Surviving the Iberian Cruise: Day 14/15: May 8/9

The Cruise Line is Holland America, and the ship is the MS Eurodam with 11 decks, holds 2100 passengers, is 935 feet long, and can do around 24 knots.

Our itinerary is: fly from LAX to Barcelona transferring directly to the ship; cruise to several Spanish ports along the Mediterranean (Valencia and Cartagena), sail through the Straights of Gibraltar (with a stop in Gibraltar), around the Iberian Peninsula stopping at several ports in Spain (Cadiz and Vigo) as well as Lisbon, Portugal; traveling through the Bay of Biscayne to Portland, England; across the English Channel to Cherbourg, France; up to Brugge, Belgium, and then through the North Sea to our final destination Copenhagen, Denmark. We'll stay in Copenhagen two nights before flying back home. The cruise itself is 12 days long - total trip 16 days.

Can we handle a 12-day cruise (our longest yet)? Can we survive the flight over in economy class? Will we win the battle against 2000+ passengers for access to the breakfast buffet?..and my first day on board the ship, I discovered that our "Drink Package" which included 15 free drinks per person per day (including alcohol) is not like roll-over minutes - if you only consume 5 drinks one day, you cannot have 25 the next day. *SIGH*....A true test of our survival skills.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Day 14/15: May 8/9 - Copenhagen

We arrived in Copenhagen around noon on Friday, 5 hours late. It required a little over 3 hours waiting before our group assignment was allowed to disembark. We transferred to the Palace Hotel in downtown Copenhagen & finally checked in late in the afternoon, but enough time to walk around a little and had dinner outside on the plaza.

Saturday was dark, cold, rainy, and windy. We took a nice double-decker bus tour around town which allowed us to hop & off. We “hopped off” and had lunch on the famous Nyhavn (New Harbor) canal despite the inclement weather. saw the historical Mermaid statue, the queen’s yacht, many great medieval structures, and the famous Tivoli Gardens (which is more an amusement park - like a smaller version of Knotts Berry Farm than gardens).