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Published: June 26th 2017
We have 2 days at sea now before we hit land again. It's time to sit back and enjoy the ride. Life at sea, however is not all plain sailing (sorry about the pun!) It's time for another 'incident'.
Kaye related to us that as she and her husband Charlie were getting in to the elevator last night. It was pretty full. The elevator stopped at a deck and the doors opened. A man and his wife pushed their way in to the dismay of some passengers already in the elevator.
‘We're full. You'll have to wait for the next one', someone cried.
‘Of course you're not full!', the newcomer said shoving other passengers as he tried to enter.
In order to protect himself and his wife, one of the passengers shoved back. The newcomer took offence at this and deliberately pushed this man in the chest. The elevator doors closed and the overcrowded elevator moved up to the next deck. People started shouting and the shoving broke out on to the deck as the elevator doors opened. As Kaye is telling the story, I had visions of Peter from
Family Guy having a fight with the
giant chicken but this was definitely no laughing matter.
The bully was told in no uncertain terms that the man he had
floored has a pacemaker.
‘
So, what!' said the bully.
‘So do a lot of people' as he made the way to his cabin. The man who had been assaulted followed the bully but was obviously in a lot of discomfort. He was taken to the ship's sickbay where he stayed overnight. In Barcelona, he was taken to a local hospital where it was confirmed that none of the wires from his pacemaker had moved or slipped.
In the meantime, the incident was reported. Charlie was a material witness and gave a statement. He had to complete a stack of papers as part of this report. The medical bill, I understand totalled $2400. It has now been 3 days since this attack and nobody knows what happened to the assailant. We have known similar occurrences in the past and the offender(s) have usually been removed from the ship. Now unless he has been set adrift in a life raft it is likely that he is still on board.
So, it has only taken 9 cruises
and a week but I think we have it finally sussed. I'm talking about the evening meal. It is definitely better to eat early in order to not miss any of the evening's entertainment. We have gotten in to the habit of dining at 6pm. As an example, after our dinner we attended a
No business like show business trivia at 7:45. Straight after we headed down to the Princess Theatre in time to catch the latest
Showtime production featuring the Princess singers and dancers. At 9:30 back to the Princess Live studio for the Marriage game show. This is a play on
‘Mr & Mrs' and is very funny as long as you are in the audience and not one of the contestants!! Finally at 10:30 we headed for the Movie under the Stars to watch (in this instance)
Oblivion with
Tom Cruise. During our 2
nd day at sea we met Simon and William, a newly wed couple from San Francisco. They joined us on our trivia team. I think we now have a settled team as we came joint first in the morning (lost on the tie break!!) and 2
nd in the afternoon with scoring 18/20. The
winner scored 19. I don't really believe in conspiracy theories but if we scored 20/20, I'm sure some team would score 21!!!
So we left Barcelona yesterday and sailed through the Ibiza channel. I felt like standing on the balcony and telling them to ‘
Keep the noise down!!!' Then I realised it was coming from the Princess Theatre below!! We mightn't have the most established and hottest DJs such as Fat Boy Slim or David Guetta but we've got a bloke who once played piano for Frank Sinatra and a Ukrainian string quartet who play a mean Eine Kleine Nachtmustik!!
We passed Gibraltar at around midnight so if there were any Whales in the vicinity, we didn't see them. They were all probably tucked up in the beds like peas in a pod…or in this case whales in a pod!!! Sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar we emerged in to the Atlantic Ocean on course for Funchal in Madeira.
This afternoon we finally met Pia. Pia is from Florida and is travelling with her husband Mike. This is her 70
th Princess cruise!! She always writes a ‘
live from' account for each of her cruises and posts
it on a cruise web site called
Cruise Critic. She is well known to many of her fellow passengers and also a lot of the crew. I only knew her by reputation. The thing that impressed me was that as soon as Roisin introduced herself she knew instantly the name was of Gaelic origin! It turns out that Pia was also present on our big cruise we did in 2010 from San Francisco to Sydney.
She has joined our quiz team for the morning session and on this particular morning it was a killer trivia. We only scored 11…which was 2 more than the 2
nd place team!!! We may have only won a pen but more importantly bragging rights have been restored!!
So we have arrived at Madeira; meaning wood in Portuguese due to the island being completely covered in Forest when Henry the Navigator sailed past a long time ago!! From once having many colonies to complete with Britain, Madeira is only 1 of 2 Portuguese overseas territories left; the other, the Azores, lies in the Atlantic to the North West of Madeira.
On looking out across Madeira the colours and contours of the island become
very striking. The town rises steeply up the hillside reminiscent of South American coastal cities such as Valparaiso in Chile.
We took the organised shuttle from the ship to the centre of town then ran the gauntlet of taxi drivers and tour operators. Despite not taking up any offer (as we had our own plans), Roisin and I never for one moment felt like we were being ripped off. Private taxis were about €60 (4 persons) and a minibus tour cost about €10-15 per person. In fact the only time we felt ripped off was taking the $8 Princess shuttle bus for the 5-minute ride in to town!!
After a brief stop at the tourist info in Avenida Arriaga to get our bearings we passed down the main street past a live band busking in the street. The instrument that caught my eye was a drum tube sort of thing. The drums all seemed to be the same size but the sound was projected down different size tubes, thus ruminating different tones and pitches. Ingenious!!
We passed a statue of the 5
th and probably least known of the Marx Brothers. There was Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo and
now Zarco; João Gonçalves Zarco to be precise. Not too sure who he is but I don't remember him in
Duck Soup or A Night at the Races!!! Zarco was an explorer who was appointed the first Captain of Funchal by our old friend Henry the Navigator. If you need to know any more about hoim, look him up on Wikipedia. I did!!!
We cut through past Funchal city hall and found the bus stop where the number 21 took us on our €1.90, 20 minute bus ride to the lofty parish of Monte, perched high on the hillside overlooking Funchal. Monte, as I learned, is Portuguese for mountain and nothing to do with the nickname for one of Britain's greatest military minds Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery!! (I can't believe his first name is Bernard!! I have nothing against the name but it doesn't exactly strike the fear of God in to the Nazis!! Perhaps that's why he wasn't really known by his first name!)
There is a cable car that moves between Funchal and Monte. I believe this costs €10 one-way and €15 return and takes about 15 minutes. An alternative mode of transport for
those who like heights!!
Now, it was still reasonably early, 11:20, so all the tours hadn't arrived yet. We could either have a wander; visit the Church of Our Lady of the Monte and the Monte tropical gardens or head straight for the main event; the tobogganing, in a wicker basket, down a road, with NO snow!! There were no queues by the toboggans but as we came all this way it would be a shame not to have a look around before schussing down a hillside road.
What was a shame was that as we were up by the church, 4 busloads of tourists pulled up and before we know it we were about 200
th in line to be pushed down the side of a hill in a basket. Despite the rather large queue an even larger mass of basket gondoliers appeared from nowhere, easy recognisable in their all white shirt and slacks with a straw boater (and they were the only ones speaking Portuguese!!) so within 20 minutes we were climbing in to the basket.
This may be seen by many as a tourist trap. The cost is not cheap, €15 per person. However, the
prices are clearly marked up well in advance. The Gondoliers are very polite and are happy to pose for photos before setting off on the 2km course. So, tourist trap or not, everyone has 2 choices. Either they can pay for an experience of a lifetime that is unique to anywhere else in the world or one can decide not to partake in this unusual mode of transport.
So, this is what happens. A wicker basket has a purpose built seat for no more than 3 persons. The basket is on wooden runners. Each basket is allocated 2 gondoliers who steer the basket with 2 lengths of rope. They run along side the basket steering and maintaining the momentum and only using their rubber-soled boots as brakes! The baskets can reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour but in reality don't exceed much more than 6 or 7 mph.
The basket is guided through the steep and narrow lanes missing parked cars by literally inches. You can see the tarmac of the road service has a definite sheen where years of wear and tear has made these lanes some of the shiniest road services in the
world!!
The gondoliers stop half way down and are happy to take a photo or two with your own camera. This does not stop the official photographer somehow snapping you ‘in action' and as soon as the basket comes to a stop at the end of the line, your photo, together in a presentation folder with a CD of some of Madeira's folk music, is presented to you for a charge of €10. As I said, you can either choose to buy it or not. There is no ‘hard sell'
Whilst waiting in the queue I was wondering how the gondoliers made it back up the steep 2km course so quickly. I now discovered their secret. The sleds are loaded on to the back of a van, and the gondoliers are driven back up the hill by the bus load! A 47-seater coach is waiting to take them back to the start of the run.
When we were planning our trip we decided that we would walk back down in to Funchal. We set off down hill despite a taxi driver asking for our custom.
‘
It's 6 kilometres', he shouted after us as if he expected
us to turn around and say:
‘Ooh, in that case, my dear, I think we ought to take a taxi!!' It took 45 minutes to walk back in to town.
We found a nice Café with free wi-fi just off the main promenade but music was a bit loud. Crowds were starting to gather. It turns out that the music was an intro to a fashion show. This proceeded to take place in the middle of the street!! Nobody we asked seemed to know what was going on; not even the locals!! There were ladies in bridal wear and underwear and frocks made from newspaper. Roisin thinks I was doing my blog and too busy to notice. She's obviously not aware of the web cam in my netbook. (she is now!!)
It is hard to believe we are only just ½ way through our cruise yet this is the last port of call before Fort Lauderdale. We now have 7 days at sea. We are told cabin fever sets in after about 5 days! After 5 days at sea, people have been seen walking around the ship eating soap. I personally think something was lost in translation
and they were walking around actually eating soup!!! Soup or soap, 7 days is still a long time. I wonder how many trivia sessions that equates to??
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Ragnhild
non-member comment
Hi , Funchal sounds like a great place to go to. It?s a dream destination I have... Will you go to the Azores also? Wehad a great holiday there back in 2003.