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Published: September 23rd 2017
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After a very leisurely breakfast in bed yesterday of croissant, yoghurt, juice and coffee, I finished off blog stuff in tiger bar. I still can’t get my head around what the designer was thinking there. As I said previously, I was having syncing issues so it has chewed up a fair chunk of time, but fingers crossed, I have it sorted now.
Mega bingo beckoned. Not because I enjoy getting to within 2 numbers only to be beaten to yelling ‘bingo’; or even entertain the possibility that I will win. No, I play because my daughter figures that is a compulsory part of cruising. It’s a little bit different on this cruise. Firstly, no bingo marker needed; numbers have ‘flaps’ cut so you only need to bend back a little bit of paper to identify that the number has been called. The other thing that makes MSC bingo unique is that numbers are called (like all announcements) in English, Italian, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. For the record, I didn’t win.
I had lunch upstairs rather than the main dining room, the food on this ship at the Buffet is very good actually. It has a fair amount Mediterranean
specialties, but many, many choices and I am sure there is something for everyone. There is even a corner of the buffet serving only children under a certain height (I think 130cm).
I had a good wander around the ship and tried to get my head around where everything is. The pools looked terrible inviting, especially the one under the retractable roof, but unfortunately due to my damaged finger being in a splint for eight continuous weeks, I have been advised to keep it slint use starts from scratch. That is not high on my wish list.
I went back to my cabin and prepared myself for ‘gala’ night. I then went to the Tiger bar where the cocktail party was underway before dinner at the restaurant. I really like watching people on a night like that. Some people go to an enormous amount of effort. There are photographers set up in all directions with various backdrops. Then on to dinner, where for the very first time, I ate snails. Got to say, not too bad.
After dinner it was time for a meet and great (and photo op) with the Captain before going to the Royal
Theatre for the nightly show. It was really good. A bit of ballet, a bit of cancan, singing, more types of dancing, some acrobatics, contortion..... yep, it was good.
This morning I had breakfast in the dining room before having an 80 minute long video talk to Olivia and (my grandson) Austin and took them for a trip around the ship. By then it time to get ready the first of my shore excursions on this trip, Malaga, Spain.
The tour took us to the Malaga food market, pretty much a celebration of fresh food; seafood, fruit and vegetables, meat, poultry, nuts, cheeses. You name it, and you could probably find it there. Since discovering, both Athens and Barcelona’s markets last year, I see if I can seek these out. They are fabulous.
We then walked to the heart of the town to taste a local specialty, curros, served with a small tea cup of thick hot chocolate to both dunk and drink. Yum! From there, we did a bit of a walking tour of Malaga’s sights, the cathedral, Roman theatre, Picasso’s childhood home. We the rejoined our bus to climb to the top of Mount Gibralfaro
to take in amazing views across Malaga, including a very good view of the bull ring to the before returning MSC Magnifica.
been cancelled due to low numbers of English speaking guests. I had the choice to do the same tour, but with no English commentary at all, or swap tours. Instead of a tower of a royal palace and a fishing village, I am now going to be seeing Lisbon in an amphibious craft. Sounds interesting.
Anyway, better be off to bed, it’s a big day tomorrow, an 11 hour shore excursion in Morocco. I am going to Casablanca and Marrakech.
More soon.
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Portsearose/ portsearose.blog
www.msccruises.com
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