Days 8 & 9

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween – and didn’t eat too much candy!!  We had a costume parade on the Royal Promenade and they had a party for the kids on board (all 41 of them).  There were very well-crafted Jack O’Lanterns all around the ship.

Yesterday was our token dog port of the cruise.  I’m sure the tours going to Granada were nice.  But we didn’t want that long bus ride.  So we just walked around in Málaga.  There were a few cool old buildings, but basically the town is industrial and not really a tourist town.  They had the ruins from another theater, and it was even free to view.  The souvenir shops were scarce and they wouldn’t bargain at all.  We walked and walked before we found what we were looking for.  At last – our mission was accomplished and we came back on board early.  We had lunch and then Bruce worked a bit while I started on the outline for the screenplay.

Happy Hour was NUTS last night.  The devils and demons were definitely out in force.  It seemed like everyone was really wired.  For entertainment we had a classical Spanish guitarist playing incredible flamenco style guitar music – my absolute favorite music.  There were 4 of us trying to listen to him while the rest of the hundreds of people were being so loud and rowdy that we could barely hear the music.  Hopefully I’ll have another opportunity to hear him in a quieter venue.  We enjoyed a quiet dinner in the ‘Jammer and then went to the show – a comedian/impersonator.  It was pretty good.  I was too pooped to write the blog last night.

Today we had a chilly day in Cádiz.  It’s one of the oldest towns in Spain.  Some very old and very cool buildings here.  The town is on a peninsula.  The streets are narrow and they run in triangles – it felt like we were walking down creepy dark alleys and it was hard to navigate.  We walked around and saw some of the sites, bought a magnet, and came back on board. 

Our little sister ship, Voyager of the Seas, sailed in right behind us.  Combined with a Holland America ship, we had 3 ships in port today.  Town was crawling with lost tourists.

Tonight we cross a time zone and gain an hour – we could really use an extra hour of sleep.  Tomorrow is a relaxing sea day.  We’re ready to rest up.  Port day after port day becomes exhausting!

Thursday and Friday we’ll be in the Canary Islands.  We actually booked tours from the ship for both days.  One is a tour of some pyramids similar to Chichén Itza in Mexico.  The other is a tour of the huge crater.  After that – it’s 7 sea days to Ft. Lauderdale.  Stay tuned…