June 7, 2024
Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain
Borrowed this map image from a fellow ship blogger - she is actually on a different island, Tenerife, but liked visual. Was glad I was assigned to one group that came to Gran Canaries as I have been to Tenerife before.
Today started with me visiting ship in dry dock and getting access to my luggage to swap out some of my warmer clothing for more beach friendly items. The VVR staff were great and was also able to drop off drugs that need refrigeration with the ship's medical staff. They had all our stored luggage in the coral lounge and even our boxes that were shipped via container back in March were in the room, if you needed items from there. Ship looks better and better every time i see it - lots of video and post show daily progress.
I met up with another passenger at the ship, Delia from Oregon, who is in my same group of 8 going to Las Palmas and we shared an uber to Airport and met up with rest of group. Flight left at 3:30pm and we got to Hotel Neptuno by 10pm. They provided us with a lite dinner and now I am settling in for a week hopefully filled with sunshine and relaxation.
I had always heard the Blue Mountains of Australia are like the Grand Canyon , not to be missed. Well, not sure I agree, but they are pretty, especially when you can see through the fog. I did an early morning tour with Terri and Angela and we just burst out laughing at first scenic overlook, after almost 2 hours of driving. White fog is all we saw, our guide offered to show us a picture he had on his camera!
Once we had our dates secured for Sydney , a bunch of residents scanned the offering at the Opera House to find what might be available to us. We lucked out that they had brought back their sellout show from last year of the Gatsby at The Green Light . Kind of a Cirque du Soleil meets sexy nightclub with Gatsby characters. Over 80 of us bought tickets to Gatsy, with another 30 buying tickets to Hansel & Gretal. A big night out for us Ship Folks!
I love a good architectural tour and even though I did this one last time I was here, the story is so interesting, I decided to do again. Plus they are always updates and changes in operations at the Sydney Opera House . This tour didn't disappoint - I saw new theater spaces and gained new insights to the story of it's construction from concept in 1958, to it's opening in 1973. The drama that played out for Danish architect Jorn Utzon , who won the commission out of 300 submissions and never got to seen the final building.He was fired by local politician, in election year, when project was grossly over budget and schedule. The building is an engineering marvel and I love so many of the details!