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Published: June 26th 2017
Having thankfully missed the Mr Made in Italy contest last night we had a full day at sea before arriving in Casablanca. There was an evening of activities with an Italian theme to celebrate 150 years of Italian unification. Apparently Italy has only existed as a single country since 1861. We were also told that there is so many varieties of pasta to choose from you could eat a different type for every day of the year. Why didn't we just get told there are at least 365 shapes of pasta (or 366 in a leap year!!) An Italian joke:
"The trouble with eating Italian food is that 5 or 6 days later you're hungry again!!"Not too sure if we were suppose to laugh or order food??!!
A full day at sea wouldn't be complete without a quiz! This took place in the Purple bar. There were only 10 questions but what questions!! As an example the final question was
: If you have a 50g and a 100g tube of toothpaste and squeezed them both together, which tube would empty first?? I'll tell you the answer later. We knew there was a catch but thought it could be a double bluff so put the obvious answer. Needless to say, we didn't win although the prize did go to a British couple. He answered most of the questions while she sat there clicking away with her knitting needles!!
A full day at sea wouldn't be complete without Bingo. For this we headed up to the Orange Lounge. (can you see a pattern emerging here with their naming convention? – and not a very imaginative one at that!!!) We were then told that the Bingo is down stairs
IN the swimming pool!!
I pointed out that we haven't brought our cozzies!! To which I received the response:
'"Yes! Deck 7 in the swimming pool!!” I have to check my Italian/English dictionary and check what cozzie means!!
We didn't win that either. Bingo tends to drag on a bit as every number is repeated to take in account all the nationalities on board. Roisin can now almost fluently count to 75 in 6 languages!!!
A full day at sea wouldn't be complete without a gala evening. It was meet the captain in the Prua Lounge. We arrived at the allotted time of 6:15 only to be greeted by
a queue that stretched through the next lounge. There must have been a few hundred people in front of us. Either side of the queue were ropes to guide you ever nearer to the captain. As you got nearer to the Prua, the path zigzagged. The last time I had queued up like this was to meet Father Christmas at the grotto in Lewis's in 1967!! In fact, I'm wondering if there were more that I captain on board the MSC Splendida. That's probably how he gets to have his photo taken with all 3,900 passengers. He has doubles dotted around the ship. In fact, come to think of it, the daily programme did say cocktails with the captain on decks 5,6 and 7.
“Mummy! Mummy! That's not the real commendante” “No, Jimmy! This is one of his helpers. The real Commendante has jumped ship already!!!” As dinner was not until 8:30, we decided to take in the Show. It was called
Sorlegio. It was a bit of cirque du Soleil meets Paul Daniels!! It was full of energy and acrobatics in between a lame magic act. Prior to this, the Captain and his senior officers were
introduced to the audience and the captain said a few worlds. Roisin was hoping that as they were all lined up, it would have been entertaining to see them river dance!! This is going on her ‘end of cruise' feedback form as a suggestion!!!
We arrived in Casablanca shortly before 8am and were due to remain in port until 9pm. Why then did they have us out of our beds at the crack of dawn?? We had decided to take the city tour. This required that you meet in the Prua at 07:45. Casablanca is on the same time as the UK so the clocks went back last night giving us an extra hour in bed.
The Splendida berths in what looked like a scrap metal base at one end and grain silos at the other. It was a 25-minute walk to the port gate so opting for an organised excursion was a good shout!
Our first stop was the Hassan II mosque. This short journey took us past some of the private beaches in Casablanca and a few heath spas. It was bizarre to see 2 Moroccan ladies power walking with their personal trainer. What's odd
about that I hear you say? Well all three of them were covered from head to toe in the black jilbab!!
The Hassan II mosque has capacity for 20,000 male and 5,000 female worshipers at one time. It is said that this mosque is one of the best-planned mosques in the world. 2/3rds of it is built over the Atlantic in accordance with a verse from the Qu'ran. The minaret is the tallest in the world at over 200 metres high. The car park, however, only had room for about a dozen cars. So how's that good planning!! How do they sort out priority for the car park? I didn't see any blue badge bays either!!!
For our next stop we headed to the apothecary. In this place we received a demonstration of various natural substances to cure all sorts of ailments from memory loss to weight reduction to stuff to stop you snoring (I bought some of that as a present for Mrs H!!) to memory loss and weight reduction…oh, did I mention there was potions for memory loss as well??!!! There was also saffron for cooking and natural henna available. We learned that this is used
in tattoos. Henna is a reddy-brown substance. Moroccans and other Islamic states do not make blue tattoos as this is considered a sin. I wonder if the same goes for their film industry??!
At this stage, we had driven around quite a bit of Casablanca. Casablanca means ‘White House' in Spanish and is known as the city of the setting sun. It was thought that this was as far as you could go before the edge of the world prior to the Americas being discovered. The port is the 2
nd biggest in Africa next to Durban.
Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco with approximately 6 million inhabitants. There are also 12 McDonalds. That's a lot of happy meals!! The city has definitely seen better days. Humphrey Bogart once said something about building a better future, maybe not today etc…. they could have started with knocking the past down and building some better houses!!!
The pavements were a bit uneven to say the least. I witnessed a local man trip over a crumbling manhole cover. He just got up, brushed himself down and carried on his merry way. If I had have done that, I would have
been on to the Council straight away!!
Heading toward the City Hall (should I mention the dodgy pavement while I'm there?) we passed the Kasbah. This word means fortress in Arabic. It may have been ‘rocking' in the past but the only visible rocks nowadays were the ones at the foot of the wall in a heap. This had certainly seen better days and was in a total state of disrepair. I suppose this didn't look that much out of place. It pretty much fitted in with the rest of the city's décor!!
The City Hall, like a lot of grandiose buildings is designed in the Moorish architecture. We walked through the building, and apart from the fantastic designs, it could have been any council building in the UK as we didn't see a soul as we passed through!!
We were told that taking photos is permitted anywhere and to anyone EXCEPT the police or military. Understandable as the ones we met weren't exactly the photogenic type anyway.
The national costume for Moroccan men is made from a brown thick material with a hood. We weren't told this until a few hours in to the tour.
That explained a lot as I thought a Star Wars convention was in town but then unusual that everyone seemed to have come as Obi Wan Kenobi!!!
After a brief photo stop at the Royal Palace, we were taken to a food souk. Whether this was by design I don't know but as we turned the first corner Roisin spotted it…Rick's café. Not what we expected. And then it was gone!! The tour stops for no man (or woman!)
I bumped in to Pam from our dining table. She seemed to be having an argument with one of the vendors. Pam explained that she had weighed 250g of spices but the man was trying to charge her for 1kg. I asked her if she was sure this was 250g as it felt heavier. She said she was certain so, in the important words of the 1942 classic, I replied:
“Weigh it again, Pam!!!' (I bet you didn't see that coming!!!)
On returning to the ship, we passed another Rick's café. This one seemed a little bit more up market. We seemed to be getting in to an
“I'm Sparticus'” situation although I'm sure none of them
featured in the movie. (Casablanca, that is. Not Sparticus!!)
Casablanca was an interesting tour although it is unlikely that we will return for any reason. The guide herself said that there is not a great deal to see in this city as it is more a commercial centre. The people we passed were friendly enough and seemed happy with their lot (including the pavements)
By the way, the answer to the quiz is that both tubes of toothpaste finish at exactly the same time. The reason is that the 100g tube has a bigger nozzle!! And that, my friends is what we're up against!!
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marie and don
non-member comment
loved it, and very funny