Sea Day; Casablanca, Morocco; Seville, Spain

Monday, January 8th, was a day at sea. Along with eating and snacking all day, we played some trivia games. This photo was deceiving. It was pretty chilly sitting on the back deck of the ship. 

Our daily hors d'oeuvres plate arrived. 

Dinner in the dining room found the four of us true to form with Patricia and Glen ordering steak and Steven and me ordering turkey.

Evening entertainment was another show put on by the ship's production cast.

Tuesday, January 9th, we were in Casablanca, Morocco. Steven had arranged for us to have our own private tour guide for the day.

The sun didn't come up until around 8:30 a.m., so we were able to be at our first destination in time to watch the sun rise. 

The Hassan II Mosque is the largest functioning mosque in Africa and is the 14th largest in the world. Its minaret is the second tallest in the world. The minaret is 60 stories high topped by a laser, the light from which is directed towards Meca. 

The mosque stands on a promontory looking out to the Atlantic Ocean. 

The walls are of hand-crafted marble and the roof is retractable. 

The inside of the mosque hall can accommodate 25,000 worshippers, with another 80,000 on the mosque's outside grounds.

On the lower level is the wash room where worshippers cleanse themselves before they enter the main part of the mosque and pray.

We always love it when someone offers to take a photo of all four of us. Glen amplified his posing performance by getting into his girlie pose. It was the running joke for the rest of the vacation.

Even more disturbing than Glen's bent-knee pose was the fact that the photographer snapped the photo when a man was walking by. It looks like there are five of us in our group. Seriously!! It wasn't that crowded. A moment's wait would have yielded a much more appealing photo.

This one is a little better of the four of us.

Our guide had us take a stroll along the beachfront property which is privately owned by the rich people.

We saw the Notre Dame de Lourdes Roman Catholic Church in Casablanca with its impressive stained glass windows.

Our tour guide took us to various markets where the merchants were trying their best to get us to buy their wares. 

We just could not convince the merchant on the left that we were totally uninterested in buying the traditional ceremonial clothing culturally worn by the people in that area. 

We were interested to see our guide's own ceremonial clothing which he was proud to show us a picture of.

Patricia bought some pastries at the pastry shop.

This market shop was quite odiferous with the merchants having all their fish and seafood on display as they sat up on platforms ready to reach whatever a buyer was wanting to purchase.

An interesting shop to walk through was the one selling olives. Olives of every color. Big tubs of them. That's a lot of olives on display.

A beautiful building was the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Morocco. It looked a little bit like our temples.

The grounds were so beautiful with the palm trees lining the water feature.

We were trying to pose as mirror images of each other.

Next stop for us was Mohammed V Square, named in honor of the former king. 

The square is known popularly as Pigeons Square due to the heavy presence of pigeons (that is an understatement!!). 

As we were getting our picture taken, someone threw out some feed right in front of us so we would get a good photo of all the pigeons. And then the person yelled and jumped at the pigeons so they flew up all crazy around us.

Joke's on us for standing in a flock of pigeons.

It was always good to get back to the ship after a day excursion. The evening entertainer that night was Tian Jiang, a piano virtuoso. He was absolutely amazing how his fingers flew over the keyboard, not making one mistake.

Wednesday, January 10th, we docked in Cadiz, Spain and took a 90-minute bus ride to Seville. This turned out to be our favorite place of all the cruise destinations.

We loved the architecture of the buildings and the feel of the city.

We had to get a good bent-knee, girlie pose in front of the fountain.

Steven and Patricia wanted to go inside the Seville Cathedral which is one of the largest in the world.

We opted out of paying to go inside as we wanted to continue enjoying being outside on the streets of Seville. 

We loved the streets lined with orange trees. 

We loved looking at the many horse-drawn carriages lined up ready to take a willing tourist on a ride.

We met back up with Steven and Patricia at the town square. 

We went on a tour of the Real Alcazar de Sevilla at Plaza Del Trunfo, which is a royal palace. The upper stories of the Alcazar are still occupied by the royal family when they visit Seville.

We walked through the palace which featured many paintings and gigantic tapestries on the walls. We went into the inner courtyard and also admired the surrounding grounds--complete with orange trees.

Our last stop for our day in Seville was the Plaza de Espana a very impressive building housing offices for government agencies. 

Once we got back to the ship, there was our hors d'oeuvres plate waiting for us in our cabin.

We got all dressed up in our finery once again to make a second attempt at getting a good photo of all of us. We did a great job with our matching color scheme without even having planned it.

We made our usual stop at the ice cream stand for ice cream cones for these two.

The evening entertainment was Andrei Cavassi and Tian Jiang both doing encore performances on the cello and the piano.

Fuerteventura, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

Friday, January 5th, land ahoy!! We were in port at Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. It was a beautiful day with much warmer weather than we had experienced in Barcelona. 

We took a walk from the ship to a mall. Steven was trying to find some medication. 

We walked back along the water to the beach area close by the ship.

Steven and Patricia decided to get their swim suits on and get a little sun on the beach for a few hours that day. We just walked around and enjoyed the nice weather before getting back on the ship.

We ate a late lunch and then opened up our balcony facing the beach and listened to the reggae music playing from the beach. It was so relaxing.

We were entertained that evening by Philippa Healey, a singer entertainer. As always, we had to go to the buffet afterward so those who wanted ice cream could get it.

Saturday, January 6th, we were in Tenerife, Canary Islands. 

We took a 90-minute bus ride to Mount Teide which is a volcano. We stopped several places along the way to take in the view.

We were taken to a spot where we could get out and walk around looking at some of the formations caused by the lava flows.

We got back to the ship in time to have a late lunch. This is when the daily hors d'oeuvres plate started showing up in our room. We felt bad about wasting that food every day and wished it would stop, but it never did. 

Evening entertainment was comedian Chris Bliss. 

Sunday, January 7th, we were in the port of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands. 

We were able to sleep in a bit before getting off the ship and taking a taxi to church. 

We had a special experience there at the end of the meeting. The men taking care of the sacrament went up to the sacrament table before the closing hymn and prayer. Then the congregation sat quietly as the men took down the sacrament and put everything away. After that we were excused to leave. 

It really helped put an emphasis on the reverence for, and the importance of, the sacrament. 

I changed into walking shoes, Glen took off his suit coat, and off we went walking back to our ship along the waterfront. It was such a beautiful Sabbath Day walk. 

We got back to the ship in time for a late lunch, complete with a sorbet dessert for me.

Our evening entertainment was Andrei Cavassi playing the cello. He was so talented!!

Patricia was getting sick that day with a sore throat and was hoping she would be feeling better the next day. She ended up not feeling too well for a couple of days and then was fine after that.