Well, it is now mid-September, and the detailed plan is starting to take shape for the trip. The cruise and flights are set, we are departing on November 6 from Jacksonville for our flight to Madrid Spain, with a connection in Philadelphia. We arrive in Madrid on Saturday morning, November 7, at 10:15.
MADRID
Upon arrival at the Madrid Airport, we will either take the Metro to the hotel or take a pre-arranged shuttle bus. The choice is dependent on how cheap and adventurous we are (Metro for 4 Euros), or, how tired we may be after the overnight flight, knowing we have to tote our luggage through the two metro stops to get to the hotel (Shuttle for 26 Euros). There is also some concern for pickpocket activity with taking the Metro. We have read mixed reviews from travelers on the reality of this happening. It becomes a matter of being diligent and careful while riding the Metro, and safeguarding against having valuables in easily targeted places. It has been amusing, and sad to read actual stories on the Internet about some of the scams that the pickpockets use to distract your attention, pretending to be helping you, all the while helping themselves to your valuables. However, reading about other person’s misfortunes helps one to be aware of the potential risks. Pickpockets are just a reality in Europe, some areas are just worse than others.
We currently have two hotel reservations for our two night stay in Madrid, one in the old City Center, and one in a quiet neighborhood close to the City Center. Again, we have to decide if we want to get the true experience of staying in the old city center (and less cost), close to the historic sights, but, subject to the possibility of dealing with the locals who apparently like to party ’till the wee hours of the morning. Or, do we stay where it is quieter (and higher cost), but face a little more inconvenience in getting to the sights of Madrid. One good thing about the hotel reservations, we can cancel up until the time we depart without any penalty, so it allows us to take our time and finalize our plans.
After checking into our hotel, our current plan is to spend the remainder of Saturday touring the sights of Madrid. On Sunday, we are going to the nearby city of Toledo, which is the historic capital of Spain. Toledo has more of the older traditional sights to visit than does Madrid. We have already purchased out round trip train tickets for the 30 minute train trip from Madrid to Toledo. We depart at 9:20 a.m. and have a return ticket for 6:00 pm. It is only a 30 minute trip each way, so that will leave us a good part of the day to see the sights of Toledo, but still get back to Madrid before it is too late. We have already purchased our tickets for an early 7:35 a.m. departure on Monday for the 2 hour, 40 minute high speed train trip to Malaga, Spain, the departure port for the cruise.
MALAGA
We are scheduled to arrive at the train station in Malaga at 10:15 a.m.. From our research, it is about 2 km. to the port, so we will be taking a taxi from the train station to the port terminal. Our current plan is to place our luggage in lockers at the train station, and spend a couple of hours looking around Malaga. Unlike Princess Cruises, which we normally take, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line does not allow you to have access to your cabin as soon as you board, you have to wait until after 1:30 p.m., so we don’t see any need to get on-board until then, plus there are a few interesting sights to see in Malaga. Once you board the cruise ship for Embarkation, you can’t get back off, at least not easily, so this will be our only opportunity to tour Malaga itself. Our ship, The Navigator of the Seas, is scheduled to depart at 5:00 p.m.
CRUISE
We will be making 3 stops prior to the Transatlantic Crossing portion of the cruise. The first port of call is Funchal, Madeira. Madeira is a Portuguese Island off the coast of Africa. Our current plan is to walk into the city and take the 15 minute gondola ride to the city of Monte. Is is suppose to resemble the city of Sintra, Portugal, which we visited on our Honeymoon Cruise, and enjoyed very much. It is on top of a mountain, and is supposed to offer great views of the coastline. We will just spend the day there, and back in Funchal.
The next two ports of call are in the Canary Islands. At both of the ports, we will be renting a car for the day, and traveling to National Park Sites, both of which are associated with volcanoes, and are the highest points on the islands. Apparently the roads are winding, and can be slow to get to your destinations, so we will need to carefully watch our time, we don’t miss the ship. For example, one park is only about 35 km. from the port (about 15 miles), but can take about 1.5 hours to get to, if you happen to get stuck behind slow moving trucks, etc. Hopefully, since we are there late in the tourist season, and on a weekday, we will not run into bad traffic. However, the views are said to be spectacular, especially from the 12,000 ft. peaks.
Once we depart the Canary Islands on Friday, November 13, we have 6 days at sea crossing the Atlantic before arriving in our last port of call, Nassau on Friday, November 20. We really have no plan for this stop, having visited Nassau about 15 months ago. Then we depart for Miami, our last stop. We have arranged for a Hertz rental car in Downtown Miami, nearby to the port, so hopefully this will be an easy set-up. However, since we have not sailed on a Royal Caribbean Cruise, and have not been to the Port of Miami, we are not familiar with the cruise ship embarkation process and shuttle bus arrangements to the rental car office. It could be our last adventure of the trip, hopefully not too adventurous. Then we face the long drive home.