There is a class of cruise called a “re-positioning” cruise. For example, there are cruise ships that may spend the summer in the Mediterranean, and the winter in the Caribbean. Once a year they cross the Atlantic heading west, and once a year they cross heading east. A few years ago we took one of these from Barcelona to New York. Six or seven days crossing the ocean is not most people’s idea of a good time, so cruise companies attract passengers by adding ports of call on one or both ends of the trip.

A few months ago, we were looking through some travel brochures and saw a different sort of re-positioning itinerary. The Spanish cruise ship operator’s ship “Empress” spent the summer cruising the Baltic (fiords, Baltic Capitals, etc). Then their schedule is for the ship to begin various itineraries in the Mediterranean. Their re-positioning operation had two stages. The first took the ship from Malmö, Sweden (Near Copenhagen, Denmark), to the port of Bilbao on the north side of Spain’s Atlantic coast. From there, the second stage involved sailing to Valencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. We were passengers on the second stage.

Overall it was a very pleasant experience, and we got to visit a number of spots for the first time. Our cabin was comfortable, with a window on the starboard side of the ship. The food was good. It was an “all inclusive” trip. Our previous trip on the Norwegian Gem had been “all inclusive”, but you had to pay for any soft drink, for water, and for any alcoholic beverage, and they weren’t exactly cheap. On this trip, a choice of five different soft drinks was freely available from a fountain machine. Canned beer and table wine were free, as were a great variety of liqueurs and mixed drinks. Premium wines and certain brands of liquor did require an extra payment.

Our trip started in Bilbao, and the ship stopped in La Coruña, Lisbon, Casablanca, Gibraltar, and Almería, before finishing in Valencia.

We took cruise sponsored excursions in Lisbon, Casablanca, and Gibraltar. The Lisbon excursion was a waste, we would have been better off exploring on our own. Our excursion in Casablanca involved that city as well as the capital: Rabat. The trip was very long: 10 hours, but was great! If you read the news, you may be aware of the current tension between Spain and Britain over the status of Britain’s colony Gibraltar at the southern tip of European Spain. Perhaps that is a contributing factor to the horrible experience we had on our tour of Gibraltar at the hands of the British tour guide who was generally offensive and dismissive of the Spanish speaking group (including us) who made up all but two of the tour group.

 

The staff on the ship were all wonderful and helpful. We were in good hands!

I will also say that the required safety drill was much more thorough than on our previous trip with Norwegian.

I have broken the pictures of this trip into segments for each port of call. As I have time to sort the pictures, I will upload a selection.