Spanish Cruise October 2021

Day Six: Caves, Charm’s and Captain’s Hat

Today we’re at Gibraltar. We tried to book a particular tour for this before we arrived but it had sold out so as soon as we got onboard we went to destination services in the hope that they had kept some spaces back which was the case.

There was a bit of confusion about the requirements to disembark. Gibraltar being a British overseas territory meant that it’s rules were needlessly complicated and unclear. Just to be on the safe side Marella tested everybody onboard, regardless of wether you were getting off.

It was a relatively early start so we had a light breakfast and headed for the mini bus. There was only 15 people on the coach and our tour guide was Brian a 67 year old retired civil servant. He told us that despite Gibraltar being on the green list from the very start we were only the 5th cruise ship to have docked this year. He did say that all the hotels were at capacity as people, desperate for a bit of sun, had crammed onto the rock.

A short drive from the cruise terminal had us at the cables cars. It’s a quick ride of about 3 minutes up to the top. As 18 people were rammed in you couldn’t really enjoy the ride as it was a bit like the tube at rush hour.

Once at the top the main attraction, apart from the views, are the monkeys. We had lessons on monkey body language and how they like to lull you into a false sense of security and then rob you. Brian used Lyn to demonstrate this.

I tried to take a picture of Lyn with one of the monkeys. This one was apparently a scout who would see if anyone had any food. Lyn wouldn’t get very close. At first because of all the warnings we’d had and then she informed me that the monkey, whose back was towards me, was giving himself some mid morning ‘self love’in’. I thought that definitely needed a selfie!

After the monkeys and the amazing views we headed for the siege caves from the 1700’s. Basically the Rock of Gibraltar is like a Swiss Cheese, it’s natural cave systems have been vastly extended over the last 300 years. Apparently if you enter the WW2 system you can pretty much go anywhere. There was a lot more walking than I’d anticipated on this tour and none of it was flat however there was a 76 year old chap with a walking stick and I thought that if he could do it so could I.

We then went on a drive around the… I want to say island as it has that feel about it but it’s not as demonstrated by the the runway which you have to drive across to get to the boarder crossing with Spain. It’s a bit like a railway crossing and they just stop the traffic when a plane lands of takes off. Gibraltar has a very British feel about it, emphasised by the buildings and the roads with pot holes. The tour was very good and worth the money. After it finished rather than get dropped off back at the ship we did a bit of shopping, Lyn got a Pandora charm for Gibraltar, and we then walked back to the ship.

The highlight of the day however was in the evening as we went through the Straights of Gibraltar and Lyn got see some dolphins! There is a video of how excited she was but I’m not allowed to post it. And then to top the day they had a captain’s hat on sale in the shops.