Day 07, 2025 Dec. 23; Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

Aerial view of the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The cruise docks are to the left at the inner part. (Photo courtesy: unknown drone photographer on the internet)

And thus we sailed through the night a bit further to the south to the largest island in the group and that is called Gran Canaria. The whole name of the town, Las Palmas de Grand Canaria,  is really a mouth full, but as there are so many ” Las Palmas” towns and villages out there a bit of specification is necessary. Most people think (when hearing the name) about the  town on the island of Ibiza and that they do not like very much over here.  This Las Palmas has a very big port, as apart from serving the island it is also a transit hub between Africa, Europe and the Americas and a home port for a large offshore fleet and fishing fleet.  The off-shore  fleet is involved in cable laying, windmills, oil operation and a lot of scientific research for future exploration of the seabottom with all its minerals.  It was an important navy port in both the world wars and during the cold war as well. Hence there is still a considerable (Spanish) navy presence.

Cunard has been going here for a long time. It even sent the Queen Mary  during her twilight days of North Atlantic service when even unsuitable ships (air conditioning….) were sent cruising.

For the cruise ship guests it is a good port as the town is very close to where the cruise ships dock. Yesterday a shuttle service was available (not free) from the gangway of the Queen Victoria as it was a good 30 minute walk to get to the first shop in town. Today, it is just a quick walk out of the ship and dock and you are there. Hence it is very popular as a day -stop but also as an embarkation port and the big terminal can handle two large cruise ships on one day for a change over. I have seen photos with 6 big ships in port and all their guests are let over the pavement through the one terminal gate into the town and back. Return security is provided in the terminal building so you are not bothered with it when stepping back on board and as we saw today it all ran very smoothly.

Most of our morning was taken up with a visit to the Guest Laundry. The Queen Victoria has one on each deck, with on average 3 washers, 3 dryers and an ironing board. All free of charge. Modern front loading machines with digital menu’s, which on occasion create challenges for the older Americans cruising who are still used to “open the top & turn the dial” machines. I love laundrettes on board as it is a great service to the guests when a quick wash is needed. Big stuff can be sent to the ships laundry; but be careful with lace & ruffles as most ships laundries seem to have a challenge understanding that standard pressing is not a solution to spruce up that sort of fabric. What is very nice is the soap now comes is in small sheets (looks like a slice of cheese in thickness) so no more messing around with soap cups or pushing a soap dispenser “at the right moment”.

Machines on the Queen Victoria.

On Holland America the self service laundries were not installed on the Vista Class and later ships, much to the annoyance of the guests. But there is a nice anecdote about that. With all the HAL ships in Alaska in the summer time, each ship had about 150 to 300 guests joining in Juneau or Skagway who were coming down from the overland tour in Alaska; some of them having been on the road for over 25 days. They all wanted to do their laundry of course but whatever the ship tried, there is no way you can handle 300 guests who all want to spend most of the day in the laundry, getting through 3 or 4 suitcases of clothing.

The guests of course did not understand why they could not get access to a machine “while the others keep beating them to it” and thus it rained complaints and the Comment On Board Form (COB) rating for the self service laundries was very low. It also dragged down the overall cruise experience rating.  (One 1 on the rating takes ten 10’s to get it back to a 9 average)   In the end the CEO, President and later also Chairman, Mr. Kirk Lanterman decreed “NO MORE LAUNDRIES” on the ships. We on board tried to change his mind with the suggestion “why not take the laundries out of the COB paper” but that was not a good idea. Since then no more laundrettes on the HAL ships. I think the Prinsendam was the last ship who still had them until 2019. Cunard still has them and also on the new -Pinnacle Class- Queen Anne, there are 2 of them of quite a reasonable size.

So while the ship was exercising the emergency procedures, we went through the intrecacies of 21st century digital  washing machine menu’s. Of course there are no instructions on the walls and hence it is all a bit experimenting but we have something complicated like this at home, so it all worked.

Life boat drill impression by a famous Dutch cartoonist Jan Sanders. In the 1980’s he made a whole series of these sailors cartoons for a Dutch paint company “Holland International” who specialized in ships paint. Originals now sell for 500 – 1000 euro’s.

The ship had the “full Monty” today with the weekly emergency drill;, full crew participation and all 3 stages of the drill. Starting with a fire in the technical library outside the Engine Control Room. This is a very small space and thus very easy to extinguish a fire but it requires to re-locate the Enging Control Room – Control to the bridge,. Nowadays with networked computers is not so difficult but it can still give a chief engineer palpitations when having to do it.

Extracting a crew member from a ballast tank. All ships have one of these tripods on board together with a small winch. When safely possible a volunteer is used, which most often is ………………….. the cadet. As he/she “has to learn ti al”.  (stock photo from the internet)

The Captain decided to make it even more exciting by simulating that somebody was stuck in a Ballast Water Tank no. 6 (that is down on D deck/tanktop) and that meant that the crewmembers who are part of the “Confined Space Rescue Team” had to go through the motions of getting somebody out. (Not so easy as  the entrance man-hole to the tank is not that wide) The medical department is part of this team and had then the pleasure to be called not too much later to Deck 9, that is 12 decks up from the entrance to Ballast tank 6. The rest of the crew (there are 985 of them on board) was by then assembling at the muster stations.

Here they got an additional treat  as 150 of them (143 + 7 crew) had to exercise filling up the lifeboat to the legal capacity. There is a routine for this and the commanders need to train this, so everybody gets queezed in at one of the 140 spots.  But it has to be done in about 20 minutes. As we still have the required maximum time of lowering down to the water of 30 minutes. With 140 crew this works, with 140 guests, not necessarily. Especially if they are the size of 3 crewmembers. But that is why the ship has soo many liferafts on board. The law prescribes that 140  occupants should fit with a lifejacket but they do not have to exceed the weight of 75 kg. (For the newest ships out there, this has been raised to 85.2 kg, and for some offshore installation – with very burly roust-a-bouts – to 95 kg.) The crew normally enjoys doing this as it so different for the normal routine. But it is also often the first time that the Ladies among the crew realize that there are no toilets on board a lifeboat.

The shopping center seen from drone height. The brown ramp is route into the shopping mall and from there to town.

Then it was time to walk ashore and to have a look  at downtown Las Palmas. The local authorities had, had the clever idea of building a large shopping center just outside the cruise terminal and to get into town , the shortest way is to go through it. So 7000+  guests marched ashore that way and then marched back the same way. The shopping center was not completly full with shops yet and I do not know where they still in the opening process or if it was  matter of recession. But the crew was in heaven as it had a big supermarket inside. And indeed most of the shoppers were crew, returning to the ships with bags full of washing powder, shampoo crips/chips and other essentials to survive below decks.

I was somewhat disappointed in down town. When I came here in the 1980’s the main street was full of little resturants and cafes spilling into the street and having a great atmosphere to deep in the night. Now many of those localities had been taken over by discount shops and places that sold trinkets. I think that with the Canaries now being so popular with package holidays, the emphasis of going out has moved to where the large hotels are along the beach, and not necessiarily in down town any more. ………….. Another Youth Dream shattered………………..

Back on board it was time for cocktails, this time without music, in the Commodore Club as they could not get the entertainer of the evening hooked up to the sound system. 4 experts searched, tried and scratched their heads,  for 45 minutes and still nothing. When we left we saw a very gloomy looking performer standing behind the piano (not what he was supposed to play a piano) and the bum of an electrician sticking out of the amplifier box.  The show tonight was Duo Lyodi, which was a telling of a chinese fable  by poetry , acrobatics etc. but without words.

Her Ladyship was more interested in reviewing Cunards price list as she has set her eyes on a larger cabin  but for a 7 day cruise next year.  I am still busy with getting this cabin uptodate. We had the saga with the DVD player that could not be connected( the new one now is),  but the remote control does not work with this set, we had a broken plinth repaired, a toilet seat fastened, an also glass curtains rehung and rehooked.

Now I am creating a  checklist of what we should have in the cabin. A lot gets listed on the website under amenities but when you then come on board, it seems that the Cunard policy is “on request”, but if you do not have that list in your mind, how do you know ?

We now know that fresh fruit is “on request”,  fresh flowers / plant is “on request”, The TV program is “on request”, the binoculars are “on request”, the “pillow concierge menu” is “on request” but nothing is listed anywhere in the cabin. You have to remember it from the website. Then there are no instructions of how to operate the DVD player or the coffee machine. (we got the instruction for the coffee machine but also “on request”. And all that “on request” is very irritating because all those things should be there when you step on board as you have paid for it. Now you have to ask/ “beg” for all these items and the concierge or the butler has to run for it. Also they do not offer it to you either, when you come on board during the initial meet and greet in the cabin;  no…………………. the guest has to take the iniative.

It does not stops us from enjoying this cruise but as Queens Grill Guests this should not happen at all.  Most company’s have a “perfect cabin set-up” which comes with a checklist of what should be in the cabin. A Housekeeping supervisor can then quickly check if it is all there. But maybe this checklist is also “on request” for the supervisor  from the boss.

Tomorrow we are in Arrecife de Lanzarote, our last stop before our 3 days at sea to return to Southampton. At the moment the weather looks good. Windy but with low swells so we might have a comfortable christmas  at sea.

Weather: Partly Cloudy with temperatures going up to the tropical temperature of 19oC / 660F. and very little wind.

Below the swell in the North Altantic as of today.

Weather. As  you can see the red line goes mainly through and a light yellow colors and that means that the swell does not go higher then 3 meters. That the ship can handle to ensure a smooth ride.