A long day of travel then a day with an excursion and a late evening in Skywalkers after our sail away from Sardinia as we’d bumped into crew we remembered (and who remembered us first; we’re pretty memorable) meant we were quite pleased to get a sea day next in the itinerary. It gave us a chance to get up late then spend the time on the ship in each other’s company plus that of our books. Reading, eating, drinking, taking part in trivia, and just enjoying the views of a very tranquil Mediterranean Sea from our balcony. Lovely.
It was formal night on Caribbean Princess and our views on formal nights is that we’ll take part in one on a cruise but any more than that is more effort than we’re typically prepared to make especially when the cruise lines sometimes barely make any effort to make these occasions special themselves. The cruise line and cruise duration do have an impact here, though, as some lines are more strict while others are more relaxed. Princess are pretty relaxed these days, which we like, and with this being a repositioning, transatlantic cruise there were not many people very dressed up at all but I still brought out my tux, bow tie, EU cufflinks, and fake Rolex for the night. Naturally, if I’m dressed like James Bond – if you squint at my reflection in a distorted mirror stolen from a funfair – then a Vodka Martini is on the cards too.
We will book something other than a balcony cabin if money is an issue or we book late so that availability is an issue or it’s a smaller, older ship with few balcony cabins available, but on a Grand-class ship like Caribbean Princess we’ll always go for a balcony, and with this being a repositioning cruise with a lot of sea days in the second week aboard the pricing was very low. We knew we’d be spending a lot of time on the balcony during those sea days but we also love heading out onto our private space late at night just to enjoy the stars. It’s this reason why we don’t like the newer ships that the likes of Princess or P&O have built – Star and Sun Princess, and Iona and Arvia – as night views are trashed thanks to setting back the balconies from the floodlit promenade deck spaces. The days when cruise lines considered what it is that their passengers might like rather than simply trying to cram as many rooms onto ships as possible is long gone, sadly.
The following day saw Caribbean Princess docked in Málaga, Spain, a place we’d never been to before but one which we’d made some lovely plans for as there were plenty of places of interest to explore. We were looking forward to having some food then setting off early to hit the bull fighting museum, the Roman amphitheatre, maybe the castle, the cathedral, and a great-looking craft ale brewery.
It was raining quite heavily when we pulled open the curtains and stepped onto the balcony. Really quite heavily. The photos don’t do this justice.
There were a few other ships in port and we could see one of the Virgin ships anchored in the very choppy Mediterranean Sea off the coast. We noticed immediately that there didn’t seem to be any tendering operation taking place from it but didn’t think too much on that.
We ate breakfast and then had to stop and take some photos from the top deck as the heavy rain had actually got heavier, coming down almost like hail on the loungers and already forming a small lake on the deck surface.
We headed back to our cabin just to get our coats. Yes, it was heavy rain and yes, we would be getting wet, but you don’t just skip a new place to visit because of the weather.
We headed down to the gangway to get off the ship and joined a short queue of people swiping their cards for security, buttoning everything up, then disembarking. We were just two people from the front of the queue when the captain made an announcement. The local authorities in Málaga were effectively closing down the city as the rain was expected to get even worse with strong risks of flooding. For safety reasons everybody needed to stay aboard so getting off was now suspended. That was that for our day in Spain then. On the one hand we were disappointed that we hadn’t got off the ship but we counted ourselves lucky that we’d not been early enough to get off only to then get drenched and find everything closing down. More on that in a few paragraphs.
Back in our room to drop off our coats as we wouldn’t be going anywhere we could now see how the rain was having an impact on our balcony space with the drainage struggling to cope with the deluge.
We spent the remainder of the day doing many of the same things we’d done on the previous one: reading, eating, drinking, taking part in trivia again.
The weather had cleared somewhat by the time late evening rolled around and we could depart. The ship had needed to stay in port to take on staff and supplies, plus some people had managed to head ashore before that was stopped so they needed to be accounted for. As Caribbean Princess made her way out from Málaga we saw that we’d been docked next to Marella Voyager. We’ve only cruised once with Marella so far, and on another ship, but we very much enjoyed the experience and would like to do so again one day.
Early in the evening we bumped into our new Romanian friend we’d met on the first night on the ship. She introduced us to a Canadian man she’d also met who, like us, had flown into Italy on embarkation day. Unlike us, his luggage hadn’t come with him and hadn’t caught up in Sardinia either so he’d been making do with what he’d been wearing for the flight and a few things he’d bought on the ship since then plus some loans from the cruise line. It turned out he’d got off the ship as early as possible just to buy more clothes, not trusting that his luggage would find him in Spain either. He’d made it into the city only to find nothing open and he’d got soaked to the skin, sometimes sheltering near buildings but mostly finding it impossible to escape the rain. That left him with almost the only set of clothes he had now completely sodden to add insult to injury. His attitude was good, though, and we all had a good laugh about it. We’d check in with him a few times over the next few days and the last we heard was that his luggage still hadn’t arrived by the last port before the transatlantic crossing.
We’d not had the day we’d planned on having but the evening was as intended with a speciality dining experience at Crown Grill. Starters and desserts often change around a bit but for the main course we always go for filet mignon, rare, and Princess never disappoint here.
In the next post in this Caribbean Princess cruise series it’s a new port for the pair of us and even a new country and continent for my wife as our ship docks at Casablanca in Morocco where we set off on an excursion to visit Rabat.