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Not much planned today. Just wandering around Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Tenerife today. Port side wins the view lottery again! 77/25 today and no longer calling for showers.

Unfortunately for me, I'll lug this thing home and then my youngest son will take it. He has been cruising since he was 18 months old (almost 22 now) and he collects the blocks as well as as the ones they sell in the shops on board. He was with us on Anthem last time we cruised her. I saw that the ones in the shop are now 60 bucks! Glad I don't have to buy those anymore.

Crystal block arrived. Figures they give us this on the cruise where we don't have any weight to spare in the suitcases.

Made it back to the ship with the only rain being while we were in the CR7 museum. It stopped long enough for us to get back to the ship. As soon as the ship left it started pouring rain. Another perfect DIY port stop!

Made a final stop at the CR7 museum. Pretty impressive when your trophy cabinet is a museum! This one was painful for me. If only John Terry would have converted that penalty....

Then we headed through the center of town towards the ship.

Once in town, we went to the market to get lunch. Had to try the Espetadas. They were just OK, but I think it was just the restaurant we went to. But once we left the market, we got these pasteles de nata across the street. These lived up to every bit of the hype. Can't wait to get to Lisbon to have more of them!

I know some.people say the tobogans are a rip-off, but we enjoyed it. It was €35 (finally figured out how to do the pounds and euro symbols on my phone), but I have spent more on far worse experiences.

Then it was our turn. Like any other ride, your end up at a gift shop. We then walked the rest of the way into town. It is all.downhill, but it is very steep so your legs get sore. We wore our hiking sneakers with lugs so it was a much easier walk since they gripped the asphalt better than flat tennis shoes. Passed the cool bridge we could see from the ship.

Ok, back to Madeira. Queue ended up being about 45 minutes. While waiting we alternated checking out the sights in the area.

Too bad you are not on this cruise. We are not big wine drinkers, so we gave it to the stateroom attendant. FW will only drink Prosecco or Moscato, and she gets annoyed that they always send stuff she doesn't like. So she told the casino host and this showed up today.

Yes. Downloaded the app and had them pick us up outside the port entrance tunnel. It was 58 euro total including having the driver wait.

Took a Bolt (Uber equivalent) to Cabo Girão Skywalk. 580 meters above sea level. Had the Bolt driver wait for us, then had him take us back to the basket carts (he had no clue what we meant when we said tobogan). This skipped having to deal with the cable car queue. Couldn't avoid the queue for the basket carts though. I think this queue might be longer than the cliff we just saw.

Funchal, Madeira. Port side is the lucky side again for views. 21/71 at the moment. Forecast says that rain might hold off until 3pm

Our first batch of boil and fry laundry was waiting back in the room. Nothing looked like it shrunk or melted, so I'll call it a success. Haven't reached the point where we need to hand wash the nice stuff yet. Seas are super calm. Can't believe we are in the open Atlantic like this

Tonight was Chops. We got there at 6:30pm and I think we threw a spanner/wrench in the works. They ignored us at the front for about 10 minutes, then ignored us for another 20 once we were seated. They were in the middle of service to the rest of the early tables at the time. Just didn't look like they had enough help. We don't need to look at the menu to order so we are a pretty easy table, but it took 2 hours so we missed the Billy Joel name that tune at 8:00. 😡 They were very apologetic about the service and the manager offered us another night later in the cruise. So at this point we are 1 for 3 for specialties.

Here's a new gadget we tried this cruise which will definitely be in the bag from now on. They are magnetic cable ties, and they complement the usual magnetic hooks for hanging heavier items on the walls. A YouTuber recommended them, and now I see why. Not only do they work for organizing cords and getting them out of the way, they also can hang items like sunglasses and they hold papers without having to pull a 40 pound rated magnet off the wall. I mentioned in an earlier post that this is the most organized our stateroom has ever been, and this is the reason why.

Sea day today. On the way to Madiera. You'd think that as we get further south it would get warmer, but that is not the case today. Still sunny but a bit cooler 18C/64F. Pool deck not as busy, and the shaded loungers on 15 all sit empty. Saw some people lounging in sweaters on the way to the Flowrider. That's supposed to be next cruise! Captain said the forecast is for periods of rain in Madiera tomorrow. 🫥 Not alot of kids on this cruise. Sports desk told me this cruise and next will not have many kids, but after that it will be bedlam. Sounds good to me! Europe is still in school, so it makes sense that all the school-aged kids seem to be American. There's one teen who got his blue band today after 4 days of trying who is providing our entertainment on line. We have watched him morph from boogie boarder to stand-up purist right before our eyes!

There is a US outlet above the nightstand which doesn't have a phone. On some ships there is a USB plug on the phone, but not Anthem.

Eating at the Windjammer now. There was an Advanced stand-up session from 5-7, so our 5pm MDR time was out. Was a good move because I went up about 5:45 and by 6pm everyone was gone. Made it about 55 minutes with the wave to myself and quit from exhaustion, and right as I'm drying off the FW comes up to record me. Didn't end well, so no sharing video on this one. I think every muscle in my body is sore right now. FW is OK with the WJ this cruise. She likes British food (that's why she's a keeper) and they have a great selection every night.

Sail away passed everything from our walk today, so I guess we could gave saved about 11000 steps by staying on the boat!

@ATG Here is the setup. 2 US outlets, 2 USBs, and a European outlet. For the European outlet, we bought one of these and it is always in the bag since every Royal ship we have sailed on has the Euro plug. So we get extra US outlets, as well as USB and USB-C.

Got back to the stateroom, and found this on the desk. This is what we call "loser wine" from the casino. 🤑

Eventually made it to Maria Pita Square. You can see the tops of these domes from my original balcony pictures. We planned to get lunch in town, but because ship time is an hour behind, it was already siesta time, so everything was closing up. So we got some ice cream and headed back to the ship. You can see from the pictures that the weather is perfect today. So for 6 Euro for a taxi and 10 euro for some ice cream (and 13000 steps on the watch), we had an incredible DIY day in A/La Coruna.