Cruise Day 5 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

We finally woke up to nice weather! Although the Canary Islands do not get tropical hot, they usually stay around the same 20-24C range all year and with our luck, we figured we'd get the 20C side.

I knew nothing about Las Palmas. I had seen videos from The Unofficial Travel Guides about Fuerteventura, but that one looked like it might be drier than the other islands (it's the lower one on the right).

 If you had to draw an island created by a volcano, this would be what most people drew!

We had no plans for the day. I had found out there were two beaches. A calm one kind of in the port area, and another one that others said would be a 15 min walk, through downtown to the other side. 

As we ate breakfast in The Galley, we could see Hop On, Hop Off buses lined up. I quickly looked it up and it seemed reasonable. 

We headed on to land and saw some people handing out pamphlets who said you could buy the HOHO bus tickets at the tourist centre right there. So we joined the line. It was quite sunny and warm. Before we got to the building (it was tiny inside, maybe enough for 1 or two in the line), we heard they were out of tickets. But they said they could still sell tickets. We were so confused. They didn't really explain but since they obviously knew we were there for just the day and they were still selling, we bought and headed towards the line of buses. 

The buses were basically at the corner of the harbour

It was still confusing. There was a long line, and some people had tickets, some didn't. There was a stand near the first bus to buy tickets. There was a nice British lady walking up and down the line answering questions. Apparently, even though we had tickets, we had to wait in the same line. The couple ahead of us asked her if they should do the whole route first, or get off at the beach. She said to get off at the beach because otherwise, they're wasting their time going all the way around and back again. I wish we had listened to her!

We got up to the front and the first bus seemed to be full so it sat there until it's departure time. Then they started boarding the second bus, we were maybe 2nd or 3rd couple in line. The bus was not ready though--the phone with the scanning program wasn't even turned on yet. By the time we got on the bus, it was probably 40 minutes since getting off the boat. 

Upstairs, several of the audio devices were obviously broken. Ours was half working. Rob said he didn't care about listening anyway. We started off, and the bus goes through downtown. 

Waiting to go, 10:35AM. 

I was really loving these Halloween nails. Having long nails is not my thing, but these were fun! And, they glowed in the dark!

Downtown was interesting. Old meets new. A little smelly being on the open deck of the bus though

Gabinete translates literally to cabinet, but also office. The single letter y means "and".  I think you can assume the rest LOL.

Click on any picture if you want a bigger view, and then you can scroll through them all.

Some sort of Christmas tree!

A plane

Auditorio de Alfredo Kraus--a concert hall. 

The bit of the island that is north of the port

It felt like there were a lot of bridges once we were out of the downtown

I had no idea where we were. I was listening to the audio tour, and I had a map with the route. The problem was the audio would say "The next stop for the beach" but there'd be nothing--audio or visual-- to indicate when when we were at the stop. Being upstairs, and on the road side (not sidewalk side), we couldn't see if we were at a stop, or a red light, or stopped for traffic. So we didn't even know where to get off for the beach. There was also a detour around one of the stops that was for the beach, I think. 

Funny to see things we associate with the cold, snowy winter when it was....

Yes, that is reading 28C. So much for 20-24C!!

Euro per litre....one Euro was about $1.50 Canadian.

The quieter beach in the habour area. We like waves, not still bathwater.

Charming area of town, if you like living perched on the side of a hill. Can you even drive to your home?

Once the bus got back, we were getting hungry. It was probably around 12:30. We went into the large mall (it was behind the tourist centre), there was a sign for a McDonald's. We couldn't find it. Much of the mall was under renovation and there wasn't many actual stores. What was fun was seeing all the kids dressed up for Halloween!! It was a Thursday but I don't know if they had the day off school, or if they were field trips to the mall, but there were class groups of kids, as well kids with parents. There were a few businesses (and empty stores) doing events. We headed back to the ship for food.

This ferry company goes all around the islands. It's 3.5 hours to Tenerife, which was our next port. So I guess if you miss the cruise ship, you could just take the ferry! Starting at 19Euros. However, it leaves at 10pm and 4am. There is one on the other side of  Gran Canaria that is a shorter trip to Tenerife. The one in the picture was likely going to Huelva, which leaves at 1:30pm (there's also a ferry to Fuerteventura). Huelva is a 42.5 hour ride there, and 40.5 hours back! Huelva is in Spain, on the Atlantic coast, near the Portugal border. Fred Olsen also goes between the other islands. 

We thought we might take the bus back to the ocean beach, or even just walk, but we were both tired. I am a bit disappointed we didn't do it though!

What did we do? I have no pictures, no notes. I know we didn't go to the show, which was Persephone, which we saw right at the end of the trip. There was a lot of live music this night, so we probably just chilled. 

For dinner, we went to Gunbae. We had been looking forward to it. We had a 5:45 reservation and were one of the first tables to sit. We had some interesting couples/singles at the table. We played one drinking game, which I think I won and Rob lost on the first round LOL. We tried the sharing plates, and most was quite good. I'm sure it was all good, just not to my taste buds! I recommend the crispy fried chicken!

As we were leaving, the manager called my name. What? He wanted to inquire about our experience the other night and why were weren't totally satisfied. Took me a minute to realize. Every night you get a quick survey on the app, asking about an experience/interaction from the day. I had responded on the night we went to Razzle Dazzle that our meal experience hadn't been as good as the first two times in the restaurant. I explained that our waitress just seemed to lack any razzle dazzle or speed, and there was a mix up on my drink but we were still happy. I got a little scared to do the rest of the surveys, but also, I know they're important. 

We did get the last of our Splash of Romance treats (except the champagne). Although these were lovely, they also did not really appeal to me. They weren't bad, actually, but the Saffron and Ginger gummies were too strong, even though I like ginger. I wish they had paced out the treats to go over both weeks.

This might have been the day I got some peanut brittle for Rob from the Social Club because they hadn't had any for a few days and he liked it. Well, it broke off a crown! Ooops!

We were having an early start the next day so we had an early night.

Also....as part of the Splash of Romance package there was supposed to be a champagne night under the stars with live music. Originally for day 2, but that was bad weather. I'm not sure when it ended up happening, but it was inside at On The Rocks, where a lot of the live music was.