London: Cruise to Spain

The end of a cruise, especially a longer one, produces a somewhat melancholy mood. But alas, all good things must come to an end. We set our alarms for 6:00am as we requested the earliest disembarkation time in order to get to Heathrow for our flight home this afternoon. At least we got breakfast, one last trip to the Lido deck buffet.  After breakfast we just had to collect our things from our room and walk off the ship. On the dock below our room, operations were in full swing, restocking the ship for the next voyage.  We opted to take a bus from Southampton to Heathrow, thereby avoiding dealing with our bags on the train and transferring trains in London proper. We just had to taxi to the station.  The bus almost turned out to be a very poor decision. There was an accident on the motorway just a short distance from Heathrow — which of course created gridlock. We finally arrived at terminal 3 of the 8th busiest airport in the world about 88 minutes before our flight. ...

The Bay of Biscay didn’t disappoint.  As we continued our northward journey the ship’s movement was substantial throughout the night. Much more than a gentle rocking, but not crazy. We woke up to swells of several meters and 45 knot winds, the sources of the rocking. While it’s probably the worst we’ve ever experienced on a cruise, it’s been completely manageable — the occasional strong jolt kept things fun.  Ship’s position at 8:30am, December 22, 2023 Jim got up earlier than normal in an attempt to mentally prepare for an early disembarkation tomorrow. 🥲 He went down for breakfast and brought some back to the room for Kristi.  We made it to the theater by 10:00am to listen to a presentation about the history of piracy in the Mediterranean.  We plopped ourselves down again in the Queen’s Ballroom, which is always a good place to hear some music of some kind, Zumba again today, and played cribbage.  At noon the captain announced we were leaving the Bay of Bisca...

We left Lisbon last night on a heading almost due north. By 3:00pm we were just about at the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula. Over night and today has been rocky, but not bad. As we would be entering the mouth of the Bay of Biscay, and traversing it for the better part of the next 24 hours or more, the captain again warned us to use the handrails while up and about.  After getting up, Kristi brought us a light breakfast to enjoy in our room. Then we played cards and listened to music as some passengers Zumba-ed for a while.  We decided to have lunch in the dining room for the first time. Why did we wait?  Breakfast and lunch is just as nice as dinner — lunch is three or four courses, including dessert. We shall probably do it again tomorrow.  Panzanella Salad Roast Leg of Lamb After lunch we participated in the Roulette tournament.  For just a $20 buy in each we got to play three 5-spin rounds.  After the preliminaries Jim was on the leader board....

We woke up and took our time this morning. Jim was feeling much better. Unfortunately our slow start made us miss breakfast so we had to wait until the buffet opened back up for lunch at 11:30. After lunch we just sat in the atrium. Kristi napped; she didn’t sleep well last night. As we said yesterday, the view from the ship, looking at the Alfama neighborhood, or the other side, looking out across the Tagus River is very nice.  We did decide to disembark again and go into town, for the exercise if nothing else. We walked across the street and ventured into and up the Alfama. Talk about narrow streets, it’s a very old neighborhood — Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in Europe, founded about 1200 BCE. As Rick Steves says to do, we just meandered. Once at the top we walked back to the Biaxa, which is the main touristic historic center.  Kristi found the shop with the “best gelato” she’s ever had. She enjoyed the dark cherry. Jim enjoyed some Portuguese Alka Seltzer — his stomac...

Today was a fairly mellow day. We are in Lisbon, Portugal. We took our time getting ready this morning before having a small breakfast at the buffet. We are docked at the foot of a very old and historic neighborhood, the Alfama. It makes for a very nice view from our room.  We then took the cruise-provided shuttle into the heart of the old, historic city. We were in Lisbon for 5 days this past June, so we decided to simply stroll through some of the neighborhoods we had enjoyed on that visit. We did a little shopping for port wine. We haven’t been able to find much at home that was decent, so we figured we should take advantage of the opportunity to take some home on this trip. After procuring a couple bottles, we stopped in a cafe we enjoyed in the past for an espresso and “pasteis de nata,” a local custard tart delicacy. Jim started feeling a little poorly, like Kristi a couple days ago. So we spent the afternoon and evening in our cabin. It’s not seasickness because it started o...

Monday, December 18, 2023 Good news!  Kristi was much better this morning. We made it down for breakfast by 10am.  Today we are cruising the west end of the Mediterranean and will be passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, back out to the Atlantic, on our way to Lisbon. The captain told us we should get a good view of the Rock of Gibraltar at about 2:45pm (it was midnight when we passed through on our eastern journey).  The view from our stateroom this morning: the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountains.  After breakfast we headed to the theater for a cooking presentation by the Executive Chef and the Head Chef of the Britannia Restaurant (the main dining room where we usually have dinner) — this guy stole the show with his wit and humor.  He did a surf and turf dish while the Executive Chef made beef Wellington. It was a well done, fun  preservation.  Next up, some Cribbage and then the Cha Cha … an introductory lesson.  Instead of a full lunch we opte...

Sunday, December 17, 2023 Two years ago we drove from Madrid to Barcelona and stopped to have lunch in Valencia … remember Carlos, DJ, and Cecelia?  We ended up having Five Guys burgers in the central plaza because we were there during siesta time.  We were interested to see what we missed and on this quick stop.  We got off the ship at about 10am after a light breakfast. Cunard busses passengers into town because it’s a long, ugly, boring walk from where the ship docks. From the bus stop we walked about 2 miles along a beautiful park to the same plaza where we had had burgers. Today is Sunday and the plaza is bustling with people out for the day. We looked around for a bit, but we really wanted to have paella.  Paella was born in Valencia. We sat in the front seats of the bus on the drive from the ship, so Jim talked to the bus driver and asked about where to get authentic paella. The driver was happy to tell us that a great place is at the beach — he gave us the na...