We arrived in Lanzarote around 0900 hrs with the sun pouring down and temperature of around 18C a touch warmer than West Byfleet. We had no intention of going on the Island having been there twice in the last couple of years and on the second time rented a car and pretty much toured the Island then and so no tours for us just a day relaxing.
So the breakfast room was rather empty as we arrived at about 0930 and we assume many guests were on the way to shoreside and to join the large choice of tours. All the the tours are actually free which is good but not if you don't want to see the Island. After breakfast we headed of the the Arts Café where you can coffee and tea and most booze and cakes etc and but sat outside on some comfortable chairs and above were some heathers just to make certain you don't get cold. Around lunchtime we enjoyed a baguette with cheese and ham , reminds you of France, and then spent some happy hours until it started getting a little cooler and retuned to the room where we donned sweaters and sat on the balcony listening to music.
As dinner time came around we agreed that a glass of Jack Daniels with ice in the room sitting on the sofa watching an American house rebuild program was quite good and so that's we did before going to dinner. We were sat next to a Australian couple who had joined the ship in Barcelona and had been on board for at least 16 days so far and when they reach Fort Lauderdale they join another ship to visit the Amazon, clearly have lots of cash. We had an interesting talk about travel, politics, family and it was a pleasant evening.
Following dinner we went to the show which was a South African singer who was reasonable but clearly a bit nervous and his opening song was ‘When a man loves a woman’ which would have been less funny as he was clearly gay as a nine bob note and of course perhaps not the best song to open with. His closing number was the well know ‘Jerusalama’ which has been turned in to a video which millions of people have done the dance.. He did get a few people dancing but frankly if he had opened his show with this number then overall he would have got a better reaction from the audience.
The back to the room for an early night.
One item of comparison was last year we did a Seabourn cruise which went to a number of islands where you had to use the tenders to land which is not easy for some but it means you get a nice view of the town. However in this cruise and we end up in a Port surrounded by container ships and other types of vessels and often lots of noise. However we did notice an vessel arrive carry several yachts and one was the ‘ Baltic 111’ named Raven which is a very brand new and different design sailing ship which they carefully offloaded and it sailed in to port. Its been taken to Lanzarote for sea trials having left Jakobstad in Finland and shipped to the Canaries. Time to finish.
