked as if a lot of the foliage was missing.

The lavada occasionally crossed over some roads, but we did not see anywhere to catch a bus back into Funchal. The instruction guide we had downloaded did not really provide us a sense of duration or distance we were traveling for us to transit the length of  the route listed on their blog.

Lavada Junction Spillway Supplying Concrete Storage Tank

We did see many of the referenced landmarks, of special interest was an area where a few lavadas merged together, and were mixed onto one pipeline that fed into a large open top concrete storage tank.

We were not really pressed for time, but the uncertainty of the total duration of the walk added a little bit of apprehension, reducing some of the enjoyment. We had plenty of time to get back to the ship, but it still crept into our minds, especially since we were at sea for the next several days, having no way to catch up to the ship if we happened to be late returning.

Stephanie Cleaning Off Muddy Shoes

We finally approached another small town, and so we decided to end our journey here. It was near a landmark called the Teahouse, so we now knew where we were in relation to our downloaded instructions.  The blog write-up included  one more section of hiking, but since we did not know how much longer that section would take, we decided just to end our walk here, we had seen enough of the levadas to appreciate their beauty.

There was a bus stop near where we exited the trail, and we asked a couple who was waiting there if this bus went into Funchal. They were vacationing here from the UK, and said they had completed the same Lavada walk from Monte as we had, and that yes, the bus stopping here went to Funchal.

Trees Along The Lavada

The couple told us the bus had just passed going the other way, and so they were waiting for it to return to go in the opposite direction to Funchal. We waited about 30 minutes before the bus finally arrived. They had weekly bus passes, so they got on ahead of us. When we tried to purchase tickets from the driver, he would not sell them to us, just motioned for us to get our seats. We were not sure why until about 10 minutes later when the bus stopped at what was labeled “termino”, which was the end of the line, and all of the locals riding on our bus got off.  The bus driver turned the bus around, and then shut it off.

Stephanie and I were a little concerned, but then the bus driver said “tickets”, and we asked if the bus was indeed going to Funchal. It was, and we purchased our two tickets. What had happened was that we had gotten on the bus heading downhill, which was assumed to be toward Funchal. However, it was actually going away from Funchal, and we rode “for free” to the end of the line at the “termino”, where we were then able to purchase tickets for the ride to Funchal. The couple from the UK should have gotten on the first bus they saw before we met them, it was actually the bus heading down into Funchal, but they assumed it was the bus from Funchal since it was going “uphill”.  This was verified as we passed the bus stop we got on at as we headed in the opposite direction toward Funchal. This section of the route happened to be on a small secondary road, not on the main road into Funchal. It was a little amusing once we figured it all out, and realized we were now heading back into town.

About 20 minutes later, we got off of the bus at the grocery store in downtown Funchal and went in to purchase a few items. This was going to be our last stop before the seven remaining sea days crossing the Atlantic Ocean, so we got some diet Pepsi, and some fruit juices for mixers.

Ruby Princess in Funchal Harbor

With our backpacks full, we walked around looking at items in some of the stores. We were working our way through town in the direction of the ship, and decided to stop at a Pizza Hut for a couple of beers, and to use their free WiFi for about an hour before heading back to the ship. We got caught up on our email and Stephanie was able to finally log into her Facebook for a long awaited update and Facebook withdrawal “fix”. At about 4:00 PM, we started the 2 mile walk back to the ship. It was just across the harbor, but it was a good walking distance to get there from the town. The route along the harbor allowed us to get a few pictures of the ship along the way.

Once back on board, we unloaded our gear, and Stephanie wanted to head back out to the terminal to visit some of the vendors selling souvenirs. The ship was scheduled to have everyone on board by 5:30 PM, and it was about 4:50 PM when we got off. There was not really anything to look at from the remaining 2-3 vendors, so we headed back to the ship and took a few photos of Funchal from the upper decks of the ship before our departure.

Chips and Salsa on the Balcony

On the way back to the cabin, we got some chips and salsa from the buffet and headed back to our balcony to enjoy happy hour with some adult beverages as we sailed away from Funchal. Over the next seven days, we will be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean on the long journey to Ft. Lauderdale, about 3,200 nautical miles from Funchal.

We were pretty tired and sore form today’s lavada walks, plus all of the walking to and from the ship, so we just headed to the buffet for some dinner.

We did go to the Princess Theater for a comedy show, and the comedian had been working on cruise ships for 30 years, and had a lot of funny jokes about all of the cruise lines and their individual peculiarities, as well as those of the passengers who sail the different lines. It was very entertaining. After that, we called it a night and headed back to the room.

It had been a tiring day in port. The Captain had informed us earlier, as we left Funchal, that the weather will be good until Sunday afternoon or evening, and then we will run into a low pressure system that will produce some higher winds, and some rain, then clearing sometime Monday afternoon. After that, the weather conditions were looking good for the remainder of the journey, at least for now.

To view more photos from today’s post, here is a link to the Photo Album for Funchal, or you can access it via the menu on the top right.

Funchal Panorama

Sunrise

The sea conditions last night were rougher than we had experienced for the past several days. According to the Captain, we are heading through a low pressure system for the next couple of days, and it was evident by the changing weather. After the sunrise, there was some period of sunny skies, but that soon turned into areas of heavy rain showers, then cloudy conditions, and then back to rain showers. The wind was a little stronger today than yesterday.

After eating our breakfast in the buffet, we walked around the inside decks of the ship, once again watching other passengers looking through all of the items “on sale” in the atrium. Not really sure why people keep looking at the same stuff over and over, maybe they are hoping to find their size this time. Maybe it is just shopping withdrawals…..

Looming Storms

We ran into Mike and Barb in the atrium, they were heading to trivia with two ladies that we had met a couple of nights ago, traveling together on the cruise without their husbands, a “girls only cruise”. We agreed to meet up later in the evening, have some drinks, and head to dinner in the dining room.

We actually noticed that there was a Catholic Mass scheduled for 5:15 PM today, and we were planning on attending that before we got together with Mike and Barb.

Today was another laundry day, this time for one load of colored clothes. We headed to the laundry mat near our cabin, and found it was much busier than the last time we did wash, but luckily, there was one washer available, so we did not have to wait. Stephanie handled that task while I headed to the gym for exercise. Stephanie was having some pain in one of her knees from all of the walking in Funchal, so we decided it was best for her to stay off of the treadmill today. And the grand prize for no exercise was a wonderful time in the laundry mat!

Rain Showers On The Horizon

When I finished exercise, and while Stephanie was waiting on the clothes to dry, I washed our Keene walking shoes, trying to remove at least most of the mud off of the soles from the lavada walk in Funchal. I had brought down an extra towel from the gym, and used the nice large sink in the laundry room to wash off the mud. It was quite a mess due to the deep aggressive tread of the soles on these shoes.   All of the deep crevices in the bottom of the shoes were filled with the now dry and hard mud. It took a while to get them cleaned, and the once white towel I used was now a deep brown muddy color.  However, the shoe soles were pretty clean, and now ready to pack in our luggage without worrying about getting mud on our clothes when traveling home.

With our cleaning chores complete, it was now time for lunch. We keep discussing attending the sit down lunch in the dining room on a sea day instead of going to the buffet, but the additional effort of wearing long pants, and then siting with a group of strangers for lunch, is just more effort than we want for our time at lunch. We almost went today, but then decided the quicker buffet was the preferred choice once again. It was sunny outside, and we put up our clothesline on the balcony to finish drying some of the washed clothes. There was some concern that we might run into one of the rain bands while we were at the longer dining room lunch, had we decided to go, and our partially dried clothes would get wet. Plus, if it did stay sunny, we wanted a shorter duration lunch so we had more time on the balcony to enjoy the short periods of sunshine.

Once lunch was over, we headed back to the room and did spend some time outside on the balcony before the ship’s course intersected with another rain band, this one was quite dark and stormy.  The officer of the watch came on the loudspeaker and made an announcement so that anyone out on the open decks was aware that we were going to get some heavy rain, and we did.

Stephanie took a nap while I worked on some of the photos, and the blog. I spent most of the time using a free computer program called Hugin to stitch together some of the photos we had taken to produce panoramic images. We will try and post them in a separate Panoramic Photo Album, with a link to access this album  on the main page of the blog just above the clock

The internet connection was actually working faster than I would have thought for this time of the day, so I was able to load up the post for December 7, and add some photos into the Funchal Photo Album. Maybe everyone else on the ship is running out of internet minutes already, so there are less people on the internet during the day. We were even able to check email and send out some emails to the folks. We have been pretty frugal with our internet minutes, mostly using them for the blog, and for loading up the photos. We have not yet gone through our first free allotment of 250 minutes, so we will have plenty of minutes for the remainder of the cruise.   We still have the additional 250 free minutes under Stephanie’s Platinum Cruise Membership benefit.

We got dressed for Mass that was being conducted in the Club Fusion Lounge, and headed that way.  Club Fusion is the aft most lounge on Deck 7. There was a trivia contest finishing up, and after everyone from that event left, we went in a sat down. It was a good sized crowd attending Mass, probably 250 people or more. It was hard to tell due to the wide open layout of the tables and chairs in this lounge. The priest was retired, and lived in Jupiter, Florida, having originally spent much of his time in the northeast. His style of saying mass was a little different, he would just stop in the middle of normal prayers and interject some of his thoughts. However, he was pretty interesting, and had an different perspective on the things he discussed.

When Mass was complete, we went back to the room and changed into our dining room attire. We made an adult beverage, and headed over to meet Mike and Barb at their room on the other side of the ship, but on the same deck. We visited for a while, helping them to reduce their adult beverage overstock, as they had helped us with the night before.

We wanted to go to dinner a little earlier than normal in order to catch a “Pub Show” in the Explorer’s lounge. We headed out to dinner about 8:00 PM, hoping to finish before the 9:15 PM show, but we did not quite make it. We got to the show a little late, and there were no available seats, except for two on the side near a group of young people, who seemed to be part of the entertainment staff, but were not in this particular show. One of the young men had the strangest hairdo, sort of a wedge of hair in the front, somehow held in place with some sort of gel. OK, they were strange, or at least strange looking, and Stephanie and Barb made Mike and I sit next to them, then Stephanie and Barb proceeded to laugh at us for the entire show. The other young man in the group knew all of the songs and gestures, so maybe they were standby dancers/singers for the show. They were different to say the least, and one could easily assume they were dancers.

Mike and I did not enjoy the show, and I think the only entertainment Stephanie and Barb got was in watching us, and laughing at us and the strange hairdo person.

After the show, we went back to Mike and Barb’s cabin for a nightcap, and then headed home. The seas were getting rougher, so it was going to be another bumpy night.