Today we have a port call in Las Palmas, or at least we think we do. The original time that Viking Guest Services told us we would be in port for this change in Itinerary was 1:00 PM, and staying until 8:00 PM. As of today, we are now scheduled to arrive later and the tour is not even scheduled to start until 3:30 PM. We are not sure when it will get dark, so we may or may not really see that much if we arrive at the later time.
The seas were a little rocky this morning and last night, not due to being rough or windy, but there was still a large ground swell and it was from the side of the ship, making us roll left and right.
I went ahead and got up about 8:00 AM and showered and headed out to go to Deck 1 to get some coffee and a pastry, and to work on the blog while Stephanie slept in. It was fairly dark even up until about 7:45 AM, so maybe it will be later for the sunset too, and we will have more daylight time for the excursion. I forgot to mention that with the change in excursion starting time from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM, it was also shortened. Originally, one excursion was 4 hours long and the other was 3.5 hours long. Now both are 3 hours long.
I thought about the sunset time for Las Palmas and remembered that sunset time is part of the information on the Weather Channel App for each city. I looked on the app, and for today in Las Palmas, the sunset is at 6:06 PM, so it will not be daylight long enough to support the duration of the tour which is scheduled to end around 6:30 PM.
At 8:45 AM, Stephanie used WhatsApp to call me from the cabin to find out where I was. She was up and showered, so she came and met me on Deck 1 at the Coffee Station.
We went up to the World Cafe to eat breakfast. I had cooked to order over easy eggs and Stephanie had a few of the prepared items and some fruit. Breakfast was good. After breakfast, we headed up to the Explorer Lounge to see if we could get a Peach Bellini made for Stephanie. They have two versions they make in the bars, one is a prepared mix with everything in it. She tried that and it was not good. Then they tried to make one with peach juice and it was not good either. Finally Stephanie gave them directions and coaching on how we make them at home and this time it was successful. We just had them use the peach schnapps, prosecco and a little bit of orange juice like we do at home.
Enjoying The Sunshine As We Head to Las Palmas
We mostly just hung out in the Explorer’s Lounge since it is a great place to see ports as we were approaching. It has glass all across the front overlooking the bow, and has two levels and lots of seats.
We did not want to drink a lot since we are going on a tour later today after we arrive in Las Palmas. We are never sure how many or when bathroom stops will be, so we try and watch our fluid consumption.
Port At Las Palmas
We were scheduled to arrive at the dock in Las Palmas at 3:30 PM, and the tours were scheduled to start loading at 4:00 PM. We enjoyed the approach into Las Palmas, it was sunny and not too windy. We were a bit late getting to the pier, and we knew from experience it would take a while to get everything set up to allow passengers to leave the ship.
We headed back to the cabin to get our gear for the tour. They were allowing people to go down to Deck 1, which is where the disembarkation stations are located. We headed down to Deck 1 and could not even get off the elevator because it was so crowded. We finally got through the crowd and found a place to sit far away form where everyone else was waiting to get off the ship.
They did not get clearance to allow people to leave the ship until about 3:45 PM and we could see it was going to be a slow process. We found some seats and just waited, trying to be some of the last to get to our excursion, hoping for a mostly empty tour bus like we had in Barcelona.
We finally got into the line and slowly got to the security area to check in to get off the ship. We could then see why it was so slow, there were narrow and fairly steep steps on a ramp to get from the ship to the pier, and since there are so many people with walking difficulties, it was just really slow. We finally got off the ship and were assigned to bus #2 for our excursion. It was the second to the last bus in the line of buses in the parking lot.
We boarded and only had about 16 people with us on the large bus, so that was nice and we could spread out. They required masks to be worn, which was not readily accepted by all onboard, but the tour guide said it was mandatory on public transportation in Spain, of which the Canary Islands are part of. Some of the mask haters begrudgingly accepted their masks from the guide and complied. We had brought masks with us and so we used our better KN95 masks.
There was a lot of traffic in the town since it was now about 4:15 PM, and obviously “rush hour”. The tour was now scheduled to last until about 7:00 PM, well after it got dark. The tour was just OK, as soon as we left the port and headed to higher elevations, it started to get foggy, and ended up being that way for the entire excursion.
The Church of San Juan Bautista
We first stopped at a church in the town of Arucas called The Church of San Juan Bautista. We got off the bus and walked to the church, and were able to go inside to see some of the stained glass the church is famous for. It is not an old church, it was completed in the 1970’s. Without much sunlight to illuminate the stained glass, it was just an average sight inside.
We walked to a small square in the town adjacent to a large park, but were not given any time to go into the park itself. While we were walking, our guide gave us some history and information on many of the plants and trees in the Canaries.
Inside The Church of San Juan Bautista
We all got back on the bus and headed to the town of Teror (yes, that is the name) to see the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pino. It was now getting really foggy and it was about 5:35 PM when we arrived. The town of Teror is fairly high up in the mountains here, and the roads were narrow and very winding. Our bus driver did a great job with the full size tour bus on the small, winding roads. One time another bus came form the opposite direction and we met at a curve. Our bus driver had to back up quite a distance to allow the other bus enough room to get by.
The bus stopped along the side of the road and we all got off for our tour. We walked a coupe of blocks over to the Basilica while our tour guide gave us some of the history through our headsets.
The Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pino
We were given time to visit the inside of the church, and it was pretty inside. but quite dark, there was zero natural light inside from the sun since it was so foggy, and already getting dark.
We were given directions to a public bathroom, our first available potty break on the tour. It was quite large and generally clean inside and a welcome and much needed break.
Our tour guide had given us almost an hour to wander around and visit the church and some of the stores nearby. We were to meet back at the bus drop off location at 6:30 PM, well after sunset at 6:06 PM tonight,
Stephanie and a New Friend
That amount of time seemed excessive, there was not that much to see here, and we thought we were also scheduled to visit a beach on this excursion. I guess the beach portion of the tour had gotten cut out when the tour was shortened yesterday, and what good would going to a beach be in the dark.
We wandered around the shopping area near the Basilica. We only went into a couple of stores, there was nothing here we wanted to buy.
Christmas Lights in Teror
There were some Christmas Lights strung over the street, and eventually it was dark enough for them to come on. They were nicely done and pretty.
Everyone met back at the designated meeting point and we boarded our bus for the ride back to the port. It was completely dark but this time, so there was really nothing we could see. There was a lot of traffic as we headed back into Las Palmas, and it took us about 40 minutes to get back to the ship from Teror. Our guide did give us a lot of the history of these islands on the way beck to the ship and that added some interest to the long, dark and slow ride.
Viking Neptune in Las Palmas
When we got back to the ship, there was a long line of people already trying to go through security and board the ship, but it moved fairly quickly. Once back onboard, we went back to the cabin and dropped off our gear.
We were too tired to do anything but go to the World Cafe buffet for dinner, and it seemed like everyone else had the same idea, it was as crowded as we have ever seen, but still not that bad, we still easily found an open table.
The food was good, but it was almost 8:45 PM and we were hungry for just about anything.
We had one drink at the World Cafe Bar and then headed outside to watch the ship leave port, but it was a little breezy and cool, so we went back to the cabin to watch our departure from our balcony, where we were more protected from the wind.
We cast off about 9:00 PM, and turned around in the harbor. This officially starts our six consecutive days at sea before we reach St. Martin in the Caribbean.
We decided to go back to the Explorer’s Lounge and listen to the music there as we sailed away from Las Palmas. We met some other people at the bar and had a good time visiting with them.
We did not want to stay out long, so we headed back to the cabin about 10:45 PM. It had been a good day, but the tour was not very good. We were sure arriving late and having to set the tours up last minute did not help.
At least the seas were calmer tonight as we headed off to sleep.