Casablanca, Morocco

SUNSHINE and a rainbow of containers greeted us as we stepped out onto the promenade deck in Casablanca, Morocco. To avoid the inevitable and our not returning to the ship due to a camel replacement, we ventured out with the parents for the day in order that a male would be in tow (it was also really lovely to actually spend a day with them on holiday, obviously)!

After wending our way through the docks (why are they SO HUGE in Morocco?), narrowly avoiding cyclists, motorbikes, cars, lorries and trains (!?) as we crossed the roads, we arrived in the city and headed for the minaret towering over all other buildings. Says Dad ‘it looks quite close actually’... famous last words? It turned out to be one of those buildings that as we got closer, it got further away, and moved around yet another corner (yet it had initially appeared to be in a straight line from where we were heading, of course). Eyes up so we didn’t lose sight of it, goodness knows what we passed on our mission; I sort of imagine us looking like a Lesley Nielson leaving a trail of destruction behind us in our desperation to reach our goal. Nevertheless, we finally managed to get there, and it was quite a magnificent sight to behold – surrounded by the sea at most angles and possibly one of the largest, most imposing buildings I’ve ever seen standing alone in the same manner.

Once we had managed to walk most of the way around it and taken endless photos with various geological hammers, we headed along the way were presumably meant to come when we approached the mosque (we had instead chosen to slope through the back entrance past numerous barriers and guards; trust us) alongside beautiful walled gardens and fountains.

Our next goal was the medina, so again we ventured through areas that could only really be described as ‘off the beaten track’ where stray kittens, cats and children ran amok and chickens were sold very, fresh, shall we say? Shouts of ‘Bonjour! Holá! Morning! Welcome to Morocco!’ (they were determined to find some way to communicate!) echoed through narrow passages as we scurried along, our heads turning avidly about in an attempt to look carefully enough to take it in, but not so carefully that we looked like we wanted to buy anything.

Morocco is quite exhausting, so there were lots of bench stops, often spent dodging bouncing balls kicked by small boys who sparked debates about the Moroccan education system. Of course each bench stop was brought to an abrupt finish as a seller or two would make their advances and we would all spring into action right on cue to move on to the next stop.

After the medina, we took to aimless wandering down whichever street took our fancy. Through our aimless wandering we discovered pigeons en mass (just like Trafalgar Square, only a lot smaller but somehow with just as many pigeons), men in ‘traditional’ dress, a park or two, a couple of squares, a cathedral and a highly exciting post office (I really can’t decide why or how said post office ended up being the subject of a photo on all of our cameras?)...

The walk back to somewhere always feels that much shorter once you know where you’re going and before we knew it, the ship was upon us and waiting for our tired selves to collapse onto our favourite window seat where I promptly fell asleep for a good hour – why is it that holidays wear you out so much?!

When I awoke, it was time for dinner (how convenient):

Starter – chicken fritters

Main – roast turkey

Dessert – pistachio parfait

only THREE courses – you’d think I’d have been starving after the exhaustion that is Morocco, but clearly not!

We sailed away a little later than we had from the previous ports, so after dinner we were just in the nick of time to head out on deck to watch us cast off. The scene that we were met with was all very exciting and dramatic. Man in suit marching around looking very important while other men in fluorescent jackets ran up and down the port-side looking panicked. We managed to decipher that we must be running late, and all came up with varying back-stories as to why or because of whom this may be. The most popular story was one of the important looking man’s wife and/or mother who had been hustled into a dark and potentially dangerous corner of the medina on a seemingly innocent shopping excursion. The reality of the situation transpired to be something none of us had quite expected, as suddenly from the distance there emerged an entire coach load of passengers! Heads hung in shame as we all waved majestically from above them, tongue in cheek.

Captain Panaphapolopolis (or whatever his name was) was off at break neck speed, presumably to make up time, so we went to find somewhere we might feel a little less buoyancy and found ourselves in a show lounge and immersed in yet another quiz. This one did not prove quite so lucrative, but thankfully we enlisted the help of a friendly, single gentleman who turned out to be rather a quiz master (just unfortunately not marriage potential)!

As we sat playing cards after our honourable defeat, we suddenly realised that we were finally in for a proper sunset, so made our way onto the ‘sun’ deck, which by this point of the evening was incredibly windy, where we blew about trying to get some nice photos (apparently not the easiest mission in my heels on a deck covered in sea-spray)!

An early night followed; perfection prior to our late arrival into Cadiz the next morning. What a day!

Cruise time!

Last week was spent sailing between Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Gibraltar. It was beautiful and I definitely have the holiday blues! I wrote a little (ok, probably a lot) about each day, and part of me was tempted to live-blog each entry, but the traditionalist in me got the better of me and my phone remained safely on Flight Mode for the entire holiday so instead I am faced with the mission of writing up the whole week now I’m home. I thought I’d introduce each day slowly as opposed to going in with the whole holiday, so here goes (as written at the time)...

Cruise time! For the first time yesterday, we had a morning fight, so a ‘full day’ in Malaga, where the ship sailed from. By the end of our 13 hour journey, I think we all agreed that we’d be much happier to sail from England, even if it did take 3 days meaning that we had to go away for 2 weeks (shame)!

Mother and father arrived at my little flat early evening, and after many cups of tea, suitcase weighing, unpacking and re-weighing, we drove through Central London (what an experience) to collect Lorna and her ‘ginormous’ suitcase from the train station. Said ‘ginormous’ suitcase had clearly not travelled with the likes of our baggage before... Once home again, we began our night of waiting to head off for our flight. The flight wasn’t until half 6 in the morning, but in true Brockway style we had to be there in plenty of time, and in order to be there in plenty of time, we had to leave mine at half 2 in the morning. Time was killed with animated discussion about what we might get up to, drinking yet more endless cups of tea (or hot water) and eating hot cross buns; I even managed to give the kitchen and bathroom a pretty efficient clean!

A pretty hairy journey (she says, realistically I probably spent most of the car journey zombified in the back – I certainly couldn’t remember it at all well) or at least lots of U-Turns out of London, waiting around at the airport for who knows what, the most uncomfortable flight, inefficiency as far as the eye could see on the Spanish border, hustled onto a coach, queuing, queuing, and more queuing (spelling that three times was rather a struggle) and we were finally on the ship in time for afternoon tea (hence why my earlier ‘full day’ was in inverted commas. We had been hoping for a lunchtime arrival...)!

The initial plan as we expected to have plenty of time had been to venture into the old part of Malaga nearest to the port. However, as we were all beyond exhausted, and presented with amenities such as can be found on a cruise ship, it was kind of (/extremely) hard to tear ourselves away! As soon as we had located our cabins for bag depositing and freshening, we headed straight to the buffet! Cruise food is just. Oh gosh.

Once faces were stuffed (as if there wouldn’t then be food available all day, every day) we took a turn around the ship in an attempt to get our bearings. We oohed and aahed at the many lounges, bars, restaurants, decks and the casino (blasting out the cheesy 90’s hard house, as you do), discovered hidden places that we would later struggle to return to, and inadvertently (we weren’t just trying to get thrown overboard, honestly) came close to passing through several doors with restricted access. Ships are big (and by comparison, Thomson are small), so we retreated back to our cabins to unpack suitcases before we lost every drop of energy we had left.

Lured out again by the prospect of ‘cocktail of the day’, we placed an order and promptly fell asleep on loungers on the sun deck for an hour.

The thought of our first evening meal stimulated a sudden surge of energy, however, and we headed off to beautify and glam up in order for impressive food consumption! My menu looked a little like this:

Starter – cheese ravioli

Soup – Duck consommé

Main – pan-seared tuna (with veg and potatoes of some variety)

Dessert – Chocolate Charlotte (what an experience!)

Unfortunately there was very little time to sit back and revel too much in the pleasures caused by Chocolate Charlotte, as it was time for the passenger safety drill! In previous years, all guests have been lined up along the deck, where the more effeminate members of the entertainment team can always be found ensuring Dad’s life jacket straps are well and truly done up as tightly as they can be. This year, we were all herded into the show lounge, where someone who was probably supposed to know what he was doing made a half-hearted attempt at calling all of three names from his register before giving up. Well I HOPE WE WERE ALL PRESENT AND CORRECT, SIR. I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do in the event of submersion.

For some strange reason (not really, just because we were on holiday I imagine), instead of going to bed as we probably should have done having passed the 36-hours without proper sleep mark, we powered through, and found ourselves listening to a trio aptly named ‘The Rhythm of Three’. ‘They sound like they might be quite jazzy’, I heard myself say. Morbid fascination (or perhaps delirium caused by over-tiredness at this point) found us remaining in the Royal Fireworks show lounge for their entire set, and before we knew it we were participating in a quiz!? Despite none of us being quiz-types, we made an admirable effort and were some of the last to put our answer sheet down!

The quiz finished just in time for us to head out on deck to watch us sail away and join in with ‘sail away party’ celebrations (deep joy). I did dare to dance to Steps – 5, 6, 7, 8, but otherwise the ‘party’ consisted of guests standing around while the entertainment team tried and failed to engage us all in continuous mad dancing to awful covers of cheesy pop songs. After making what we felt was an acceptable length of appearance, we finally sidled off to have a party of our own on the sun deck in the wind and sea spray (nothing quite like it!) before realising how tired we were, so retrieving tea and wending our way down into the bowels of the ship (almost, at least) to BED... 42 hours later.