Day 18 - Tue - 10/14/2025 - Bilbao

 After staying awake until 2:30am listening to the Mariner's baseball game, we slept soundly until the 9am PA announcement that the ship had been cleared for passengers to disembark.  We got ready for our day and ate breakfast, packed our bags and headed out to explore this new town.  The Port provided free shuttles to town which is about 9 miles away.  That's a nice gesture. I wish more ports wiould recognize the value of ship passengers to their economy.  $20 shuttle fees to go a few miles seems exorbitant.


It's about a 15 minute ride to the bus terminal in the heart of Bilbao.  Getting off the shuttle, I found the Hop On Hop Off ticket vendor and purchased two tickets for the next bus.  We frequently use these busses to get a 'lay of the land.'  It worked really well and we settled in on riding the shuttle a second partial loop to stop number 8 near the market.



The market turned out to be largely a fish and vegetable market but it had a nice food court so we enjoyed some tasty light sandwiches and kabobs and our Coke Zero's.  On our way out of the market I spotted a fell wearing a Ken Griffey Seattle Mariner jersey and asked if he was from Seattle.  He said no that he was a local but was a former baseball player.  He didn't want to know the score of the game we listened to this morning.  We enjoyed a brief but good chat with him and his wife.  The market also has some nice stained glass windows.








We then wandered the streets looking at statutes, monuments, and architecture along the Nervion River.  We found a Carrefour Express and bought a few snack items.  It was a pleasant stroll and we met Jackie and George near the cathedral which was closed.  We crossed bridges and wandered along the riverbank.  The Guggenheim museum with it titanium tile exterior was fully glistening in the unobstructed sun.  We then made our way back to the shuttle bus pick up point, found our bus, and were swiftly taken back to the port where we reboarded the Emerald Princess just before 5pm.  On board time was 5:30pm, but everyone was really prompt in getting back to the ship as the lines were released at 5:42pm and the ship slowly moved away from the berth and headed out to sea.  









We had a light dinner (it was Mexican food night) before attending the evening entertainment which was David Knight, a comedy/hypnotist.  He brought 20 people up on the stage and did a mass hypnotism of them.  It was a really good show performed before a packed house.  Afterwards I watched the Survey It game show while Angela tried out for Voice of the Ocean.  I joined her midway in the auditions and stayed through the end before returning to the stateroom to update my blog.



Tomorrow is a sea day on our way to Vigo, Spain.  It's a port we'll also visit on our next cruise which begins in a few weeks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 01 - Sat - 09/27/2025 - Southampton Embarkation

Image
 As has been our custom the last few days, we did not set an alarm but allowed the light filtering into our loft bedroom to wake us up. We gathered our possessions, enjoyed a small breakfast of the leftover chicken and toast and a couple donuts and some English tea. Around 10:30 AM I used the Uber app to summon a car & driver to transfer us to the ocean terminal. The driver that arrived claimed that we were booked to go to a different location, which I disagreed with, and he got a little bit huffy and canceled the ride saying that he couldn't go to the Ocean Terminal. I went back to the app and rescheduled a different driver who was certainly able to go to the Ocean Terminal and I confirmed that before he arrived to pick us up. We're only a few miles from the Ocean Terminal but traffic is pretty significant and it took about a half an hour to reach the drop off point. There were four cruise ships in Port today. At the terminal we found where we were to leave our luggage and...
Read more

Day -03 & -02- Wed - Thu 09/24-25/2025 - In Transit to the UK

Image
 After many months of waiting and planning, it was finally time for this next adventure to begin. Our Pastor, Ronal, picked us up shortly after noon on this our 57th wedding anniversary day and drove us to the SeaTac airport. We were booked on an Alaska Airlines flight to Los Angeles, where we would connect with a British Airways flight to London's Heathrow airport. At the Seattle airport, the ticketing software would not issue us baggage claim checks and we had to see an agent. When we finally found the correct agent to see, that agent couldn't do anything either. He had to phone into his help desk and the issue revolved around attaching our electronic travel authorization for the UK to the reservation, which he was unable to do. I tried to explain to them that the ETA is not tied to a reservation, but rather is linked to our passport. In the end, his help desk counseled him to allow us to proceed and to deal with the issue in Los Angeles with the British Airways folks. With a...
Read more

Day 02 - Sun - 09/28/2025 - At Sea to Trondheim - Day 1

Image
 Overnight I slept pretty well, but woke up too late to attend the 8am interdenominational church service.  Angela, however, did get up early and attended it and reported that it was well done and well attended. After preparing for the day, I went up to the Lido to have my customary breakfast of Congi (rice porridge embellished with onions, ginger, shredded chicken, mushrooms, a fried egg, and two link sausages).  After breakfast found a chair in the little pool area caught up on my blog is this task behind me? It was then time to find some lunch and I was able to locate some really nice barbecue ribs and fruit and chicken wings. Angela then joined me and found some lunch for herself as well. The only real activity for this day that was the Deal or No Deal game show in the Princess Theatre.   This game show has become quite popular on most cruise ships and the two contestants were a lot of fun to watch. Neither won the thousand dollar grand prize, in fact, the second...
Read more