Christmas (Well, December) in the canaries...

[LilMissK]

Hi.. Who's been on a cruise round the canaries in December? How was it weather wise? Sea not too rough? 

Thanks! 

[Billish]

Impossible question to answer regarding sea conditions. Should be OK around the Canaries,  but if your cruise includes Madiera, you are more likely to encounter rough seas.

December weather in the Canaries is variable. You should get some warm sunny days, but there is always the chance of cloud and rain.

But, the weather will be better than in the UK ( but not as good as the Caribbean! )

[Martha1974]

I agree with everything that Billish has said. We did Xmas and New Year in 2018/19 on the old MV Marco Polo. 

Bay of Biscay travelling south on Xmas Eve was pretty bad - seasickness meds required

Gibraltar (Boxing Day) - dry and pleasant weather but not very warm

Tenerife / Gran Canaria / Lanzarote between Xmas and New Year - all very good weather. Pleasant for sitting and eating outside on shore / on deck. Got sunburned in Lanzarote

New Years Eve (anchored off Madeira) - to choppy to actually anchor so we sailed the length of Funchal watching the fireworks at midnight in the rain

New Years Day - Madeira. Very wet and windy. Didn't tender (fortunately) but wouldn't have fancied it. I believe the Columbus was there the day before and there had been horrible problems with tenders not running and people missing NYE dinner as they didn't get back to the ship in time

Lisbon a couple of days after New Year was pleasant - sat and ate lunch outside and sat on the top of the HOHO bus

Bay of Biscay north - no problems, much calmer than southbound. 

 

As always with personal experiences YMMV (and regarding Biscay etc she was an old small ship), but I can definitely confirm it was better than the weather in the UK

[John Bull]

We had a week's break in Lanzarote in Feb/March. Weather was pleasant - not guaranteed, but other than the Red Sea it's about the closest decent winter weather that you can expect at that time of year.

 

We've cruised the Canaries a couple of times in Nov & Jan., weather there pretty good.

Seas were fine, even across to Madeira.

But they were both fly-cruises.

 

Heed Martha's words about the Bay of Biscay - and add the English Channel.

Large ships simply roll slowly from side to side whereas little-'uns like Marco Polo tend to plough into waves, and even that time of year it's more often pretty smooth than rough - but its a significant risk and even with smooth seas the going & coming back will be cold - you'll probably have the ship's pools all to yourselves.

We don't cruise out of the UK between late September and April - and  I'd recommend that to play it safe you book a fly-cruise.

 

JB 🙂