Friday 4 November 2011

First two Ports: Madeira and Tenerife



Funchal - Madeira

After two days at sea it was nice to finally make landfall in Madeira. Not so nice was the VERY heavy rain! We ventured off the ship to look around Funchal but the weather very soon beat us and after sheltering from a very heavy shower in the cable car bottom station we decided the cloud would not clear so we returned to the ship for lunch and a lazy afternoon by the inside pool.

We were in port with Arcadia and hoped we might bump into James's school friend Jamie who is lead singer and we now know his parents were also on board!


Queen Mary 2 and Arcadia in Funchal Harbour

Nice dinner but show was a rubbish singer – should have walked out but for some reason we stuck it out!

Santa Cruz – Tenerife

A very busy day in Tenerife where the weather was much more kind to us- hot and sunny!. Early breakfast and off the ship to explore the bustling town of Santa Cruz. Found an excellent market area to browse around but really just a Spanish town and not a tourist place. Back to ship to find all buffet food is being served by crew. We knew this meant the dreaded Noro virus was on board!

After lunch we went on an organised tour to the foothills on Mount Teide – the 3718 metre volcanic mountain in the centre of the island. Very interesting seeing the lush pine forests turn into moon like landscape of lava fields. We had a great view of the summit from the National Park at a pretty high 2000 metres.



Jack and Mount Teide in the background – if the definition were better the cable car would be visible!

On return to the ship the Captain explained that a number of passengers (our steward(ess) told us 38) had Noro virus like symptoms and we all had to be careful!

Nice dinner – little unsettling when one of our companions got up half way through saying he felt unwell – 39 now?

Show was David Copperfield who was excellent. We had previously seen him on Celebrity Solstice and the show was absolutely identical – even the ad libs!.But it was still entertaining and highly enjoyable.

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