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Pictures
Picture 1: Restaurant Submarino. This is part of the L'OCeanograpfic (separate building) which includes a restaurant on the lower level which provides views of an aquarium.
Picture 2 from the Dolphin Show.
Picture 3 of the old town area.
Picture 4 from last evening of our headwaiter Peter.
Picture 5 from last evenings Captains Welcome Reception of Jennifer and Gui dancing.
This last segment of the World Cruise has fewer passengers than the other segments. At the Captain’s Welcome Reception last evening, Captain Glenn noted that there are 598 passengers on boards with a crew of 645. While we think this is a perfect time of the year to visit the Mediterranean, sometimes passengers want to wait until either later in May or for the summer to arrive before traveling here. We remember that during last years World Cruise when we essentially had two segments in the Mediterranean that at least for one of the segments that the ship was not very full.
When the Captain introduced his senior officers last evening he noted the importance of team work and in terms of team noted that on the Crystal ship that team stands for “Together Everyone Achieves More”. For us, when Keith worked fulltime he used to say that the results of a team was far greater than the results that were achieved when the same people worked as individuals.
Today we arrived to Valencia, Spain. This was a maiden port of call for Crystal Cruises and also our first time visiting this city. Valencia is Spain’s third largest city. It is located in a major farming region as the land is very fertile Valencia also benefits from very nice weather and is well known for its outdoor living and for its nightlife. Sports enthusiasts enjoy the outdoors for golf, tennis, cycling and diving.
The Romans founded Valencia in 138 BC. Eventually it was conquered by the Moors, taken over by El Cid and overtime retaken by the Moors.
We awoke early this morning and began our day with our daily workout as we normally do. Keith was the first to arrive to the Fitness Center and worked out on the Elliptical Machine. Anne Marie slept in this morning since we had an early shore excursion. John and Mary worked out as well and Keith spoke with Mary for a portion of his workout.
We had an early breakfast in our room and then we got ready for our shore excursion.
During Captain Glenn’s morning announcement from the bridge he noted that the weather forecast called for a beautiful day in Velencia. The Captain’s thought for the day was “Sometimes silence is golden when you can’t think about a good answer.”
In the morning, all four of us took the complimentary shore excursion offered to all passengers. Crystal offered this excursion at two different times today. This excursion was called Panoramic Valencia & L’Oceanographic Aquarium. We traveled from the pier to the downtown city center where we viewed many of the buildings in this historic section of town.
Afterwards, we drove to the City of Arts and Sciences This facility contains an opera house and performing arts center, a science museum, an IMAX cinema/planetarium, several restaurants and an oceanographic park.
We then visited the L’Oceanografic. The aquarium is the largest in Europe and is actually the third largest in the entire world. The aquarium is divided into two major sections. One section is comprised of fish and invertebrates and the second section is comprised of marine mammals.
The L’Oceanografic contains more than 45,000 examples of 500 different marine species. It has extensive underwater areas featuring sharks, beluga whales, walruses, sea lions, penguins and manta rays.
We saw a dolphin show and we walked several areas of the aquarium where we saw many species of fish, penguins, turtles, beluga whale and other sea creatures.
The areas of the city that we saw were amazing. We were very impressed with both the old town area and the new areas of the center. The newer areas had a feel of other areas we visited during the World Cruise such as Sydney with the opera house in this city having a look similar to that of Sydney.
This is a city that we highly recommend visiting. Our only regret is that we didn’t have more time in this wonderful city and we would encourage Crystal to not only return here but to consider an overnight in this city.
Since many of the tours were scheduled to arrive back at the ship in the afternoon, the dining hours were extended in the Main Dining Room. We pre-ordered nice salad entrees to the dining room so that when we got back to the ship for lunch that they were ready for us. We enjoyed a very nice lunch.
This evening the four of us dined in the Prego Italian Specialty Restaurant with the Rabbi and his lovely wife. We enjoyed a lovely meal and a wonderful conversation and had a great time.
Keith & Anne Marie
