Live on Splendor - London to Barcelona

[RachelG]

2 hours ago, kjbacon said:

@RachelG really enjoying your commentary, thank you! What are the changes you saw on the Sette Mari menu?

They change up some of the pasta dishes, mains, and soups every few days.  So some things are always there but some come and go.  Last night, they had a beef tenderloin which had not been available last week.  And it was delicious.  Some of the pasta dishes were different as well.  The appetizers served at the table and the breads are always the same.  The buffet portion has slight changes night to night.

[2012_Alaska_bound]

12 minutes ago, RachelG said:

They change up some of the pasta dishes, mains, and soups every few days.

 

In the past the Sette Mari menu changes every two days. The menus rotate of two weeks, I think.  I haven't been on since last summer, though, so this might have changed. Will comment next month.

[RachelG]

October 2, 2023-Lisbon, Portugal 

 

After another night of very smooth sailing, I was awakened at 6:15 by our doorbell.  I ignored it at first, but it rang again, so I got up.  It was a waiter with a tray of food.  Now George NEVER orders room service for breakfast.  I told the waiter, he looked at his ticket which said our room number, so someone apparently wrote the wrong room number and would be missing a breakfast.

 

At any rate, I stayed up as the alarm was set for 6:30 anyway.  As the sun rose, it was pretty foggy.  We were just sailing under the bridge into Lisbon.

 

We have been to Lisbon many times.  Unfortunately today being Monday, our favorite restaurant is closed.  The excursion for the morning was to Quevas palace, Cascais and Sintra. 

 

The cruise ship port is totally changed since we were last here.  Back then you just walked down the gangway.  Today there is a large port building with shopping, etc.

 

We had to walk a long way to go through this to the buses.  Our guide was really good.  She spoke excellent English and talked just the right amount.

 

We went first to the Quevas palace which is sort of a mini Versailles, modeled on it.  It is very nice though it was crowded.  The rooms are interesting and well preserved, and the gardens and fountains are great.  One of the rooms was like a mini hall of mirrors. 

 

Next we went to Sintra which is a hilly town with steep steps and mazes everywhere.  Unfortunately we only had 30 minutes, which is way to short to really see much.  It was so crowded, sort of like Santorini on a 8 ship in port day.  We just walked around a little, but no time to eat lunch or really shop.  It would be a nice place without the crowds, but not today.

 

Next was Cascais which is a flatter seaside town, more high end.  We didn’t see anything here as George saw a Mac Donald’s and had to eat something.  Very disappointing.

 

Back to the ship, we hiked up into the city to a restaurant which was traditional Portuguese.  The entire check for lunch, a bottle of wine which was good and big bottle of water was 22 euros!  

 

We wandered back to the ship in time for trivia and again came in 3rd.  We seem to be stuck on that number.

 

I went out to walk and get the few remaining steps needed for the day. It was very pleasant, not hot, with a light breeze.

 

Tonight’s dinner was in Chartreuse.  We started with the beet salad which was different than we have had before, same ingredients, just a different presentation as the beets were in chunks rather than thinly sliced.  Next up was the famous mushroom soup.  Then I had chicken, which I had never ordered before, but it was really good.  George’s steak was awful though, so much so that he sent it back.  It was dry and tough, definitely over cooked as was the foie gras on top.  Terrible really.  They brought him some of the same chicken that I had to replace it.  

 

The show was a flamenco dancer and violinist.   They were good, particularly the violinist.  Flamenco dancing isn’t something I normally would just sit and watch, but her costumes were great.

 

[RachelG]

Queluz palace—just noticed my autocorrect changed the name in the previous post

[RachelG]

Beautiful chandeliers 

[RachelG]

Interior furnishings 

[Techno123]

@RachelG what a waste of your time taking you to Sintra for 30 minutes. We were there for the best part of a day and still didn't see everything!

[RachelG]

Fountains and statues 

[RachelG]

2 minutes ago, Techno123 said:

@RachelG what a waste of your time taking you to Sintra for 30 minutes. We were there for the best part of a day and still didn't see everything!

Totally agree!

[RachelG]

Sintra

[RachelG]

Finally, lunch

[forgap]

We had the ultimate bad excursion today and it was an excursion we paid for.  The description sounded wonderful. Wine tasting in Colores and then lunch and free time in Sintra.  It was an early departure as the ship was scheduled to sail at 2.  We settled into a small bus and off we went through Lisbon traffic with a running unintelligible monologue provided by our guide.  No sooner did we hit the freeway when the bus started to overheat.  We pulled over in a wedge between the highway and an on ramp.  After about ten minutes, our driver started up again hoping that the overheating was an aberration.  No such luck.  We managed to get to the side of the freeway, on a bridge in the exit lane.  There we sat for an hour while another bus fought Lisbon traffic to get to us.  Our guide assured us that we would still make all the sights but in an extremely abbreviated fashion.  

Our view:

The new bus arrived and we shimmied against the guard rail and climbed onto the new big bus.  Thirty minutes to Colores and a taste of really bad wine.  

Thirty minutes to Sintra, 45 minutes for a very rushed but nice lunch at Cafe de Paris, no free time to shop, then back to the bus to rebord Splendor at 1:30.  

[RachelG]

Sorry to hear about your excursion, forgap.  Are they going to refund the money for it?  They should.

[RachelG]

October 3, 2023–Lisbon, Portugal

 

The forecast was again for hot and sunny.  Our excursion was to Obidos which is a medieval city. 

 

The description warned that it is very steep and hilly with lots of walking.  The same description as yesterday’s tour, but that didn’t deter several who were clearly unfit to do any significant walking, then spent all the time on the bus complaining about it.  My friend on another tour said the same thing happened with hers.  This seems to be an ongoing theme.   The descriptions are very clear, but people either don’t read them or chose to ignore them.  Ok, rant over.  

 

I will say there was a couple on the tour today with mobility issues, and they just told the guide not to worry about them, that they would just do their own thing because they knew they were slow and didn’t want to hold up the group. And they didn’t complain either.  Kudos to them.

 

We drove what was supposed to be an hour, but ended up being an hour and a half due to heavy traffic in Lisbon.  After we were out of the city, we drove through eucalyptus forest then past vineyards and fruit groves to Obidos which is a village with the original castle and walls in good repair.  

 

It is possible to climb up to the top of the walls and hike around them which is of course what George wanted to do, particularly since our guide said not to do this as it was too dangerous.  So we split off from the group and set off.

 

It was definitely steep and rough in places, very narrow with no barriers, not for anyone with balance issues or a fear of heights.  But the views were great, and George was happy.  Then after we had completed the circumnavigation, we went into the village for a little shopping and bought olive oil, ginja, and ginja cherries.  All in all a successful morning.

 

Back to the ship, we ate lunch in La Veranda as sailaway was at 2 pm, so not enough time to eat on shore.   It was an Indian theme and pretty good.  

 

Sailaway was very scenic, passing by the big statue of Christ and under the bridge over the Tagus River.  The captain announced it would be very windy later this evening and tonight.

 

Trivia was a bust.  George went for a massage again, as the spa manager was trying to make up for his poor one.    And they did great.  Best massage ever according to George.

 

Dinner in CR was excellent as well.  The perch which I ordered was delicious as well as the soups and salads.  George thought his soup could have been hotter, but it tasted good.

 

The show was Divos and Divas and was a completely reworked show from the previous versions I have seen.  It was really great.

[sailfar]

Thank you for your significant participation on this board.  Your pictures and story line is fantastic!

We are returning to Regent from Oceania and appreciate all the advice we can get and your pictures and information has been great!

 

We need your help.  We are booked on Splendor for 30 days in Jan/Feb and ironically, are booked in your friend's cabin 846  with the noise incident at 3:30 AM.

 

I know this is not what you are expecting as a response, but how did the incident end? Should we find a new cabin?

[RachelG]

5 hours ago, sailfar said:

Thank you for your significant participation on this board.  Your pictures and story line is fantastic!

We are returning to Regent from Oceania and appreciate all the advice we can get and your pictures and information has been great!

 

We need your help.  We are booked on Splendor for 30 days in Jan/Feb and ironically, are booked in your friend's cabin 846  with the noise incident at 3:30 AM.

 

I know this is not what you are expecting as a response, but how did the incident end? Should we find a new cabin?

She reports that the noise is significantly less, but still there.  They are able to sleep better, but I guess eventually sheer exhaustion would take over in that regard.  I would personally try to change cabins if I could.

[forgap]

Lazy day in Gibraltar.  We slept in and puttered about until we docked at 12:30.  

 

We decided to cancel our tours in favor of a walk about.  The last time we were here was about 10 years ago and there seems to have been a construction boom in that time span.  We walked from the port to the main pedestrian street, past box after box of high rise housing.  We took a cab back to the port and our driver had some choice words to say about developers making a fast buck (or pound in this case).  He was not a fan of this utilitarian architecture.  

 

 

The Main Street is sort of how I remembered, totally pedestrian with assorted shops and eateries.  

 

This has been a port intensive cruise which has us making sea days from port days!    

[RachelG]

Obidos pics

[RachelG]

Lisbon sailout

[RachelG]

October 4, 2023–Gibraltar, Gibraltar 

 

We had a rather rocky, bumpy sail through the night as warned by the captain, nothing that required lashing oneself to the bed, but enough that it woke me up a few times. We also lost an hour as we are going to move east again.  Looking out the windows in the morning, it was pretty overcast, and there were whitecaps on the water.  It also was much cooler, with the high only expected to be 73.

 

We had a morning at sea, playing cards and going to morning trivia, but soon we could see the big rock ahead.  We sailed into a busy port with all sorts of ships and boats around us, both huge and small. 

 

We had a quick lunch outside then were off on our excursion to the upper rock.  We loaded into a small van with a great guide.  He was entertaining and full of information.  We went up to the cable car station and boarded the car that would take us up the mountain to the top of the rock.  He warned us to be very careful around the monkeys—no touching them, no food, etc.

 

Once we got to the top, it was a little cold and very windy with a dark cloud overhead.  Very common here apparently due to the confluence of air currents.  We had great views and photo ops all around then took off to see the monkeys.  They were all around. We witnessed a lady getting her purse stolen by one.  Another tried to attack a small girl who had an ice cream cone.  The child’s dad drove off the monkey, but why did the girl have an ice cream cone in the first place? The babies were very cute, but you really hate to be alert as they were pretty aggressive at times.

 

We then went into a big cave which had been hollowed out and used as a hospital in WWII.  It was very impressive.  There is a huge city inside the rock.

 

After that, we went into the siege tunnels built in the 1700’s, again very impressive.  Then back to town where we walked all around.  We got plenty of steps.

 

Dinner in Compass Rose was good, reliably so.  I like a lot of stuff on the always available menu and had escargot, which is a once per cruise treat, tomato soup then monkfish and pea risotto.  George had lobster and scallops.

 

The entertainment was an illusionist.  I couldn’t really follow what he was doing and left half way through.

[RachelG]

Gibraltar pics

[RachelG]

Monkeys!

[RachelG]

Downtown Gibraltar 

[kjbacon]

Love those monkeys!!

[RachelG]

October 5, 2023–Motril, Spain

 

We slept well with totally smooth seas.  It was still pitch dark when the alarm awoke me at 6:30, and I would have been happy to sleep another hour, but our excursion was set for 8:15 am.  Two departures, and of course, ours was the early one.  Forecast for the day said it was to be sunny with a high of 77, which was perfect.

 

We set off as the sun was rising.  We were in a medium sized industrial port with a pier built out for cruise ships, and we were the only ship there.  Our excursion for the day was to visit Nazari Gardens and a winery.

 

We set off though a town of low white and beige stucco buildings and were soon out in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada of Spain.  George and I along with our sons had done a 10 day hiking trip in this region about 20 years ago, and it really had not changed much.  Semi-Arid mountains with villages with very narrow streets and vineyards in the valleys and on the lower terraced slopes.

 

We arrived at a small village where the Nazari Gardens are located.  These are Moorish Gardens, sort of like Alhambra but much smaller.  There is a lot of potential there but they needed some attention.  The best part was a really cool cave.

 

We drove to a beautiful very modern winery.  This place was way nicer and better than any of the vineyards we visited in France, and the wine was miles better.  We bought some to carry home.

 

Back to the ship, we took the shuttle into town where we had a long lunch with local cheeses and produce.  It was so good—very fresh and well prepared.  We walked around a bit.  It was siesta time, so the shops were closed, but there was a very nice park in the middle of town.

 

We again did not do well at trivia.  Too many questions where we just didn’t even have a good guess.

 

We were in the Meridian Lounge when the announcement came that the crew no longer have to wear masks.  There were cheers all around.

 

Another delicious dinner in Pacific Rim.  I ate probably the hugest shrimp in the world.  Then I went to the flamenco/violinist show which was better than the first and actually quite enjoyable.