TravelCD

Welcome to my in depth review, where I will dive deep into my experience on my first ever cruise. Do I want to do another cruise? Was it as good as I thought it would be? What did we actually do on the cruise, where did we go? My honest opinions on everything! Want to find out? Just keep reading!

Social Media

Before I get started, as always if you want to fully enjoy my adventures with me, then follow me on Ticktok, Youtube, Instagram Click on them to follow! If you can’t click on the names, and they don’t work for some reason, here are my usernames are, travel100cd, TravelCD and foodcdtravel100.

First Impression

I remember when I first set my sights on the cruise ship, I was honestly amazed at how giant it was, even my picture does not do it justice. Now I look back on it, I suppose it wasn’t like one of the really massive cruise liners you can get, but it honestly felt like it! I’d always wanted to go on a cruise since I was a little kid, so this was just an amazing experience for me!

There was a table where they checked your bags before you got on and even an X-ray machine that you put your bag through. I suppose it makes sense since you’ll be on the cruise with a number of other people, going to different countries, probably want to make sure someone doesn’t take anything illegal in! 

I honestly hadn’t thought about what the security would be like, so I was very surprised with it all, but it also made me feel kind of special you know? Like we’re a part of a small crowd that gets to go on and off this cruise. No one else aloud, red tape that only we can cross! It felt very satisfying! 

I also loved the reception! It looked very fancy and was decked out for Christmas!

I honestly don’t remember what else we did on our arrival. I do however remember when I first opened the doors to my and my sisters room, honestly this towel was so adorable! Such a lovely welcome! It definitely made me want to take up making animals out of towels as a hobby! I felt so bad unwrapping it and hanging it up!

We were told every day we had to check our temperature on some strange looking machines, due to Covid. I’m not sure how it worked exactly, but it looked like an exercise machine and a scale mixed together, it could somehow tell your temperature? Which did make me pretty worried, since if we got Covid, it would be the end of our journey. Luckily that did not happen.

I believe the corridor was narrower than I was expecting, and it reminded me of when I was a kid, and I went to a specific hotel in Blackpool with my grandad every year. I always remember running excitedly though these long, narrow hotel corridors and hoping I could remember the way.

We were given a booklet with all the different activities running throughout the day, I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t as many activities as I was expecting, but they still looked fun! Pub quizzes in the evening, VR Games, Theatre, Cinema and Dances, scattered throughout the week. 

Overall, I was super excited and ready to dig deep into this new holiday experience! I think if I had to give a rating, my first impression would be eight out of ten. I think I put some of my expectations a little too high, but it still felt amazing!

Lanzarote

I am pretty sure the island we started with was Lanzarote, this was the island we flew too, to start our cruise. It looked like it had a lot of mountains from what I remember, but I didn’t look around that much. I did see some smoke coming from some mountains when I first arrived by train, so I assume there was a fire there, or they were volcanos, not sure which! Once we got on the cruise ship, we had the choice to look around Lanzarote for a couple of hours. 

My sister and my parents had booked a wine tasting session on Lanzarote. I didn’t join in, since I don’t like the taste of wine in general. I didn’t want to go to Lanzarote by myself, so I decided to stay on the ship and have a look around. Not only that, but I joined a small cruise tour, that took us around, to show us where the different restaurants were and the pool, etc.

It was nice, him pointing out everything to us. I think there was only three of us? An elderly couple from the US as well. We talked about how due to covid this cruise was less busy, as well as the fact, this specific cruise had banned children, so that stopped families from booking. I’m not sure why this was an adult only cruise, when usually it wasn’t. I don’t think I ever asked. But it was odd to see stuff for children on the cruise, certain activities were for kids and there even was this small playground and an arcade games room, yet it was empty.

I still feel like a child at heart, so I am not ashamed to admit that I did in fact play on the arcade games, haha! I had to go and ask for the keys a couple of times for the games room, which felt a tad awkward, they’re probably wondering why this twenty-five-year-old, want to go in the games room, clearly for children and teenagers, ha!

Madeira

In Madeira, not only were the mountainous views fantastic! But we took a tour that showed us the Christmas lights as well! Beautiful!

I don’t remember when exactly we visited Madeira during our trip, but it was incredibly memorable! I think out of all the islands, visiting Madeira, was my favourite island. Amazing Christmas lights and fantastic sceneries.

We did this tour around the mountainous areas and it was amazing! I love these type of sceneries, imagine stepping outside your door and seeing the picture up above every day! Just wow! I bet the sun sets are beautiful as well! We went up to the Cabo Girão, one of the highest sea cliffs in the world, it was stunning! 580 metres above!

It was definitely more touristy, but it was so much fun! We went back into town for a Christmas market, but we had unfortunately missed it, and it had closed by the time we got there, but we were still able to experience all these Christmas decorations along the shore. I felt like I was a child again, visiting a colourful, bright film park! And sue me, I really loved this tunnel filled with changing colourful lights, even though only mainly children seemed to be admiring it.

My dad got us some churros which were bigger than expected and much sweeter and sugary than the ones I had when I went to Granada in Spain (In the future) I think that was because they were cinnamon churros while the other ones did not have any cinnamon on them.

I think this was one of my favourite parts of the trip!


La Gomera

La Gomera was the first island that we went too. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I think I’ll say this island was the least memorable out of the islands we visited, but I don’t think we spent too much time there to be honest!

I did find the map interesting, that was painted on the street and there was this strange older building that looked like it was in ruins, but we couldn’t find any more information on it.

Las Palmas

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria didn’t just have amazing views, but, like Madeira, it had something else up its sleeve. We joined a tour around different locations of the island, and it was interesting to get more information on the island, such as, the island got its name from dogs, not birds, like a lot of people believe. They also had some amazing buildings that felt like I was in some sort of history story novel.

There was this hotel that really interested me as well, we walked past it on our tour and it just looked magnificent. I would love to stay there for a couple of days! The hotel was called Santa Catalina, it just looks so fancy and unique. I can just imagine sitting in their garden, next to the bar, restaurant or cafe, whatever it was and reading a book, it looked so peaceful as well.

However, on a more sombre note, we also learned of the history of the first settlers on the island, the Guanches, more than 500 years ago and how they were destroyed by Europeans conquests along with diseases. There was a statue on the island that represented the Gaunches committing suicide, rather than being killed or taken prisoner by Europeans. It is very sad hearing about this type of history, but it made me feel grateful for the era and country I was born into.

A lot of Brits, including myself now and again, complain about the UK, but we definitely have it better than some other countries, that are going to war with each other. So listening to history where that is still going on, definitely makes me feel glad that I am living in the UK, in this current era.

Tenerife

Unfortunately, I only seemed to have taken one picture, I wish I had taken more. Anyway, this picture is from this art gallery we went too, while visiting this island. I tried to practise my Spanish a little as I looked the art description of the art, but since I am still only a beginner, I didn’t understand much! We walked around the shops beforehand, which is how I found the nearby art gallery to have a look at. I’m not knowledgeable about art at all, but I still enjoy looking at art galleries.

I don’t remember the reason, but my sister and my mum stayed on the cruise ship while I dragged my dad away to have a look at the island. He was a bit reluctant to go into the gallery as it’s not that interesting to him, but I convinced him, ha!

We also actually went to McDonald’s and bloody hell! It was so fancy! Are all Spanish McDonald’s like this? Like they had a desserts section, that had macaroons! Surely that isn’t usual? Well it definitely isn’t in the UK, and they had so much more choices than us, it made me so jealous! 🤣

Before you judge me, I have never been to McDonald’s when I have been abroad somewhere, so this was the first time doing it abroad. I think since we had food back on the cruise ship, we didn’t really eat at any of the islands, unfortunately.

I also remember going into this cute gift store, and I am a little ashamed but when I went up to buy a keyring (I collect them when I go to different places) I took one of the free sweets at the counter, like I was a child. 😅 The shop owner seemed to find this amusing though, but I am even more ashamed to admit I never eat it, I just put it in my pocket and just forgot about it! 🤦‍♀️

I found the sweet a couple of weeks later, in that pocket still, and I put it in a small box for sweets I have in my room. About a year later it was still there, so I decided to throw it away, I probably shouldn’t have left it that long!

Cruise

Now for my thoughts on the cruise in general, honestly despite the disappointment in activities to do, I would probably go on a cruise again (I’d just take more books to read ha). They did have this cute tiny library on the cruise, though, so that was fun going through the books in there. There were plenty of board games as well, but I decided I preferred to sit down and read. The small library was almost always empty, I’m sure that when the cruise is busier, that it wouldn’t be that empty though, but yes, barely anyone went into the library, which I found quite nice. They had some comfy chairs that I could just sit in and enjoy the books, in peace and quiet.

While it did feel a little dull after doing it over and over again, the different quizzes they held most nights were fun, but I was usually horrible at it. They did apparently have a casino as well, but it was always closed when I came to have a look at it every now and again. I’ve never been to a casino before so I just wanted to try one out, but nope, not open.

They had a swimming pool on the front deck, which was nice to just sit by the pool and read a book. I ended up finishing the book I brought along with me and spent the rest of my time finding other books to read in their small library. I didn’t go swimming simply because even though it was warm, it never felt warm enough for me to want to go into the pool. Furthermore, I also don’t really like swimming that much, so there’s that as well.

Apart from reading books, I will tell you what I mostly did on the cruise… I eat! I eat so much. I loved the food, because not only was it nice they had these two cafes, that were included in our holiday so they were free, we could eat as much as we wanted, I loved it!

I did not know I was gluten-free then, so I was having pizza, pasta and so many pastries as well. It was delicious but yes I did have a very bad stomach by the end of it ha, but I was used to having stomach aches by then, so it didn’t bother me (Since I often eat gluten and somehow did not realise the issue for a couple more years, oops!)

The first cafe they had was this buffet place where they had a lot of deserts. I do know that we usually had our breakfast in that cafe, but I unfortunately don’t remember it much. I do know I was often going to this cafe and snacking on the small deserts they often had there.

The other included cafe that we went too often, was this place that only did different types of pizzas and pastas. I unfortunately only realised that they did free pizza’s and pastas a little late, so I didn’t get to eat there as much as I wanted. But it was so nice, you could choose the type of pasta as well as sauce and choose the type of pizza you wanted. I think if I remember correctly, it was open all day, so I tried to go there as often as possible when I realised it was free, ha!

Moving on, my sister and I had our Christmas and our birthday on the cruise. I have to say that while I really enjoyed the Christmas dinner, it very was delicious! Everything else was a little… strange that day.

 Our parents were trying to sort out a present for us most of the day, so they kept on disappearing, and so we didn’t really talk much.

Now it turned out that the present they were trying to sort out for us, was a birthday cake, unfortunately it did not come on time. It was meant to come during our Christmas dinner, and so our parents spent the rest of the day, trying to secretly figure out what had happened to our cake. 

While it was a lovely thought, they eventually came clean and told us what they’d tried to do. I at first assumed it hadn’t come, something just got mixed up, and I would have been fine with it, the staff must be really busy after all. However, that is unfortunately not what had happened, because apparently it did arrive, it was just very late.

Now that sounds good, we can still eat the birthday cake, right? But nope, because it had arrived, and my parents had sent it back, because it was late! Honestly I was quite upset, but I tried to smile and just shrug it off, we were on this lovely cruise after all, and I shouldn’t complain, but I suppose this was the first time we’d had a birthday without a birthday cake and I wouldn’t have cared that it was late, I would have happily eaten it anyway! 

I think me and my sister were both a bit surprised that our parents had sent it back. We went to bed that night, wishing for a late birthday cake to eat but considering our luck in going on this cruise and being able to go on this type of holiday I shouldn’t really complain.

Now on to my favourite parts of the holiday, I enjoyed sitting in the quiet library, reading a book and exploring the islands. Las Palmas Gran Canaria and Madeira were my favourite islands and as you all know, I especially enjoyed the food. We went to this sushi restaurant on the cruise which was especially delicious, unfortunately it wasn’t included in our holiday package so we could only go there once, since it was fairly expensive but definitely well worth it!

Overall, I think I would enjoy going on a cruise again, but I would bring more books with me, ha! If you enjoy doing lots of activities and keeping yourself busy, this type of holiday likely wouldn’t be for you, though.

There is definitely something magical, just sitting on a boat, watching the sea, stretching forever in front of you. I hope I will return one day.

What is Next
Fantastic news, my next trip is incredibly soon, I am going to New Zealand! I will be trying to do a travel blog every day, but I have been warned that my internet will be fairly bad, so I might just film, take photos and write in drafts as much as I can and writes about my experiences after the holiday instead of during it, but it depends on how it goes!

If you join my Instagram or TikTok though, I definitely will be posting some things on there since they should be easier to use. So next time I’ll see you, I’ll be in New Zealand, or it’ll be after my holiday, and I’ll be letting you know all about it! See you soon!