June 14, 2024
Travel Day - Gran Canary to Lisbon to Hamburg

I flew from Gran Canary to Lisbon Portugal on TAP - Air Portugal. Easy 2-hour flight, but the Lisbon Airport was a crazy experience! I had 2 hours, between the connecting flights, but spent the time being routed all through the airport. First try, they routed me in a giant circle and I ended up going through the long lines, to clear customs, twice! Second time through I followed different signage, but again could not find my flight listed anywhere on the monitors where I was. I finally figured I must have to change terminals for the connection. When I went all the way through baggage claim in first terminal I came out of the building and saw another terminal across the way and then finally found monitors showing my flight. Shockingly it listed my gate and flight as FINAL CALL. I now had to boogie through this new terminal's security (TSA) and the extremely crowded duty-free shops and tons of strolling passengers. Then, I hear my name being called over the PA system and I am sprinting to the gate, arms waving and thank goodness they saw me. They radioed the taxiway bus, and he quickly got me to the plane. I boarded to lots of stares and breathed a sigh of relief! They shut the doors right behind me and we were off!
Farewell Canaries and hello Lisbon Portugal port, stadium and aqueduct - views from plane.
Unusual store I saw in Lisbon airport confusion that was selling tons of fancy cans of fish!! Shocking not a ton of shoppers here!

I threw together an impromptu Bachelorette party for Angie tonight! Angie and Gian are getting married for a third time in Hawaii next week.They will be alone this time and it turns out she never had a Shower or Bachelorette to celebrate her first 2 marriages on the Ship, last May! Our girl deserved a fun night to celebrate her! So we took over a section the outdoor seating at Les 3 Brassuers, and their great band had us all up dancing! It's amazing what you can do with a bunch of WhatsApp messages to fellow ladies, some tulle, sparkles and always handy flower lei's ! One of the ladies even went and bought her some lingerie! I love our supportive community!
I got to go Sailing Again! We were supposed to head to the COOK ISLANDS after the lovely Rangiroa and the Tuamotu Archipelago, but due to stormy weather there, with all unprotected tender ports, they made the decision to head us southwest, back to the protected port in Papeeta (Tahiti). We got lucky and Holly ( pictured below) found us a sailboat available for charter.

Since Janette Emerich is generous enough to share her drone photos with all of us on board the Ship, I have to share them with you all. This beauty is why I said we felt like we were in a screen saver the whole day in Rangiroa! I love the height perspective in the photos it really captures so much more. Blue Lagoon below:






