Madeira - Day 10 We quickly disembarked so we catch the cable car to Monte before the tour buses arrived, and as we rode up in the first chairlift of the day it started to drizzle, at this stage we had no idea of what was to follow. We made our first mistake when we reached Monte, we decided to stop and admire the great views over a coffee. The tour groups over took us and we ended up in a huge line for the wicker taboggan ride back down the mountain. As we inched forward in the line, the rain fell heavier and heavier until it turned into a heavy tropical downpour. Ron kept telling me it would be worth the wait as it was such fun riding in the taboggan. After standing in the ... read more

Day 8 Tenerife We joined a Cunard full day tour “Beauty of Mount Teide", we began by driving through the Esperanza Forest, stopping at Ortuna viewpoint for views over the north coast. The higher we climbed the more dramatic the landscape became, finally turning to lava with Mount Teide rising to 12,300 feet. Mount Teide has been dormant since 1909 and is in the centre of a crater over 29 miles in circumference. We stopped at a locally café where we had the best hot chocolate we have ever tasted, thick, sweet and very creamy. We continued through the National Park of Las Canadas to a view point at the base of Mt Tiede, the section of the park has been utilised for a number of movies, it looks like something between the wild west and ... read more

Day 5 - Cadiz is Europe’s oldest city, compact and surrounded by sea. Instead of taking a tour we decided to spend our day ashore exploring on foot. We thought we start by taking a short walk to the nearby cathedral before returning to the ship for morning tea. After taking a wrong turn we ended up walking for 3 hours a little more than we expected especially as Alex was in uncomfortable shoes. Along the way we did find some beautiful botanical gardens and a café to enjoy a coffee and churros, much better than any we had tasted in Australia. The café was interesting as the tables were in the botanical gardens on one side of the road, and the small café on the other side of the busy main road. The waitress was ... read more

Day 1 Boarding Queen Elizabeth for her Maiden Cruise. It turned out to be a good idea to relax at the nearby Hotel with a coffee until close to sailing time. As we were one of the last to turn up we avoided the queues and were whisked straight on board by they friendly greeters (Alex was getting a little concerned about arriving so close to boarding time, within 5 minutes, Ron of course was unconcerned) Day 2 At Sea Our first full day as sea was spent exploring the ship and eating delicious food. Alex found the library and checked out two books to read, Ron was pleased to win the trivia competition in a team with our friends Susan, Chris, Gale & Ian. We finished the night by winning another voucher for being brave ... read more

Big thanks to Colin for taking us at 5am to catch our early morning flight from Dallas via Maimi to Providenciales. We arrived in Provo (Providenciales) late afternoon, the first thing that seemed a little strange was the short drive to our hotel, the Caribbean Paradise Inn, the taxi drove on the left with the steering wheel also on the left. After being in Texas where they drive on the right with the steering wheel on the left, opposite to us, we now feel total confused. We had decided to stay at the Caribbean Paradise Inn based on tripadvisor reviews, it was as we expected, small, only 16 units, but comfortable and our room very clean and with a good air conditioner. We are a 5 minute walk to the beach through the large resorts, we ... read more