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.


Friday, May 15, 2015

Day 3: April 27 - Valencia, Spain

View of Valencia Harbor 













Our first port of call was Valencia Spain...home of the America's Cup racing, oranges, the LLadro porcelain factory, and street markets crowded with tourists.   We hit a bus tour early for a trip to the Lladro (YAH-DROW) Porcelain factory - beautiful (and expensive) porcelain figurines.  They allowed us behind the scenes to see their artists making the molds, cleaning & gluing the pieces together, painting, and painstakingly making those little flowers and adding other details to the artwork.  Very impressive.

The bus tour continued through the ancient city of Valencia - dropping us off downtown for a brief walking tour...which was a mad house among many other tour buses and tourists.  Nevertheless, we survived (without any gelato I might add, having no euros just yet).


Important tip #1:  convert dollars to euros early in the trip so you can buy ice cream at your first opportunity.





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