Eurodam TA Nov 2016

Santa Barbara Castle

View From Santa Barbara

View From Santa Barbara

View From Santa Barbara

Playa Del Postiguet

Looking toward Playa Del Postiguet as a Finnish couple taking a swim leaves the water.

Leaving Alicante

We usually stay away from cruise ship buffets. We think they are hotbeds for disease. We were pleasantly surprised by the Lido Buffet on the Eurodam. It was extremely clean, and there were generally sufficient waitstaff. Someone was always cleaning something.

One night we had steak there and it was done the way we liked and delicious. Dinners were busy but not jam packed and there was a good variety of food.

We ate there several times, including when leaving Alicante.

I think there was some illness on the ship, although not Noro. It seemed to be more of an RSV type of thing. This is brutal for Mr. S so we tried to take precautions, but we were a little appalled at people who would walk through the buffet area coughing, sneezing, and then touching things. We do not use the purell as we wash our hands thoroughly with warm water and soap, and do this often. We have never gotten sick on a cruise. But geez louise people, do you have to be so gross?

In any event, buffet good, to our surprise and delight.

We love room service breakfast. We especially love room service breakfast when we have a port day. it serves both to get us going and allow us to not feel as rushed.

So we ordered room service on several occasions during our cruise. Although we were in a suite, we got the breakfast card with selections on it. Room service breakfast was a little disappointing. It generally arrived timely, and all the things we asked for were included, but the eggs were never done right. We ended up just getting oatmeal and juice for our last several RS breakfasts.

So we tried the Pinnacle. As others have suggested, it was a little loose for breakfast. it is interesting, because it was the same servers as lunch and dinner, which were generally pulled off a lot more successfully.

As another cruiser mentioned, coffee was hard to come by. Eggs were delivered overcooked and/or cold on more than one occasion. It seemed like the servers were trying really hard but something-somewhere-was preventing them from pulling off a good breakfast service.

Oh well.

On to Malaga.

I am enjoying re-taking the cruise through your detailed postings about the ports, and your great photos. I trust you are also back at work...ah well, me too, yet would rather be back on another HAL ship!

Regards to you and Mr. S.

ON Cruiser

Thank you ON Cruiser. For those new to this account, I recommend scrolling back to the top to get a look at Mr S's photos. He is an artist, and his artist's eye shows in his very nice photos.

Malaga's pier was a brief shuttle ride into the harborside of town, and the shuttle ended up just a block away from a HOHO stop. There were also vendors selling roasted chestnuts, and you could hire a horse drawn carriage here as well.

There were some shops along in this area, including what looked like a segway rental place. Given Mr. S's tender ankle, we regretfully passed the segway rental by.

Malaga was lovely, although I admit we were fairly lazy and did not listen to much of the narration. It was another beautiful day-we really had delightful weather on this cruise-and we just enjoyed tooling around the town.

Many of our fellow cruisers had elected to go to Granada and tour the Alhambra. We had done this before, and thought it very worth doing, but the long bus ride (2 hours each way I think) dissuaded us from repeating it.

Back on the ship a little early for dinner, we decided to try the Dive Bar by the Lido Pool. It has a limited menu of hamburgers, hot dogs, a chicken sandwich and a portobello mushroom sandwich. We thought the burgers were great, and I liked the cheese fries. It was a little difficult to get a drink but we finally flagged down a waiter. We were still in port at this point so maybe they were not fully staffed then.

We also noted that it was not always easy to get a clean table in the pool area.

Off to a circuit of the ship on the Promenade deck, then more Neptune Lounge and Thermal Suites.

Taken from a 'Blues Cruise' tradition, we hang a flag on out balcony to identify where our room is from the port. If you look up from the middle of the middle lifeboat you may notice a small red flag hanging from the rail. That was our suite 7051.

Flavors of Malaga is roughly what the blue sign says, forgive my spanish.

We were disappointed The farris wheel by the port wasn't operating.

There were 3 Holland America ships in port, Eurodam, Oosterdam and the Prinsendam.

Beautiful blue waters of Malaga

View of Malaga

Castillo de Gibralfaro

Christmas decorations

View from the Lido, maybe, of Malaga and the Oosterdam

Malaga at sunset

The Prinsendam sails away

As we sail away the Oosterdam is not far behind

Adios to Malaga

Enjoying your review Sonora5 and your photos ZN1300.