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.......
Great to be kept updated. Enjoy the relax days. Take care, X Emsy &Wayne
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