Norwegian Gem 12/10/2022: Cartagena, Spain

I woke up tired and determined to eat my breakfast from the Garden Cafe in La Cucina before the excursion but still ran out of time. Today my excursion meeting time was 9AM and I managed to get to the theater by 9:03. Once again, they were running late and my excursion was not called until almost 10AM. Today, I did the walking tour of Cartagena. I had done this tour during a cruise on the Epic a year before so I knew i would enjoy the views. The tour guide was Jose Maria. He was very knowledgeable and walked slowly and always used the ramps. I did not feel this was a difficult walking tour even though it was rated a 3. There is really no reason you couldn’t do this walk on your own and sometime I will write it up. 

The views were stunning and it was a nice day for a walk. Jose didn’t seem to notice that he was going into a lot of detail for some folks in the group that had short attention spans. Unfortunately, this is how it is some times. Fortunately he didn’t wait for them when they disappeared from the group as the time went on. 

Back on the ship at 2PM and another mad dash to the buffet for lunch. I really prefer going to a dining room instead of the buffet. I just feel like I eat too much when I rush.

I took a nap and then went to the buffet for dinner. I needed to eat a rushed dinner because they scheduled the Latitudes Party at 6:30PM. This is a chance to meet the officers and get free drinks if you don’t have the drinks package. Note that free drinks means soda or alcohol both of which are not free on the ship except at certain events. After chatting with friends and solos at this party, I went to the show in the Stardust theater.

This show was a singer who sang some songs his way and also did impressions of other singers like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, etc. The show was entertaining but I would skip it next time.

I went to customer service to follow up with Jessie and tell him I was very happy with my new room. He thanked me for the follow up and said he would give me dinner for two at Moderno or Tappenaki. I will get fat on this cruise.

I went to bed early as I wanted to sleep late. The ship.is in Malaga until 10 pm to allow people time to see Alhambra.