Day 49

Day 49 – Barcelona to Lisbon – Tuesday 3/7/12

Weather – Fine and Sunny 25C - 28C

Sunrise – 6.47am

Sunset – 9.44pm

Time difference - minus 8 hours ex Sydney

Throughout the day Sun Princess steered south-westerly and westerly courses through the Alboran Sea. At 5.45am we passed Cabo De Palos traffic separation scheme, and at 10am we passed Cabo De Gato 15 miles to starboard. Between 7pm and 8pm we were treated to a lovely transit of the Strait of Gibraltar, passing very close to 'the Rock'. This strait connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean.

Yay, a Sea day, which means relax day, and boy did we need it after 5 port days straight!! Early riser me slept in till 8am, so we must have been a bit tuckered. Suffice to say we did not do much today, therefore a short update today.

Lots of lounging around reading, napping, and chatting. Another book of Game of Thrones completed, now onto book 4 (which is actually book 5, as book 3 had 2 parts), and am still enthralled with it.

All the tour order forms for the Dover to New York sector were released today. We had already booked most of what we wanted to do online before we left home, but we have put a booking in for a couple of others that we were undecided about.

Passing close to the Rock of Gibraltar was pretty cool. It was much smaller than I expected, don't know why I thought it would be huge, but I did. The daylight hours are getting longer now, which adds to our viewing pleasure as we pass key landmarks by daylight. Today sunset was 9.44pm, but it was still daylight after 10pm!! A clock adjustment tomorrow will set that back a bit though.

This is the last week of the cruise for those getting off in Dover, so we are hearing of plans some folks have for their next few weeks which vary between tours through various parts of Europe, staying in London for the Olympics, or flying home with stopovers in various countries.

There is some talk about Princess being overbooked on the Dover – Sydney legs, and making offers of inducements to some. Dont how true that is, and did not really care, until we were told that there was a rumour going round that we had accepted an inducement to get off in Dover. This rumour apparently originated on the Cruise Critic site roll call page. So for those CC folk who have read or heard this, I can assure you we did not receive an offer, and we are not getting off until this little dinghy gets back to Sydney of August 29 !

There have been a few people we know on board that have already booked for next years World Cruise, as Princess have commenced discounting already. To be discounting so far out must be an indicator that the supply and demand pendulum has swung well in favour of the customer, and that combined with economic conditions make for cheaper prices.

Dinner in the Sterling Steakhouse tonight was sumptuous. It was our first visit to the steakhouse this cruise, and very nice. Donna had a Mignon and I had a Rib eye, so tasty!!!

Until tomorrow.......