What??? A cruise???? I know many of you can’t believe that we are actually on a cruise. I have said some bad things about them in the past. It isn’t our style at all; we still enjoy seeing the world our way and at our pace, but we wanted to give it a try. I promise you that we are NOT climate change deniers. We are cruising with guilt over the environmental impacts of cruise ships. We can try to rationalize and defend our travel choices, but the reality is that we really wanted to give it a try. Many of our nomad friends have been raving about cruising, so we finally decided to see what it was like. Moneywise, it really does make sense compared to flying if you count the 14 days of “free” housing and meals. We were both excited to try it, but also a bit nervous that we would be incredibly bored being confined to a ship for 2 weeks. We do have a few retired nomad friends on board so we won’t be totally alone.
We are on a repositioning cruise from Barcelona to Miami. Many cruise ships move from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean for the Winter, and they are typically a bit cheaper. We are on the Scarlet Lady from Virgin Voyages which is a “no children” cruise ship. We thought our ship would be filled with long term travelers like us that are looking for an alternative to long haul flights. We were surprised many of the passengers actually flew to Barcelona just a couple of days before boarding the ship to return to North America. The cruise is actually their vacation. I am beginning to understand why some people might like that.
Our cruise consists of day stops in Casablanca, Morocco, and then 2 of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa- Grand Canary and Tenerife. We are often in towns all over the world and watch the “lanyard people” arrive off cruise ships. The influx of thousands of tourists can really change the vibe of a town, and we are always happy when the “day tourists” return to their ship at night. But now we are one of those day tourists…. We will try to be good cruise tourists and not just hit the malls and souvenir shops :>)
We are going to 3 new locations for us. We have never been to Morocco or the Canary Islands. We know we can’t see a new country in a few hours but we hope to get an idea of a place so we can decide if we want to come back some day and spend some more time really exploring a place. We often do day trips to new towns when we are staying in a city for a week or 2. We know how to hit the sites, but also vet it out to see if it is worth a return for a longer stay. We will treat our cruise stops just like we treat our quick day trips on European trains :>) Keep reading to see how we did….
After leaving Barcelona, we had one “sea day”, and then arrived in Casablanca, Morocco. We found a good deal on a Viator bus tour that would get us to all the top sites in town. Before the tour, we had a couple of hours to do our own exploring around downtown and to find a Moroccan lunch. We were glad we weren’t on the bus the whole time. The tour wasn’t the best, but we did get see a lot of Casablanca and stopped several places. The big ticket item in town is the huge Hassan II Mosque. It was just completed in the 1990’s and is one of the most impressive religious buildings we have every been in. We also stopped at the replica of Rick’s cafe which was closed (lame). We stopped at a couple of other churches that were also closed (also lame). We saw a picturesque garden and then we ended the tour with a guided walk through the old town (Medina), and the market. We did enjoy the guided walk but the whole experience reminded us that we usually like doing our own exploring instead of being stuck on a restricted tour. We ended up being back on the ship in time for dinner.
We had another “sea day” and then arrived at the Spanish city of Las Palmas on the island of Grand Canaria. It is the 9th largest city in Spain with almost 400,00 people. Yep it is part of Spain, even though we are way closer to Africa than Spain. The Canary Islands are very popular with many European tourists because it doesn’t get too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. We have often looked at the Canary Islands as a possible flight stop on our way to or from Europe so we were eager to check it out. We decided to skip the tour this time and just walk around on our own. It really felt like Spain and we were happy to another chance to have another Spanish Tapas lunch. We toured the house that Christopher Columbus stayed at during his first trip to the new world. He stayed in the governors house while his rudder was getting fixed in 1492. The museum was all in Spanish but it was mildly interesting. We also visited a small fort/castle that had been turned into a museum filled with sculptures. More mildly interesting…. We were again back on the boat for dinner.
The next day we docked in another one of the Canary Islands, Tenerife. We again decided against a formal tour and just walked around the town of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a city of about 200,000 people. Lots of beautiful 18th century buildings and plazas that really made us feel like we were in Spain. But it also felt a little bit like some of the Spanish colony towns we have seen in the Western Hemisphere. The aboriginal people in the Canary Islands were conquered by the Spanish in the 15th century and created trade ports similar to what we have seen in places like Campeche, Mexico, Merida, Mexico and Cartagena, Colombia. We visited a pretty nice free art museum (Museo del Belle Artes) but mostly we enjoyed just walking around the town and eating some more Spanish Tapas. We had to be back on the boat by 4:30pm so we again only got 1 last meal in Spain.
So, how did we like our port stops? It was really nice to get a small taste of some places that were new to us. We have talked for years about how to see Morocco. Some people really like the food, the people and the history, and some people absolutely hate the aggressive touts trying to make money off tourists. We experienced both sides during our few hours in Casablanca. People tell us that we shouldn’t judge Morocco by just a few hours in Casablanca. There are a lot of other better places to see in the country and someday we will get to it…. Right now, we don’t have any plans to return.
The Canary Islands were a great little reprise of our time in Spain. It is one of our favorite countries and we thought we were finished with Spain until next year. The combination of the favorable climate and Spanishness of the Canaries make us want to put it on a future trip. We preferred Tenerife over Las Palmas but I think we would really prefer a smaller town in the islands somewhere. It needs some more internet research on the perfect Canary Island destination as well as a lot more research about the logistics on how to include a long layover during transatlantic flights.
As for the experience of being one of the hated “lanyard people” that flood cities during their cruise port day, we have mixed feelings. We liked our little taste of an destination but we really didn’t have enough time to understand the people, the culture, the food, and everything else we look for when we travel. We saw posters for festivals coming up on the weekend in both Canary Islands. It was frustrating that won’t be able to experience those things because of our early forced return to the cruise ship. I can’t say that we have really visited the country/island until we get some more time to really explore and experience something happening after dinner. Cities change at night and it was disappointing to be left out of anything that happens after the sun goes down. Of course we often visit towns as day trips and have the same issues.
We have talked about doing cruises to see some areas of the world where it is expensive to travel like we normally do. Scandinavian cruises have become very popular so we have thought that cruising might be a good way to see expensive places like Norway and Iceland. But after having our frustrating short port calls on this ship, we might need to rethink that idea. I don’t think we would ever be able to see countries if we only got to experience day trips from a cruise ship. For me, port calls are really only a way to get a small taste of a country….. and to eat Spanish tapas again :>)
As for how we feel about cruising as a whole, stay tuned for my after cruise blog post when we get to Miami. We are still thinking….
