Rogueperson's **Live** Scarlet Lady 4/21/2024 Transatlantic

[Rogueperson]

7 hours ago, FionaMG said:

 

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

This is a great endorsement from you.  This is kinda local like Bahamas is for me, right?  I can’t remember if you lived in Portugal or Spain.

[FionaMG]

1 hour ago, Rogueperson said:

This is a great endorsement from you.  This is kinda local like Bahamas is for me, right?  I can’t remember if you lived in Portugal or Spain.

 

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.

 

 

Edited April 30 by FionaMG

[Rogueperson]

Funchal.  What can I say?

 

 

A city on the archipelago of Madeira consisting of 4 islands (Thanks Wikipedia).

 

This place is amazing!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the topping.  I got to slide down 2km of street on a couch made of wicker.

 

 

Not me, but i couldn’t get a picture of me on it.  

 

Here’s a quick video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rogueperson]

This easily is one of my favorite destinations.  If it wasn’t so far away, I’d try to visit more often.  Its beautiful.  Even the rain we had didn’t detract from this place.  We waited an hour or so for the Toboggan (the wicker couch) in it and it didn’t bother me.

 

However, when we got back, the line to get back on the ship was insane.  

 

Dinner tonight was Razzle Dazzle.

 

Here is the drink menu as i normally don’t post these, but @vanman wanted them so I will try to get them from here on out.

 

 

My wife got this.  a pop of attraction.  ITS A DRINK!!!

 

 

Fried Okra & Green Tomato.  It wasn’t bad.

 

 

I discovered this on the “secret” menu.  Crabcake.  @FionaMG .  Still not close to Maryland Crabcakes but this is at least better than Royal Caribbean.  One of these days, when you try a real Maryland crabcake, you’ll see what I mean.

 

Lamb Shanks.

 

 

Pastrami short rib.

 

 

YES I MADE A PIG OF MYSELF.  I REGRET NOTHING!

 

apple cranberry tart 

 

 

rum apple cake

 

 

 Creme Brûlée.  I think they messed this one up.  It tasted smokey and odd.

 

 

 

[Rogueperson]

We are now currently in the Manor.  

 

 

 

They are not bad.  I’m not a big fan of latin music, but wife loves it, so we are here.

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, Rogueperson said:

One of these days, when you try a real Maryland crabcake, you’ll see what I mean.

 

When this Maryland native makes baked stuffed shrimp with lump crab meat for folks who have never experienced true Maryland seafood, they can't believe just how good it is.

 

Glad you are enjoying everything!

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

49 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

Maryland seafood, they can't believe just how good it is.

There is nothing like it! I still dream about those crab cakes. Yummmmm!😍

[Rogueperson]

6 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

When this Maryland native makes baked stuffed shrimp with lump crab meat for folks who have never experienced true Maryland seafood, they can't believe just how good it is.

 

Glad you are enjoying everything!

 

 

[Rogueperson]

18 hours ago, FionaMG said:

 

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.

 

 

 

Heh, we have a layover in Lisbon on Monday but we can’t leave the terminal without going through customs, I don’t think.  We wouldn’t have time to do anything anyways.  Its a significant layover of 4 hours between flights, but not enough time to leave and come back.

[Rogueperson]

Good Morning from.

 

 

Here is today’s glance.

 

 

 

Why am I up so early?

 

Simple.  Because i have not slept.  Running around yesterday and having way too much caffeine.  I couldn’t sleep.

 

So I left the room and started wandering the sleeping ship.

 

I ended up at the arcade a lot this week.

 

 

Been playing this game.

 

 

But primary, THIS one has been my obsession.

 

 

I do not know how this game works as a multiplayer because one is broken.  But as a single player game, this game is unforgiving.  There are two modes.  Quick race and championship mode.  Quick race is simple.  Pick a race.  Race against 40 computer racers and a clock.  Every time you hit a check point you get more time.  If you make it to the end before time expires you beat the race.  But not the computer racers.  Its easy to beat the track.  Its MUCH more difficult to beat the racers.

 

You have to run a near perfect race to do so.  

 

Championship Mode is even tougher.  You race with less laps.  You must place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd to advance to the next race.

 

Here too you must run a near perfect race

to even come close to advancing.

 

Basic track.  You only have to master 1 real turn, but its not that easy.

 

Advanced.  Technically its 3 or 4 turns you have to master.  I JUST did that this morning.

 

Expert.  eh…I’m lucky just finishing.

 

Whats worse.  There is no sound on this game.  The steering is lose and the feedback does’t work and the gear shift is busted so you have to play automatic transmission.  So why the heck am I so obsessed 🤷‍♂️

 

Seriously, why do other cruise ships have arcades that require money.  Its a waste of space because no one except kids will spend money on this.  And even then, if the parents were smart, they’d block this money sink as its worthless.  This makes the whole arcade wasted space on other ships.  On THIS ship.  This is an awesome place.

 

At least i tried to get a sunrise.  Stupid clouds.

 

I’m going to try sleep again.

Edited May 1 by Rogueperson

[FionaMG]

7 hours ago, Rogueperson said:

 

Heh, we have a layover in Lisbon on Monday but we can’t leave the terminal without going through customs, I don’t think.  We wouldn’t have time to do anything anyways.  Its a significant layover of 4 hours between flights, but not enough time to leave and come back.

 

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.

[FionaMG]

10 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

When this Maryland native makes baked stuffed shrimp with lump crab meat for folks who have never experienced true Maryland seafood, they can't believe just how good it is.

 

Glad you are enjoying everything!

 

 

 

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

[Rogueperson]

Good Evening.  Today was a slow day.

 

I went down at 7am and only slept for about 4 hours.  Up again at 11:30.

 

I ended up getting a little lunch and meeting up with a couple for some tabletop gaming.

I saw they had this game.

 

 

i own this game but I need at least 3 people to play so it can’t just be my wife and I.  Also, the more players after 4, the more fun it is.

 

 

 

Pretty much, its a cooperative game.  You and your fellow players investigate a haunted house.  The house gets built as people take turns.  At some point in the game.  Someone, determined by random game mechanics, becomes the traitor and starts working against everyone else.  The win criteria changes for each game.

 

Its a hoot.  I love it.  We managed to play two games where I ended up being the traitor both times (Its random, I can’t plan it).  First game, I buried a person and casted a spell where everyone in the party forgot there was a missing party member.  The goal for them was to find the buried person before he/she died while my goal was to stop them.  Unfortunately for them, I was also the one who found the gun in the house as well as a lucky talisman that allowed me lucky additional rolls,  so yeah, I pretty much blasted everyone and the buried guy died (as well as everyone else)

 

Second game, It turned out that I was a clone and they released a blob that would devour every one.  My goal was to stop them.  However, I fell into the basement with no way out.  So the blob just grew without me, which was my goal anyways.

 

They came within a hairs breadth of winning.  There was a final roll that would determine if the blob grew a second time.  They had a 1 in 3 chance it would do so.  Had they not lost the roll, they would have succeeded in winning.  But that extra growth consumed everyone 🤪

 

Afterwards, I saw this puzzle partially completed.  It sucked me in and I finished it.  I haven’t worked on a puzzle like this since i was a kid.

 

Edited May 1 by Rogueperson

[Rogueperson]

Good Morning from Malaga

 

 

 

Last Night’s dinner was at Gumbae.

 

No pictures as its all repeats, but wow, dinner was fun.  Met two couples that were a total hoot.  Dinner got crazy.

 

I do have one more Gumbae dinner but i doubt it will surpass last night. 

[Rogueperson]

Oh wait, I got the drink menu this time.  This menu was difficult to handle sober.

 

 

 

 

[Rogueperson]

Malaga.

 

Another beautiful port.  Its so different from the Caribbean.  One thing I didn’t expect was how I don’t feel gouged here as a tourist.  I expect that almost everywhere I go.  Neither here nor Funchal.

 

This is what I did today.

 

 

I can’t exactly do a photo dump as I probably took at least 150 pictures here.

 

I will break it down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a sampling of Malaga.

[Rogueperson]

Picasso Museum.

 

This unfortunate was lost on me.  This was the wife’s geek moment as she’s the artist.  I can barely do stick figures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rogueperson]

We had a little time and stopped at this cafe.

 

we didn’t have time to really have a full meal.  

 

menu

 

 

 

 

We got the extra old Machego

 

 

And grilled octopus

 

 

Yummy

[Rogueperson]

Oh forgot a portion of our tour.

 

The tasting.

 

 

I did not know that Spain is the world’s biggest producer of olive oil.  Bigger than Greece and Italy put together.  In fact, they produce so much, they sell it to them for them to claim as their own 😳.  At least thats what i think the tasting host said.  They speak with an accent so i may uave misunderstood.

 

Also I’m adding this photo because its just cool.

 

 

Thats a dude on the block.  This little kid was not amused.

 

 

[Rogueperson]

Debating on whether to return to town as I have about three hours before dinner.

 

I just spent the last hour or so stalking @laurieal on deck seeing if i could see her.  In reality, this is the first time i’ve been in port with another ship where I knew when she was leaving.  Because laurieal posted her cruise compass 😆.  Anyways, I could check out if she had pier runners.

 

On another note as I’ve spent a little significant time on this deck right now, our pool is TINY.

 

 

I didn’t realize there was an even smaller portion that was any reasonable depth.  No belly flop contests on this ship.

 

Here’s the other wading pool.

 

[Rogueperson]

I forgot to post today’s Glance.

 

 

 

I gotta stop eating.  Granted I did not have a *real* lunch.  Lunch was pretty much the olive oil and cheese tasting and the appetizers we wolfed down at the restaurant due to our lack of time.

 

I went up to the Galley looking for a snack.  I got a small thing of Beef Vindaloo as I was curious how it tasted.  Surprisingly, it was only ok.

 

 

As I was walking to a table, I saw one of the staff bring out something interesting.  I asked the lady what it was.  It was Butter Chicken.

 

🤤

 

 

So of course I tried some.

 

It was amazing.  Easily top 3 best butter chicken i’ve had.  Maybe not the best, but damn close.

 

As I was walking away, I saw this.

 

 

ITS A DONUT!!!  I Haven’t seen a donut on this cruise until now.  The lady tells me its always here and they change every night.  Wait a minute.  Night?  Yeah its only available at dinner.  WHO EATS DONUTS AT DINNER?!?!

 

As I kept going out, for those if you who are following this because they’ve never been on Virgin, this cruise line has quick to-go boxes.  You could get sushi or salad in a box…. or 

 

 

A CHARCUTERIE BOARD!!!  You can grab one casually on this ship!

 

On a separate note from food.  My wife has been going on and on about the hand washing machine in the pizza place.  She says its amazing.  I’m skeptical because it doesn’t make sense.

 

 

NOW IT DOES!!!

 

So this bad boy dispenses soapy water for you to wash your hand.  Knows when you’re done and dispenses regular water.  And then when you’re done, it offers you a paper towel.

 

 

 

[CineGraphic]

10 minutes ago, Rogueperson said:

My wife has been going on and on about the hand washing machine in the pizza place.  She says its amazing

 

I love this hand washing station too. I took this video last year

https://youtube.com/shorts/CAZNZ9SpGso?feature=share

 

[Rogueperson]

On 5/1/2024 at 2:02 PM, FionaMG said:

 

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.

 

Passport control.  Is that customs?  Do I go through US customs in Barcelona, do you know?

[FionaMG]

6 minutes ago, Rogueperson said:

 

Passport control.  Is that customs?  Do I go through US customs in Barcelona, do you know?

 

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.

[Rogueperson]

On 4/28/2024 at 8:25 PM, jon81uk said:

As it’s a standing show if you are a little late it’s fine, but test kitchen should be possible in 90 minutes.

 

We did it!!!