MALAGA (SECOND VISIT)
Last Night:
We had a drink with Jane in the Mariner Lounge before our dinner in Prime 7 with Jason Montague, the President of Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Jane had dinner with Caron, the social hostess, and a few other singles on this cruise. Our dinner with Jason was at 7:30 and there were two other couples at the table. One couple we had cruised and dined with on a previous cruise. They are from North Carolina and very delightful. The other couple was from Europe. Also lovely people. It was an evening full of conversation and great food, of course. I asked Jason if the 2021 world cruise would be going around Africa. We did that in 2010 and want to do it again. The 2019 and 2020 world cruises are going through the Suez Canal so I figured the 2021 WC would be going around Africa. Unfortunately, he said no, it also would be going through the Suez because the ship (Mariner) would have to end the world cruise in Europe as it would be due another "face lift". Apparently, this happens every three years. So I told him that I guess we would have to do our world cruise on a Viking Ocean ship. He did not laugh! We excused ourselves before dessert was to be served as we wanted to see the show in theater. It had just started. Jason said he did not mind us going. After the show was over we got a photo taken with him. He left the Mariner today and is flying down to Cape Town, South Africa, to join the Navigator doing the world cruise this year. It was a great honor to be invited to dine and spend some of his valuable time with him.
The show featured Lovena B Fox, a very talented headliner singer. We loved her voice and show. Looking forward to her second show in a few days.
Today:
Remember we stopped here on April 2nd on our way over to Barcelona on the Explorer. We had a very smooth night of sailing and arrived here as the sun was rising. Alarm went off at 7:45 for Rebecca's 8:00 room service. I just showered and got ready for my tour which was scheduled to depart at 8:40. I went down to the Coffee Connection for a coffee and donut prior to that and met Jane there. Jane and I went on tour again as Rebecca stayed to go to gym again. The morning started out cloudy with some sprinkles but improved as the day went on. Last time I did a walking tour of old part of town and a Flamenco show as you recall from that blog. This tour, "Malaga City", was a bus tour through city to visit the Bullring, Gibralfaro Castle/Fortress, a walking tour in city, and finally a tasting of Malaga wine. Once again my photo captions will tell you more about what we saw. Fortunately, again we had a really knowledgeable guide, Colola. She was very thorough. I now know more about bull fighting and what goes on.
We returned to the ship about 1:30pm and went up for some late lunch in La Veranda. Ever since I have been working on this blog post. I should have it finished by 4:45. A suite steward came in a while ago and got cushions in from the balcony. He said the Captain is expecting some bad weather tonight. YUK!
We sail at 5:00 and will have a sea day tomorrow enroute back to Funchal. Tonight at 6:00 is the Captain's Welcome Reception in the theater. Cocktails and she will introduce the senior officers. Not sure we will attend. But the three us of are invited to dine in Compass Rose with our Cruise Director, Lorraine Weimerskirch. We have sailed with her a couple times previously. Dinner will be at 7:00.
The show tonight at 9:30 is another headliner entertainer, Joe Enock. It says he is a magician and mentalist. Jane dined with him and others at the singles table last night. Will try to go see him but not on front row as we did last night. May want to make an early exit if we don't care for him.
So another great day in Malaga. Love Spain! Here is the link to today's photos. Cut and paste the link to another browser to open. Click on the first photo to enlarge it and then you will see my captions on the right side. Arrow through rest of the photos. There are several!!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/c3LxZSAwIzt1JR562
