Our first European port of call! Beautiful Funchal, Madeira! We arrived early.
Our excursion meet-up was in Studio Sea at 10:15am. After check-in we were promptly escorted to a waiting bus. The bus took us into the main part of town. We were dropped off and proceeded to walk a few blocks to a cable car that took us up the mountain. What a fantastic view of the city and the harbor!
We saw some of the devastation from the recent floods, although the people pulled together to get everything cleaned up in a hurry! At the top we wandered around visiting a church of the patron saint of Madeira.
To get back down the hillside, we had a different, very unique form of transportation: sledges. They are kind of like sleds on wooden rails that are guided down the narrow, twisty road by two drivers. It felt like we were going to smack into a wall several times, but we made it! Great fun!
We re-boarded our bus for a short drive to the Madeira Story Center to learn some history of the island. This was followed by lunch at a nearby (former) military fort. Lunch was a lovely local fish with vegetables and beer to drink. By this time, the sun had finally come out. An absolutely gorgeous day!
Due to a flower festival and parade in the main downtown area getting back to the ship proved to be a bit of a challenge, but we made it!
This afternoon it was actually warm enough to visit the pool …well, the hot tub anyway!
In the theater tonight, they are showing Alice in Wonderland in 3D. We spent a little too much time at the pool and missed it, but it will be playing again before our trip is over.
Tonight is also Pirate Night! We brought our gear and are ready for all the fun and fireworks!!!
(Bought my PNW Mouse Meet tickets this afternoon and we have our hotel reservations – will you be there?)
Earlier in the week, Michael made a comment (jokingly) to our head server, Mario (aka Super Mario), about Indian food and that Tandoori chicken was his favorite. Guess what? They prepared a whole chicken in the Tandoori style just for Michael! Very spicy and very good! What a great surprise! The rest of us settled for short ribs. Also very yummy.
The Pirates in the Caribbean party was out on deck. (Hey, they should have renamed it to Pirates in the Mediterranean!) It was very windy and chilly, but we stuck it out to see Mickey save the day from the pirates. Despite the wind, the fireworks were perfect!
They had two-for-one Margarita’s tonight with top-shelf tequila, so Michael got two shots of Don Julio Anejo and shared!
Love reading about your days and sea and seeing all of your great pictures! Looking forward to your next post…
Thanks for posting those pictures from Madeira. My mother is from there and I haven’t been there in almost 8 years. I hope you enjoyed the island and the its’ amazing beauty.