August 2

Vigo.


Looks like the weather is getting better and better.

I had not read much about Vigo as not a lot of North American Ships go there, so I booked a DCL excursion “Boarder Country” which went to a fortified city of Valenca .



Vigo is defiantly a port you can do on your own, the ship docks right in the middle of the city.

Meeting time was a little later today, and we have some official tour helpers today.

The bus ride was about 40 minutes through the Galician hills and vineyards, and the landscape reminded me of the Okanagan in the spring. The local tour guide this time was much better and very knowledgeable about the area and gave us some great information on the battles for the land in this area, during the 16 and 1700’s .



Valenca is actually in Portugal, just across the Mino  river from Spain.  The bridge was designed by Gustav Eiffel

It was impressive and my pictures do not do it justice.

We got spent about an hour being shown around and then we had an hour of free time.

On the way back we stopped at a couple of more view stops, one was a quick picture break and the other one was about 30 minutes at another old palace.

We got back to the ship about 2 and the girls had lunch up on the pool deck and of course went swimming and a bit of sunbathing while watching Sleeping Beauty. (pool is much busier during the day)

We then headed down to deck 4. The gangplank in Vigo was from deck 3 with a steep staircase and we were hoping to see the crane remove it, so we were just hanging out reading.

It was not quiet as normal on deck 4 as there was quite a crowd of kids on the dock chanting for Mickey. Well about 10 minutes before departure Mickey shows up

 it is pretty much him and the girls and he just fooled around with the girls, more people show up, but Mickey stays and just waves to all the kids on the dock.

 Pluto then shows and Lauren who has pretty much outgrown the characters gave in to the Disney Magic and had so much fun just fooling around with them.

Wish I was on the dock as it was hard to get pictures of the girls and Mickey as they were always facing towards shore.

The Magician was the show tonight so we skipped that and you guessed it headed to the pool.

Aug 1

Today was a sea day, with an early Character breakfast, but we slept in, 4 th cruise for the girls and we have never made it to the Character breakfast. The weather is warming up, and the seas are pretty calm. I have heard that it can get pretty rough sailing through the Bay of Biscay but we have a lovely day.





There was lots going on, first up was the Princess Gathering, so lots of pictures, Lauren skipped that and went to the kids lab.

After lunch we went and Saw Toy Story 3, what a great movie.



We went swimming after but it was pretty busy so it was a short swim, but time to visit with Max.

Next up was Tea with Alice, Lauren did not want to go so she went back to the Lab, of course Sydney enjoyed the Tea, the Mad Hatter was pretty funny.

Another rushed dinner as the girls wanted to get a swim in before the show, which became the normal after dinner routine. It was great swimming after dinner as the pools were pretty much empty.

We made it to the Theater and got to watch Twice Charmed. It was as great as usual and the girls enjoyed seeing it again.



With sunset so late we were able to catch it after the show.

July 31

Saturday July 31.




Cherbourg France



We woke up this morning to an early morning room service call. We had to meet at 8:15 in the Promenade Lounge for the tour to Tatihou Island.



It was hard to get the girls up and moving but room service arrived and we did make it on time.



There was a bus ride of about 40 minutes through some wonderful small French Villages, with lovely churches, graveyards and lots of lovely flowers. It was pretty early still so the villages were pretty quite but lots of people setting up the outdoor cafes beside the bakeries, and women walking with their baquettes.



It was a gray cool day but no rain. We arrived at a small port where we got onto an amphibian boat, being low tide we would be driving out around the oyster fields, at first it looked like they were for seaweed, but the tour guide said that they were for cultivating oysters.

 It was a short ride to the island and then we had a short walk through the gardens. There was a maritime museum that we were supposed to visit but we just walked past. The gardens were lovely, lots of interesting plants and some old shipbuilding remains.

There was an Adventure by Disney Guide with us also on the tour and they did try to make it more child friendly with a bird search when we got to the bird sanctuary but I felt bad for the guide as the only birds around were sea gulls. People were getting bored at this point so people started wandering off to the Vauban Tower. This was neat, a real drawbridge

and we were able to walk up the 4 or 5 stories and explore the tower.

Lots of steep spiral staircases.

View from the top

The view from the hill beside the tower

After this was a bit of a waste. Looking back I am assuming this was the free time that was listed on the tour description but the tour guide did not say anything and people just stood around waiting for something to happen. . We finally decided to head back and we got to check out the gardens and Lauren found a lovely coin of the Tower.

We met back at 11:30 to board the boat back to the port. The tide had come in so it was a boat ride to the bus.



The girls enjoyed the tower but the local tour guide was really hard to understand and he admitted that he did not normally go to this area, so I don’t think he knew that much about the tower, as looking at the tour description we missed a lot.



We got back to the ship about 1:00 and had lunch. I was hoping the girls would go to the clubs so I could head back into the town of Cherbourg and look around but the sun had come out and the girls wanted to go swimming.

The afternoon was spent on the pool deck, dinner was a rush as there was face painting in the clubs and the girls chill party was going on in the club.

A run in with a princess (look we match)