Picture heavy fun review - MSC Armonia - Canary Isles and Madeira - incl. DIY trips

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi Stef,

I am joining you for another cybercruise. One question.

Last cruise 3 people + 12 days = 5300 photographs.

This cruise 2 people + 7 days = ???? photographs?

 

:cool:lol, many.

 

a little more detailed?

 

Tanja: 800 pics

 

myself: 2300 pics

 

 

so a total of 3100 pics

 

lol -- but many of those are movement series, so you can substract about a hundred for Tanja and 500 for me ... That would lead to a more realistc amount of actually pushing that button -- 2500 clicks.:eek::D:D:D:eek:

 

lol, so I do have quite many to share with you all again.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

I must say the MSC Armonia seems way behind in terms of decor and facilites than the MSC Fantasia. Hope the MSC Orchestra is nicer!

 

I agree on the 2 jacuzzis situation. It's just too few nowadays! Then again, the MSC Fantasia has like 10 jacuzzis and three of them are XXL size, which is a bliss, all of them look quite clean. They are packed at some hours, but from 17h or 18h they empty. I even used many of them alone, or just with my partner!

 

Yes, it's an older ship .... but the fact that it was behind also created this quaint, cozy at home feeling... I don't know how it would feel if they really would have changed to glitz and glamour during the refit... it definitely would have been a different ship feeling then -- which actually would have been a shame.

 

The Magnifica had 6 jacuzzis, 4 of them in the freely accessible section. They were always spotlessly clean. The 2 pitiful ones on the Armonia however .... well, I already said all about it, I don't want to start ranting again.

 

Hooray another trip report from you! oh, crap, it's in Spanish.... sigh I'll gnaw my way through it anyhow... the pictures are awsome as always.

 

Thank you especially for the Santiago de Compostela pics. Our little village here in Germany lies right on one of the ways of St. James. I swear, one day I'll just step out the door and start walking.... all the way to Spain ... It'll probably take half a year at least... I guess I won't do it till I retire and Tanja thinks I'm completely insane. Yet I am obsessed with the thought. So thank you for the pictures of the "goal/cathedral" of that pilgrimage:).

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Great review as usual!

 

:p thank you!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

 

Before we start with the dailies of day one, here's our spreadsheet of this cruise.

 

This was created before the cruise, so you'll have to wait and see if we did all this or not ... but it gives you a first impression and overview of what to expect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lol -- did ya find the mistake, which doesn't make any sense:o?

 

 

 

Anyway,

 

The colours are supposed to sort the activities.

 

 

bright yellow = important ship times ... lol -- I didn't want to miss another ship

 

 

orange = getting to the cruise and back home again

 

purple = food

 

green = nature-heavy, outdoor stuff

 

blue = cultural stuff, landmarks, historic stuff

 

pink = fun, mainstream touristy stuff

 

 

 

 

stay tuned!

 

Stef

[Pluto_fan]

I love your color-coded spreadsheet! :)

I've done that for a Walt Disney World trip, but never for a cruise. Might have to try that next time...it will drive my family crazy. :D

[posso]

Hi!

 

You sailed without me noticing - but now I've caught up and am looking forward to your new adventures! (I've read the old ones several times)

 

best wishes to you all

 

Eric in Liverpool UK

[Elmartellama]

I love it when you put it all in English in your spreadsheet, but then you just can't resist temptation and go write Teneriffa auf deutsch :D

 

It was a pity you did not call at Lanzarote, it is so beautiful to drive around, my partner and I loved it. Yet you did stop at La Palma, which is a place I long to see.

 

How did you find the a la carte breakfast?

 

Since we'll have two sea days in our upcoming cruise I have finally "convinced" my partner to forget about the buffet at least during sea days and go to the main restaurant instead. I had to tell him horrid stories about massification :rolleyes: I'll try us to go to the buffet only one time a day, either for breakfast or lunch, we'll see.

 

As for our land-trip review of October 2014, I have decided to included since some people in the Spanish ports section had pre and post-trip questions.

 

Also we have decided not to make a cruise in 2016. Over time, we have realized that we love road trips too much! So I'm starting the transition to that webpage, which is also great. If everything goes well in 2015 we'll have the Fjords in June and Austria / Bayern in October. Hope to be able to share those experiences in either places :)

[denisey]

 

 

 

lol -- did ya find the mistake, which doesn't make any sense:o?

 

 

 

 

 

Aha! Found it! Did you go for a little swim?

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Dailies day one -- Embarkation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stay tuned!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

I love your color-coded spreadsheet! :)

I've done that for a Walt Disney World trip, but never for a cruise. Might have to try that next time...it will drive my family crazy. :D

 

 

how cool -- if you actually do one for your Norway cruise -- please post it, I'd love to see it!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi!

 

You sailed without me noticing - but now I've caught up and am looking forward to your new adventures! (I've read the old ones several times)

 

best wishes to you all

 

Eric in Liverpool UK

 

 

:)Welcome to the review Eric!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

I love it when you put it all in English in your spreadsheet, but then you just can't resist temptation and go write Teneriffa auf deutsch :D

 

lol -- I didn't even realize I did it! How funny.

 

It was a pity you did not call at Lanzarote, it is so beautiful to drive around, my partner and I loved it. Yet you did stop at La Palma, which is a place I long to see.

 

Tanja really regretted not having a port stop at Lanzarote ... she was there on a vacation once before we got together and loved it. She really would have liked to show me ... oh well, more cruises in the future hopefully, maybe one will stop at Lanzarote.

 

How did you find the a la carte breakfast?

 

We really liked the little buffet in the a la carte restaurant ... maybe your partner will love it, since it sort of combines a la carte and buffet in a nice fashion. The ordering of the remaining food stuff was as always a bit adventurous ... but we ended up getting what we ordered. We were unlucky with the tables though, since we got seated with people who either didn't want to communicate, spoke languages we haven't conquered yet, or seemed to be in a downright miserable mood. Sigh.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Aha! Found it! Did you go for a little swim?

 

:) yay ... an A+ for Denise!!!!! :)

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

For day one, being the embarkation day, I’ve pretty much told you everything already. All that remains is dinner and the show … so here it goes:

 

 

Dinner day one

Seafood cocktail

Balls of mozzarella caprese

Sedanini di grano duro in salsa cremosa al gorgonzola

(lol -- you can see how delicious it was -- I couldn't keep my fingers off long enough to take a picture)

more to come

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Roast scorpion fish fillet

Oven-baked veal leg Goccia d’Oro

The deserts were always on a different menu … sorry, no pics. But you can take wild guesses as to what the names of the shown deserts might be:D.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Show day one

It felt odd to go see a show BEFORE dinner … definitely a first for us. Lol – but it had its advantages … Tanja didn’t fall asleep during any show all cruise long ;).

At first some singing.

The female singer of this cruise:

Her singing was … fine. Nothing I’ll memorize for either good or bad. For this cruise, she had multiple occurrences in the shows. There was a male singer as well, who was put on stage again and again and….. but we’ll get to HIM later. For today we were still blissfully unaware of his existence.

I just liked the flowing hair in this picture.

After the singer, we were given a little taste of the Flamenco show, which would be happening later on during the cruise.

Maybe it was the mainly Spanish and Italian crowd at this early showtime, maybe it was our thrill to be on a cruise again, but I actually believe it was the BEST performance EVER. The crowd went wild. Imagine cheering passengers standing up, clapping along and shouting OLEEEE!!!!!! Loved every single second and couldn’t wait for the actual show …. Man, if this was supposed to water our mouths for more …. It sure as hell did!

Next up: Fuerteventura!

Stef

[Juddernaut]

I had the Veal and enjoyed it. I thought the food was good to very good.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[PegKay]

I love your color coded spreadsheets as well. I normally do a spreadsheet, but you inspired me to color code from the first one you posted. I had one all color coded for our land trip we just did to Turkey in March. SO handy!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Dailies day two -- Fuerteventura

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stay tuned!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

MSC’s tours for our day on Fuerteventura

So those where the ideas the cruise ship had for excursions today.

Actually we found it difficult to find stuff to do ourselves. For the entire cruise, this was the most difficult port to plan for … simply because it was Sunday and EVERYTHING was closed. All museums of at least semi-interest, even the shopping malls in the capital and the public libraries (yes I became THAT desperate in search of stuff to do) – closed.

 

Fuerteventura is a barren island famous for its windy beaches … a paradise for wind and kite surfers.

I spent two vacations here with my parents when I was a teen. Our hotel had been in the south of the island and I remembered how long of a drive it was to get there. We also checked out the Dunes of the north at Corralejo then … I really didn’t want to go to either place again. The capital Puerto del Rosario didn’t offer anything of interest to us, so it was clear that we would need a car to get away from it.

Usually they have a port car rental office … guess what … closed on Sundays. Aargh! We decided to rent a car from the airport, which is only a 7 minute taxi ride away from the port.

But before I start telling you about our trip, here’s a map I put together for all you desperate people, looking for stuff to do on this island. Those would be my personal highlights. I’ll tell you about the ones we didn’t do real briefly, before starting on our actual experiences. This way you have a nice selection to choose from if you ever wish to explore this island:

We

didn’t

do (lol – in the order of my piqued interest):

Drive to the very south of the island to see the

Villa Winter and Cofete beach

. This actually was my number one wish to do … but the drive would have lasted more than 2 hours each way of which 45 minutes would have been on a windy dirt road, which at times might have required a four wheel drive. I simply chickened out --- which still bugs me. But the day after this portstop would be a seaday and after that the highlight of the cruise (Madeira) would wait for us. I really REALLY! didn’t want to miss the ship today. If we ever have a port stop here again I will go for it. This beach must be absolutely breathtaking and sooo worth the hassle. The Villa Winter is quite bizarre. It’s a ruin in the middle of nowhere and has a mysterious history. It has to do with Third Reich Germany and high rank politicians of that time. Talks of hidden tunnels, yet unfound treasures and much more are fascinating. The building itself is pretty dull, but the still unknown facts about it --- like who was it built for (nobody, not even someone from the Winter family ever lived in it) and what was its purpose (Invasion of Africa? Hide out for Hitler himself?) make it bonechillingly interesting.

 

Cueva del Llanos

. This cave is a large volcanic cave so vast, that it has its own ecosystem way in the back, including pale yellowish blind spiders, who only exist here in complete darkness. You can take tours of parts of the cave in English, German or Spanish. You get hardhats and flashlights… sounds fun. Don’t worry, you won’t actually stumble over the spiders, since that area is sectioned off for their protection. Oh, and they have a neat looking museum on the site as well, telling you about the volcanic history and the spiders. But they are closed on Sundays, so we sadly couldn’t go check it out.

 

The

saltines

and the museum of salt. I’ve never seen something like that. The old saltine has been remodeled for the tourists, so you can walk through the different stages of evaporating seawater and read about the making of fleur de sel right at the site of its production. They also have this funny salt museum, which blows me away … seriously, a museum about salt? I’d have loved to find out more, because it sounds so strange. They also have a set-up skeleton of some kind of whale right at the beach, which looks pretty cool. But of course they are closed on Sundays.

 

Drive to

El Cotillo

. A quaint little fishing village with great snorkeling possibilities. They also have a cool lighthouse to check out and an adjacent nature trail, telling you about the local plants. But the lighthouse and the trail are closed on Sundays. We didn’t bring our snorkeling gear and to be honest -- to swim in 18 °C water without a wet suit amongst stingrays wasn’t really enticing enough to start the long drive.

 

Drive to the caves of

Ajuy

. This stretch of dark sandy beach has some caves right by the shore, through which you can walk over a well-maintained path (many steps)free of charge. We didn’t do it, because by the time we were done with our own trip, the place would have been packed with tour busses. No thanks. But our Austrian acquaintances checked it out in the morning and totally loved it!

 

Boat trip to

El Lobo island

. Snorkeling paradise for those who own wet suits and have time and money to get a boat out there for a day. We didn’t have any of that, so bummer.

 

Corralejo Dunes

. A hint of Sahara feeling. Been there, wasn’t too impressed as a teen. Decide for yourselves. It is officially THE highlight on Fuerteventura. Oh and you can actually easily get there by public bus!

 

 

So those where the things we

didn’t

do. The next post will start with the actually experienced stuff. So stay tuned!

Stef

[diane.in.ny]

Looking forward to the rest of your report ...

[willma]

Hi Stef, we love Fuerteventura, but I agree there isn't really much to do, especially on a Sunday. We have driven the unmade road to Cofete, and it is very heart stopping in places but the beach at the end is totally spectacular. Vast, deserted and unspoilt. You cannot swim there. And yes, the villa is eerie. Go there, but get a 4 x 4 vehicle.

Enjoying your report as always.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Fuerteventura -- start of trip

 

Whoohoo, let’s start with our very first port trip on this cruise. Lol – first thing to recheck:

:DOkay, all set.

 

 

 

 

 

We shouldn’t have any problem on making the time, since we planned to start off easy today.

 

First of all we roamed around the dock, waiting for our Austrian cruisers, so we could go share a cab to the airport.

Guess which store is placed behind this window

The walkway to the port exit is real short and there are lots of taxis. What bugged us a bit was the fact that a rental car hut opened up when we strolled by … so apparently they DO spontaneously open on a Sunday as well

… sigh, but there was no way to prebook and we wanted to make sure to have an affordable car. So we jumped into a taxi and went off to the airport. It’s a drive less than ten minutes and if I recall correctly it cost somewhere between 12 and 15 Euros. So after we shared the cost, we said our goodbyes, since we had booked with another rental car agency. The Austrians booked with a company, which had the cars right on the airport premises.

We didn’t.

We opted for the cheapest possible rate, which in our case was provided by “Goldcar”.

They have their office about 10 – 15 minutes by shuttlebus to the south of the airport in an industrial area. We were to be picked up at the busstop A1 in front of the Terminal. Mhhh. We found A1, but there was nobody there. We were about an hour early though. We somehow thought, other people would surely have rented cars through them as well and maybe we’d luck out and get an earlier shuttle.

Lol – watch out – the busstop is used by other shuttles as well … so you have to make sure to enter the correct bus, which will bring you to the corresponding company … I almost made the mistake to enter a minibus to the wrong company … it would have dropped us at the wrong company in a whole other part of town (we saw their office way in the booneys while on the road– thankfully whilst stitting in the correct minibus).

Our minibus …. Just for us. We didn’t have to wait the whole time either. I guess the minibus just sort of roams back and forth between airport and office constantly.

 

The view whilst being driven to the office

Once having arrived in the industrial area, we were spit out in a big hall. All the cars stood in this gigantic hall and the office was sort of added in to the side. We seemed to be the only Germans and the only cruise passengers. All other people getting or dropping off cars were either locals or French.

Actually all of Fuerteventura seemed to taken over by the French. You saw them either riding racing bikes all over the island, even in the most remote desert regions -- cyclists in bright, sporty clothes pedaling away or see them roam around the airport or rental car office with surf gear (no idea, how they plan to stuff that in a car … but maybe they just tend to rent bigger ones than us.

Which brings me to our car for the day:

Lol – can you see (or rather guess) which kind it is?

Stay tuned!

Stef

Edited April 20, 2015 by Kreuzfahrtneuling

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Looking forward to the rest of your report ...

 

 

:Dlooking forward to writing it as well:D

 

welcome!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hi Stef, we love Fuerteventura, but I agree there isn't really much to do, especially on a Sunday. We have driven the unmade road to Cofete, and it is very heart stopping in places but the beach at the end is totally spectacular. Vast, deserted and unspoilt. You cannot swim there. And yes, the villa is eerie. Go there, but get a 4 x 4 vehicle.

Enjoying your report as always.

 

 

How cool -- you've actually driven the dirt road to Cofete? I'm so jealous!

 

We actually fell in love with another island, but I'd really love to have another port day on Fuerteventura again one day to check that out.

 

Lol -- and if that day won't be a sunday and so we could make reservations for a 4x4 vehicle right at the port, that would give us the little extra time cushion to make us feel comfortable to conquer this adventure.

 

Stef