Azamara Pursuit Rio to Lisbon 3/7-23

[Mackdogmolly]

Docked at Tenerife today. We went on a ship’s excursion traveling around the island and ending up at a restaurant where we sampled local cheeses, boiled potatoes, sauces, pork, wine, and then had a paella cooking class/demonstration of four different kinds of paella. Great fun!

[aliaschief]

3 hours ago, Mackdogmolly said:

Docked at Tenerife today. We went on a ship’s excursion traveling around the island and ending up at a restaurant where we sampled local cheeses, boiled potatoes, sauces, pork, wine, and then had a paella cooking class/demonstration of four different kinds of paella. Great fun!

Sounds great. How was the Paella? Thanks for sharing your cruise day.

[Grandma Cruising]

The ship was docked in the berth closest to town, with Balmoral just behind us - Balmoral had a shuttle bus, but again we didn’t. It was a fair walk into town, but we managed it as there were plenty of places to sit down along the way.

It was lovely in town. There is a park along the seafront with.a large children's play area and there were lots of sporting activities going on including a youth’s wrestling competition that was very well supported by parents and others. 
When we got back we had lunch - there was a lovely paella in Windows.

We’re using the last of our onboard credit on the ultimate drinks package for the last few days and are enjoying the Whispering Angel, as well as the cocktails and malt whisky.

[uktog]

5 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

The ship was docked in the berth closest to town, with Balmoral just behind us - Balmoral had a shuttle bus, but again we didn’t. It was a fair walk into town, but we managed it as there were plenty of places to sit down along the way.

It was lovely in town. There is a park along the seafront with.a large children's play area and there were lots of sporting activities going on including a youth’s wrestling competition that was very well supported by parents and others. 
When we got back we had lunch - there was a lovely paella in Windows.

We’re using the last of our onboard credit on the ultimate drinks package for the last few days and are enjoying the Whispering Angel, as well as the cocktails and malt whisky.

Did you ask why no shuttle this time?  Worries me a little for the future this shuttle situation- don’t want to drain the tank just getting into town 

[Mackdogmolly]

13 hours ago, aliaschief said:

Sounds great. How was the Paella? Thanks for sharing your cruise day.

It was pretty tasty and done in about 20 minutes or so. The setting was really pretty too. A courtyard of a restaurant that was a former mansion. Should have gotten pictures!

[Mackdogmolly]

8 hours ago, uktog said:

Did you ask why no shuttle this time?  Worries me a little for the future this shuttle situation- don’t want to drain the tank just getting into town 

I’m a little concerned about this too! 

[Grandma Cruising]

25 minutes ago, uktog said:

Did you ask why no shuttle this time?  Worries me a little for the future this shuttle situation- don’t want to drain the tank just getting into town 

The Hotel Director said they had managed to change to berth so we were nearer and therefore didn’t need a shuttle! I’m waiting to see if there’s a shuttle in Madeira, because that is a long walk - other passengers have said there wasn’t one there in October! 

 

[uktog]

3 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

The Hotel Director said they had managed to change to berth so we were nearer and therefore didn’t need a shuttle! I’m waiting to see if there’s a shuttle in Madeira, because that is a long walk - other passengers have said there wasn’t one there in October! 

 

There wasn’t last time we were there (pre pandemic just) we used a little pedicab each way. 10 euros each trip for 2. It was too far without. 
In Greece in October there were a few ports where we were quite far out and we were surprised there were no shuttles - the reason then was still covid. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by uktog

[Mackdogmolly]

My sister is in Madeira now and she said that there was cheap transportation to town, so maybe she was talking about the pedicab.

[Mackdogmolly]

La Palma today. Took the panoramic Island drive tour. It’s the 3rd smallest Canary Island and has a population of about 80,000. It also has plenty of water, so lots of vegetation and many banana plantations and avocado trees spotted. 
A marked difference in weather from the eastern side (port), where it was cloudy and cool, to the western side, where it was sunny and much warmer, with people sunbathing on the beach.

There was a volcanic eruption in 2021 that is still smoking that destroyed many many homes. Fortunately, they had plenty of warning and were able to evacuate. You can see fields and fields of lava.

A couple of disappointments:

1. While the scenery was beautiful, there weren’t a lot of photo opportunities, and I’m not great about capturing pics from a moving bus.

2. Azamara hyped a stop at a giant crater, but the bus driver said that parking had to be reserved in advance and Azamara hadn’t done that, so it wasn’t on his agenda.

 

Photos upside down again. I tried a couple of different ways. Sorry!!

[uktog]

That must be quite a disappointment for many not getting the excursion as promised.  I wonder what the onboard response to the missing crater will be -  having seen it, it is a big "miss"

[Mackdogmolly]

8 hours ago, uktog said:

That must be quite a disappointment for many not getting the excursion as promised.  I wonder what the onboard response to the missing crater will be -  having seen it, it is a big "miss"

There was an Azamara electronic survey passed around at the very end of the tour that I managed to complete so I made my thoughts known, but I don’t think many had a chance to do it. Hopefully, they spoke to the excursion desk. The Onward is going to be at La Palma tomorrow. Hope they don’t have the same experience.

[uktog]

6 minutes ago, Mackdogmolly said:

There was an Azamara electronic survey passed around at the very end of the tour that I managed to complete so I made my thoughts known, but I don’t think many had a chance to do it. Hopefully, they spoke to the excursion desk. The Onward is going to be at La Palma tomorrow. Hope they don’t have the same experience.

My experience of any service follow up on the electronic survey on the bus is - zero - even when the whole bus had time to report issues.  Sounds like you are Onwards 'guinea pigs" - not ideal!

[travelberlin]

9 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

The Hotel Director said they had managed to change to berth so we were nearer and therefore didn’t need a shuttle! I’m waiting to see if there’s a shuttle in Madeira, because that is a long walk - other passengers have said there wasn’t one there in October! 

 

I wonder who decides if the distance is short or long? How many kilometers was it?

Ivi

[travelberlin]

58 minutes ago, uktog said:

My experience of any service follow up on the electronic survey on the bus is - zero - even when the whole bus had time to report issues.  Sounds like you are Onwards 'guinea pigs" - not ideal!

They are on Pursuit, I think.

Ivi

[Mackdogmolly]

8 hours ago, travelberlin said:

They are on Pursuit, I think.

Ivi

Yes, but the Onward follows us in this port tomorrow.

[Mackdogmolly]

9 hours ago, uktog said:

My experience of any service follow up on the electronic survey on the bus is - zero - even when the whole bus had time to report issues.  Sounds like you are Onwards 'guinea pigs" - not ideal!

Good to know!

[brazilgirl]

Was tired after yesterday’s adventure, so didn’t post. Two days to update.

 

Yesterday, as mentioned by previous posters, was Tenerife. We decided to go own our own and had a car rental lined up with Cicar, which has an office at the port. It was quite easy and we picked up our vehicle at 10:00 promptly.

 

We notice a big scratch and dent on the car ( duly noted and photographed), which made sense during the day.

 

We headed for the valley and village of Masca, which I had read was quite spectacular. It really was. I had also read that the drive was not for the fainthearted, which was an understatement. Hairpin curves, no space for two cars and giant buses made for a memorable trip. We even witnessed a tourist van hit a tiny rental car, scratching the whole side of the car with an audible crunch.

 

My husband has driven on quite challenging roads and traffic in Brazil, so we managed well. But, we saw many people struggle. The valley and village were absolutely stunning and we really enjoyed our visit.

 

We then headed to the cliffs called Los Gigantes. We had lunch there, which was fine, but nothing terribly special.

 

Lastly, we stopped in the Unesco World Heritage town of La Laguna and walked around. It is charming and well preserved and my husband sampled the local beer. We ended up driving 270 km and got back onboard at around 6:00 pm. We followed our long day with an outstanding dinner at Prime C. A very good day.

 

photos follow

[brazilgirl]

Today, we visited the so-called “Pretty Island” of La Palma. It is far greener than Tenerife and the over development of multiple high rises and apartment buildings and resorts is not apparent. It has struggled with the aftermath of the volcanic eruption.

“Since erupting on 19 September, the Cumbre Vieja volcano destroyed more than 3,000 properties and hundreds of acres of farmland on the Canary Island.

More than 7,000 people were forced to leave their homes as lava closed in.”

 

We also chose to do the same tour as Mackdogmolly ( the Panoramic Island tour) and were also disappointed to not get better views of the volcano. We stopped at the little town of El Paso and visited the Silk Museum ( not included in the tour), as well as the black lava beach in the town of Tazacorte. It was not a terribly exciting tour, albeit pretty. One thing that called attention was the vast number of banana plantations.

 

Tonight we will eat at the Japanese buffet in the Windows Café.

 

photos follow - note the Manolo shoes at the Silk Museum as well as the lava flow’s path of destruction ( hard to see )

[uktog]

Lovely photos @brazilgirl

[Grandma Cruising]

We did the same tour and really enjoyed it. We weren’t disappointed about not seeing more of the Caldera as we did a tour to it last time we were here.

We loved the tour - our guide was very knowledgeable and interesting. The format of the tour suited us, basically it was a drive from one side of the island to the other, with 2 stops and one ‘photo opportunity’. At the two stops we had about 50 minutes to look around on our own, have a coffee etc.

As Betsy said the drive was interesting because the two sides of the island are so different. The port side was cloudy and damp with very mixed vegetation, but as soon we went through what they call the ‘weather tunnel’ we came out into brilliant sunshine and vegetation the is primarily the Canary Pine tree, although with lots and lots of banana plantations as we got nearer sea level. Our first stop was at the pretty hill town of El Paso and the second at a little seaside town. The photo opportunity was at a site overlooking the volcano and it’s ash field. We drove through a village where all the houses on our left were fine but many on the right had been destroyed.

You can see the roofs of the buildings in the ash.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Grandma Cruising

[Grandma Cruising]

We were also happy to see that there is a shuttle in Madeira today.

[uktog]

26 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

We were also happy to see that there is a shuttle in Madeira today.

Great thats one place you really need it!

[Mackdogmolly]

Beautiful Funchal! Azamara provided a shuttle today, which dropped us at the Marina Shopping Center, right across the street from the Infante Roundabout, which was the meeting place for our private food and wine tour (just 8 people). We did a lot of walking and eating and drinking, led by a knowledgeable native guide. It was great fun and the weather was perfect.

[uktog]

That looks a lovely tasty day out