The Food Awards!

As with the cruise ports it's time to reflect on the best meals of the holiday! I'll choose a best starter, best main and best dessert, then the best overall meal, Let's go!

Best Starter:

Without a doubt the Beer Battered Cod Fingers. They were so good that, to not sound too weird, sometimes I can still taste the curried tartare sauce, it was just that good!

Best Main:

Although the Seafood Spaghetti scored higher, the Salmon En Croute was a lot more memorable and had some really delicious aspects. Anything with pastry is a winner with me and everything else was just a cherry on top.

Best Dessert:

Three words, White Chocolate Cheesecake. It was so insanely good that I just want to relive the experience everyday for the rest of my life. 

Best Overall Meal:

This was a hard one to choose as there good points and bad points about all of them but I finally settled on the meal I had on Day Eleven. It was the Beer Battered Cod Fingers, Beef Wellington and the Coffee Mousse. There was a mixture of fish and meat and the dessert drew everything together , it was very nice indeed.

I'm going to miss looking back on all of the food I ate on my holiday because it reminds me what I ate and maybe what I liked enough to have again in the future. Bring on the next holiday so I can do this again!

Food Day Eleven

Source

Starter-Beer Battered Cod Fingers

This starter was out of this world. The batter was super crispy, the fish was perfectly cooked and the curried tartar sauce had so much delicious flavour it was crazy. By far the best starter on the ship but possibly the best starter I've ever had! Perfection. 

10/10

Main-Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington is one of my favourite meals of all time and this didn't disappoint. The only thing that let it down was that the fondant potatoes as they were undercooked and hard and the pastry was a little undercooked but it was still really tasty and had a good texture. The meat was perfectly cooked and was very tender and soft and went really well with the tasty carrots. 

8/10

Dessert-Coffee Mousse

The texture of this mousse was better than yesterday as it was more of the mousse I'm familiar to. The taste was gorgeous and there was plenty of it and the little piece of chocolate on top was a nice touch.

8/10

Another great meal was definitely as good as yesterdays so to I'll match the score with a 9/10! 

The Destination Awards!

As my cruising journey draws to a close it's time for me to reflect on all of the holiday fun! I've made a few categories and will be choosing a winner for each one, so let's go!

Best port:

The winner of this one is Cadiz, for the sole reason that it was the closest port to the actual centre of the destination, meaning less walking and a happy Abz! Special mention goes to Vigo for also having a short walking distance to the shops but Cadiz just pipped it to the post.

Best experience:

Without a doubt it has to be seeing the dolphins in Gibraltar, it was just incredible. Having them swim beside the ship on the way into the port was insane and then seeing them up close and personal on the dolphin trip was the cherry on top of an amazing dolphin cake. I think it'll take a lot to beat this as one of the best things I've ever seen.

Best ship view:

Ibiza is the winner of this one as the view from my mums and dad's balcony was simply stunning. It was mainly sea but with a small rock in the centre and a large island in the distance. To the left was the best part as there was a lighthouse on a rock and it looked beautiful when the sun was making the sea sparkle. I thought that this view was so calm and serene it was definitely my favourite.

Best buildings:

Barcelona without a doubt. There was such an array of different buildings, from normal apartment type buildings to breathtaking gothic cathedrals. I also loved Barcelona as a place in general and would definitely go back (but not on a Saturday, it was a little bit too busy).

Favourite picture:

This one was really hard as I had A LOT of of pictures to choose from but I finally settled on this one. I have the worst aim and normally my photos aren't in focus so I was really proud when I saw how this one turned out. Plus this little birdy is so cute, how could he not be my favourite!?!

This holiday was definitely unforgettable and was one of the best ever, go cruising!

Wandering Around Cadiz

Welcome to one of the weirdest weather days I've ever experienced in a foreign country. Is it hot, is it cold? Is it blistering sunshine or overcast cloud? We experienced it all! Cadiz was a beautiful place with a really nice atmosphere that was calm but bustling at the same time. The port was in the perfect place, stepping off the boat straight into the centre, my favourite (less exercise!). The cobbles narrow streets leading to hidden historic statues were beautiful and so cute!

The architecture in Cadiz is stunning. Much like Vigo the buildings remind me of little Paris apartments with the bright colours and balconies, except these were only three or four storeys so they weren't as imposing and made streets and squares nice and light. There was one main church which was central in Cadiz and when you saw it from the boat it looks like the biggest, most imposing building in the world. However, from the ground it is beautiful. It's in the most gorgeous square filled with market stalls (one which sells insanely good churros!).

Our plan for the day was just to walk around and have a little explore which worked out really well as everything was clustered together so we didn't have to walk far to get anywhere. When we went and had our usual little drink at a bar we had a beautiful view of the sea with little bobbing boats and the beach that was full of life. I'd love to go back and maybe stay for a few days as I think it would be a really nice place to relax, have a browse of the markets and spend a little time on the beach. I seriously loved this place and would definitely go back.

Barcelona By Bus

It's time. The moment you've all been waiting for, or at least I was in the destination line up....BARCELONA!!! I think that this was the place I was most excited to visit. I had been here before on another cruise but that was about six years ago and we only really got to see the football stadium (yay...) and a little bit of las ramblas, los rambles, whatever it's called.

As with Valencia, Royal Caribbean put on their own transport to get you from the boat to the port entrance but don't get it! The port themselves have their own bus and it's half the price of the other bus (€3 return, €2 single), plus they're really frequent.

We decided on getting the open top bus around the city as it's a great way to see everything in a relatively short amount of time. My main wish for the day was to see the Gaudi park and to do that we had to get two different coloured bus routes which was a bit of a pain but it did mean that we got to see different areas of the city like the gothic area where the stunning church is and the olympic area which was also pretty cool.

Park Guell was absolutely my favourite bit as the sun came out and everything was so beautiful and there were cute little parrots and arggg!!!! If you're in Barcelona I'd definitely recommend going to a any of the little bars and cafes off Las Ramblas (and there are plenty to choose from) because they are much cheaper than off the actual strip but are so cute! I had such an amazingly delicious cheesecake and churros, oh the churros. I also had my very first Kiko experience in these backstreets which was amazing and I may have gotten more excited than I should have...oops. To finish I'll leave you with all of these pictures, have fun scrolling!

Holiday Fun Times!

After two weeks of sunning myself at sea, I'm back to the worst possible weather. Yippee. But I don't really care because I've had one of the best two weeks ever! I mean, what's better than sitting in the sun with a really good book and stuffing your face with free food? Nothing.

I went on the Royal Caribbean ship The Independence of the Seas. I've been on one other Royal Caribbean ship before. Last year I went on Adventure on the Seas, which is one class down from the Independence, and was amazing at the time, but it was so small in comparison to this one! I'm not even joking, it was like a small town. No joke.

Here are some 'ship stats' to show the mahoosive size:
Gross tonnage-160,000
Length-1112ft
Inside cabins-733
Outside cabins-1,084
Passenger capacity-4,375
Crew-4,375

For the next few weeks I'll be posting every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday all about my holiday antics! That should keep me busy until I go back to uni!