FionaMG

Fabulous pics @LooneyCruzer. I love Cinque Terre. 😍

Night night. Sleep tight. 😴

Solarium Bistro?

Feel your pain. 😕

You won't go through US customs until you arrive in the US. Passport control is immigration and since you are already in the Schengen zone that formality will have been taken care of by the ship, who will have passed your details onto the relevant Portuguese and Spanish authorities. That said, the authorities in Barcelona have the right to make additional checks if they wish so do keep your passports to hand when disembarking. When you get to Barcelona Airport, you will have to show your passport several times - when checking in for your flight, possibly when going through security and also immediately prior to boarding - but these are straightforward ID checks, not formal immigration or customs. You go through outbound passport control (the electronic passport gates that I mentioned) in Lisbon because that is where you will be exiting the EU. The passport check at the gate prior to boarding your flight in Lisbon is a secondary check required by the US authorities. For you, as US citizens, it is a minor formality.

Yes, I'm checking them daily. Really hoping to finally cross a Panama Canal cruise off my bucket list in the not-too-distant future. 🤞

There's one Ovation sailing showing now for January 2026 out of Singapore, presumably a test loading ahead of the forthcoming Singapore release and pretty much confirming what we were all expecting, that Ovation will be doing the Singapore sailings.

Thanks for the heads-up! 😊

This looks sublime. When can I come to yours? 😋

I'm glad you had an amazing time in Funchal. ☺️ The crab cake you had for dinner looks yummy, definitely more appetising than Royal's. One of these days I will get to try the real deal! With four hours between flights in Lisbon you actually could make it into the centre, since it's only a couple of stops on the metro. You wouldn't have to go through customs or immigration at that point since you're arriving from Barcelona on an intra-Schengen flight. However, since you're not familiar with the city, you certainly wouldn't be able to do it justice and you'd likely be looking anxiously at your watch the whole time instead of enjoying yourselves. Lisbon airport is really not too bad for a longish layover. Assuming you don't have lounge access, there's plenty of food and shopping to be done. Our favourite place to eat at Lisbon Airport is called Cockpit. As you can see from the picture, they have a small seating area where they do table service. If that's full, you can order at the counter and sit out in the main food court area. Here's the menu. This is the Portuguese one but they do have it in English too. Our favourite dish there is the "prego com presunto e ovo estrelado", which is a rustic bread roll with a beef steak, dry-cured ham and a fried egg inside. It comes with rustic fries. Here you can see my DH getting ready to tuck in. Once you've eaten, there are a very few seats with foot rests at the airport, if you want to put your feet up for a bit and are lucky enough to snag a couple. To get to them, head towards the electronic passport gates but then turn left as you draw level with them. Go between the newsstand on your left and a coffee shop on your right and you'll find the seats scattered around that area. There are toilets there too and that whole area tends to be much quieter than the rest of the departure lounge. Note that there can sometimes be a long line to get through passport control and there is also document screening at the gate prior to boarding your flght back to the US, so give yourselves plenty of time to do that.

Thanks @Northern Aurora, that's very helpful. 😊

What a great review of the sushi and saki lunch Laurie. It's not necessarily something I'd do because a) I'm not a sushi fan, b) I don't drink and c) I agree with you that it sounds more like something that should be done at dinner time. But anyway, to actually see what it entails is really really helpful. And I'm glad you're starting to recover from it now! 😂 At some time this evening you're going to be sailing more or less past my front door. I say more or less because you'll be too far over the horizon for either of us to see each other, but I'll be stalking you on cruise mapper anyway and waving as you go past! 👋😁 I'm right where it says "Loule" on the map. The greenish ship ahead of you is Odyssey. I'll be waving to them imminently! 😂

You lucky peeps are shortly going to be practically sailing past my front door although, sadly, I won't be able to see you, or you me, because you'll be too far over the horizon. Boo. ☹️ I'm just about 10 miles inland from where you see Faro on the map. Give me a long-distance 👋 as you go past! 😁

Yes, indeed. Funchal is one of my favourite places. We're in Portugal. And, in fact, at some point tonight (or maybe tomorrow, not sure of your exact itinerary) you'll essentially be sailing past our front door. Not that we'll be able to see you, or you us, because although we can see a bit of the sea (or the Atlantic Ocean, if we're going to split hairs) from our front balcony, you'll be too far over the horizon to be visible. Anyway, if you look here on the map, we're just about 10 miles inland from where it says "Faro". So you can give a 👋 in our direction as you pass by on your way into the Med. 😁 Those two greenish ships on the map are Odyssey OTS and Oasis OTS, btw, so they will also be passing us by.

Excellent choice. You get the cable car, the baskets (toboggans) and more besides. You are in for a fabulous day. Enjoy!