Day 8, 2025 Dec. 24; Arrecife de Lanzarote, Spain.

Christmas is coming.

The more south we go, the less swell there is, and apart from an occasional bump, the ship sailed quietly through the night. Ending up at Arrecife harbor by 07.30 in the morning. With us again the ms Ventura and we were joined later by the Mariella Explorer, sailing for TUI. The Ventura was at what they would call here the cruise ship pier as it is the closest pier to town. Tui is sometimes doing change over’s here but uses the end of the sea wall, where they have a large marque for handling guests and luggage. We were at the same pier but slighlty further in.

Today the marquee which acts as a cruise terminal  was in use for screening the returning guests of both the Mariella and the Victoria.  The harbour is a considerable distance from the town of Arrecife and hence there was a shuttle service available to reduce the 30 minute walk to an 10 minute bus ride.  The Ventura guests did not have a shuttle as they only had a 15 minute walk from their ship directly into town.  The shuttle ran very frequently (waiting time limited to loading time) and dropped everybody off at “The Marina”. From here it was another 8 minute walk to the boulevard where the first restaurants, bars and small hotels were located. From there, walking alone the waterfront, it was another 5 minutes to the main shopping street. “The Marina” turned out to be made up of bars and restaurants, (and a Burger King)  and a few souniver shops. There was a small Arts & Crafts market outside so those for whom it was too far to walk into town, could still do some shopping thearapy.

The shuttlebus transfer is charged at $ 10,– a person, but is included for Queens and Passenger Grill guests and those on full fares. They scan your cruise card when boarding the coach and, if applicable, the $ 10,– gets charged to your account. It works the same way for the crew, who travel free of course,  and the “Traffic Controllers”, who control the guest flow to the coaches, shove a few crew onto each coach. That is something I can always appreciate as crew cannot always wait until “all the guests are gone” as they simply do not have the time. Not that many crew went ashore, the distance & time is simply too much if you only have a few hours off. Those who went, ended up in a super market again (same chain as yesterday) to stack up with whatever a crew member needs.

The ground cut open for further development. No sand, no flowers no greenery, apart from some mosses. Barren as far as the eye can see,

Drving into town, is basically driving over an asfalt road  with on either side lava as Lanzarote is a volcanic island that only recently (million years ago or so) became extinct. Long time ago I did a tour around the island which was facinating and beautiful as long as “stark” is what you like. What I remember mostly is how hot it was, so when in later years I could see more lava and rocks in Iceland with a much more gentle temperature, it shifted my focus point somewhat. But today (cold for local standards as all the old locals had thick coats or vests on) it was a perfect day to take the tour. But we went into town.

In case you wonder what Santa drives in Spain ? It is not a sleigh, it is a VW bus.

At the entrance to the town was a christmas fancy-fair, similar to the one we saw yesterday in Las Palmas. I wonder if that is a sort of Christmas tradition they have one in each port during the festive season on the Islands. Fully focussed on the younger clientele of course, but a Ferris Wheel and Bumper cars also get adults excited. It was still closed but it might have opened up around 17.00 hrs. as that happened at Las Palmas last night. The little pubs & terraces were by 11.00 hrs. already full with eager clientele and it was interesting to see that the menu’s were in Spanish, then German and only occasionally in English or French.

The main shopping street, at a quiet moment. This was lunch time so all the tourists had moved on to the pubs and restaurants.

The main street was a very nice and clean shopping street, full with christmas decorations so it seemed that here, they kept restaurants and pubs outside of the main street environment. I do not know how it works retail wise but for the flow of traffic (several 1000 cruise guests marching in and out) it worked very well.

The main view when coming off the shuttlebus. All that is white are small hotels with restaurants and bars under it. German is more widely spoken here than English.

We were back by 13.00 hrs. and decided on lunch in the Lido Restaurant as they had Spaghetti Bolognaise on the menu, cooked A-la-minute and that is something even a Queens Grill Chef cannot beat.  Disappointing was that the soft ice machine was for 50% out of order and the other one was in ” cleaning mode”  and thus lunch did not have a perfect ending. Hopefully they have a technician who will understand the “grave emergency” of getting this repaired ASAP, otherwise I will get withdrawal symptoms.

The Queen Victoria Officers Choir on the Atrium staircase. One of the cast members was conductiong and also leading the rehearsals of the Guest Choir on the ship. I did not recognize many of the officers but the gentleman in black on the top left of the photo is our Maitre d’Hotel of the Queens Grill.

The ship is gearing up for Christmas and that started today, more christmassy tables started to show up with candy houses, we now also have one opposite the Grills Bar, and the officers and crew are walking around with santa claus hats.

Latest edition to the christmas displays. The square thing in the right hand corner is a traditional Christmas Cake. which is a very dense cake, so you only get/take a small sliver and then eat it with very thick cream. 

Tonight at 17.00 and 19.00 hrs. there was the christmas choir performance of the officers of the Victoria but at 17.00 hrs, it was solely made up of Hotel Officers as Deck and Engine were still on full standby as we also sailed at 17.00 hrs.  At 18.15 hrs. there was storytime, read out by the Captain.

The rest of the evening had the same program as normal with the exemption of: at 23.30 there was the Christmas Eve service for protestants in the Queens Lounge with a Reverend and at the same time  the Roman Catholic service in the Royal Court Theatre with a priest in attendance. For the Jewish, the Channukah candles were lit at the entrance of each restaurant and the Pursers desk (last candle, last night) but I do  not know if we have a Rabbi on board this cruise as well.

When I was Captain in the past I always encouraged it, when all three were on board, with the request if they could not do something together especially for the crew. One year, the 3 of them  organised  a-get-together with the crew and announced themselves on the posters as : “The Holy Trinity” . Inviting all  Officers and Crew for a service without boundaries in the Crew Mess”.  That was such a success that it was repeated a day later upstairs on request of the guests , when they found out about it from the crew.  It did not always work as sometimes some of them were too rigid in their convictions but when it did it was always a great success. Even groups of the muslim community showed up.  I think the first year it worked was, when the protestant representative was  a Vicar of the British Seamans mission, “The Flying Angels” and they are known not to take things too seriously, most of them being ex sailors themselves.

The main show was focussed on Christmas as well, with a Cast performance called “Deck the Halls” with christmas songs made popular by various artists.  In the Queens Lounge the regular dancing was going on (every night by orchestra or recorded music for squence dancing) but tonight the two singers and orchestra had everybody ball room dancing to christmas tunes.

Back in the cabin. we found a Christmas card from the company, two Christmas “crackers” with chocolates and two baubles to hang on the christmas tree at home.

From Lesley and I:

Merry Christmas to all my readers and we hope that all your christmasses will be as bright as the star of bethlehem.

As you can see below, Santa Claus would prefer to be somewhere else at Christmas.

For Santa Claus himself though not all his own wishes are coming true……………………………………