Peter's Travel Blog

We weren’t supposed to be here. Our final port stop, even after all the drama and changes of plan, was supposed to be Lisbon. However, even as early as yesterday morning, the captain made an announcement explaining in full why things were starting to look complicated. It all had to do with the tides and rules being laid down by...

As with yesterday’s port, Funchal is a place we’ve been to many times before, so we booked ourselves onto an afternoon tour to see its Botanical Gardens (which we’ve never seen before) and had a leisurely morning on board ship. After lunch in The Grill, we went to join the excursion, the meeting time of which was 1.45pm The bus...

Today, at around 7am, we arrived at Santa Cruz de La Palma, on the island of La Palma. We’ve been here several times before, and because we’ve never seen beyond the town, we decided to book ourselves onto a ‘Panoramic La Palma’ bus tour. The tour was due to depart after lunch, so we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and went...

As with many of the port stops on this cruise, we’ve been to Arrecife, in Lanzarote, many times before. Because of this, we’ve booked ourselves onto excursions to places that we haven’t seen before. Today’s tour was to Puerto del Carmen, a popular tourist town several miles round the coast from Arrecife. Because it was a ‘do it on your...

Today, after three bouncy, gruelling days at sea, persistently battling against a head-wind and a barrage of mad, incoming Atlantic storms, we finally arrived at the first of our Canary Islands. The captain had hoped to get us in by 9am, but the prevailing winds and swell meant we didn’t arrive until 12 noon. The knock-on effect of that was...