L1836 – Portuguese Pea-Soup

In my last post, L1836 – Walls not Doors, I described our extended stay in the small port of Gran Tarajal on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, where we were unexpectedly forced to stay overnight due to strong winds. Leaving Gran Tarajal the following morning with the assistance of a tug, and with our planned visit to Agadir in Morocco cancelled, we then had two days at sea before we reached our final port of call on this cruise, Lisbon in Portugal.

Around 6:30 am on the morning we were sailing into Lisbon, both Carol and I were suddenly woken by the very loud sound of the ship’s foghorn blasting away. What seemed only a few seconds later, it sounded again, and then again. When I pulled back our thick curtains I instantly knew why – all I could see was a wall of thick white fog – a real pea-souper! There was clearly no point in going out onto our balcony to watch us sail up the river as planned, so instead I made Carol her morning cup of tea and then retreated back into the warmth of the bed. A little while later Carol thought she heard the distinctive rumble you hear as the ship passes under the 25 de Abril Bridge, but looking outside there was no sign of it – just fog everywhere. We must have passed under the bridge then, for it was not long that the sounds and vibrations of the ship changed as we crabbed sideways into our berth – although again looking out of the window there was no sight of land!

Once it got light I ventured out onto the balcony, and by then the fog was just starting to lift. Even so, there was a huge contrast in the scene before me, compared to when we were docked at the same berth just three months ago at the start of our Captains in Cádiz cruise.

Carol and I have both been to Lisbon numerous times, and I must have done virtually every tour in the book, some of them multiple times! We therefore decided to do our own thing this time, and had two things in mind – to wander through the historic area opposite the ship and hopefully climb as far as the castle, and to do some shopping in the city centre. Although by the time we had eaten our breakfast and got ready the fog had lifted quite a bit, we decided it would be best to do the shopping in the morning, and the sight-seeing in the afternoon.

Reaching the city centre it was very noticeable just how different it was walking around, compared to our last visit just three months ago. There were plenty of attractive Christmas decorations in the streets, and there were far fewer people about making it much easier and more pleasant to get about. Although the focus at this stage was the shopping, of course I still had my camera in hand in case we spotted something unusual or scenic to snap, such as a Christmas shop.

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In the main shopping street we decided to stop at one of the pavement cafés for a drink and a snack, and of course a bit of people watching. We ordered some toasted sandwiches thinking they would be a snack, but when they arrived we quickly decided that this was an early lunch after all!

One of the very noticeable features of Lisbon is all the little shops selling pastries and of course the iconic pastel de nata, or egg tart, a creamy custard tart. We were both very good though, and merely did window-shopping – and of course window-snapping.

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Shopping (and window shopping) complete, we made our way back to the ship via the Praça do Comércio, the main square close to the river, where a huge artificial christmas tree had been erected – I couldn’t resist walking though it so that I could take a photograph looking upwards inside the centre of the tree.

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As we walked back along the river-front towards our ship we saw that the fog was tending to roll back in, so we decided to forget the sight-seeing that afternoon, and leave it for another time – cruises visit Lisbon so often that we are bound to be back one day, even though curiously its not on the itinerary of any that we currently have booked. We thought that one of the reasons to climb up to the castle was to get the views down to the river, and thought it likely with the fog that this would be very limited – as confirmed by our table companions at dinner later who had ventured up there.

So instead we relaxed in the luxury of our suite, which fortunately was on the right side of the ship to get the lovely views of the historic areas, which when the sun did come out again looked lovely.

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All too soon the Captain came on the tannoy to give his pre-departure talk, meaning that very sadly we were about to set sail for the last time on this cruise, heading of course back towards Southampton and home. As we cast off the sun was already setting, and Carol and I watched from our lovely huge balcony as we turned and sailed out under the bridge, passing the Cristo Rei statue (inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro) on the way. I had thought of running up onto the top-most deck once we had cleared the bridge to take photographs of the various monuments and buildings on the northern bank of the river, but as dusk was fast setting in I thought better of it and remained in our suite after all.

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With our last port of call completed, all that remained on this cruise were the old favourites on board – the Crew Show and the Gala Buffet. This time the Gala Buffet was held at lunchtime, and I can see the logic in that more people are around at that time to both see and eat the food – but wouldn’t it be nice if people were allowed in to view and photograph the exhibits before people are allowed to eat them, like used to happen in the late evenings?

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As I write this we are sailing back across the Bay of Biscay. While the weather is nothing like as severe as I have known it on previous cruises, it is still completely different to the idyllic conditions we had at the start of this cruise when sailing south – there have been several code alpha (medical emergency) tannoy calls this morning presumably due to the unsteady ship. Here is a comparison of the weather sailing south to sailing north:

This cruise completes our sailings for this calendar year, and also for the next five months, so for the first time in four years I will be spending the winter months at home rather than at sea in tropical climes – I hope it is not going to be too much of a shock to the system. So until our next cruise in May, I will say farewell, and wish all readers all the very best wishes for Christmas and for the New Year.
Postscript

On the day we were in Lisbon, when Carol and I returned to our cabin after breakfast we had a pleasant surprise – a christmas tree had been put up in our suite, and was being beautifully decorated.

During that day, and the following day decorations appeared all around the ship in public areas, making it all look extra special. I have done three Christmas cruises in the past, but it was the first time that Carol had seen how lovely they decorate the ships.

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L1836 – Walls not Doors

In my last post, L1836 – A Pair of Canaries, I described consecutive days spent visiting ports in two of the larger Canary Islands, first Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, and then Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and contrasted these islands with the far more lovely Madeira which we had visited the previous day.

Leaving Santa Cruz de Tenerife we sailed overnight to our next port of call Gran Tarajal, which was on our third and final Canary Island, Fuerteventura. When Carol and I awoke at around 6:40 and looked out of the window, we saw we were already fast approaching the small harbour in Gran Tarajal. We quickly put on our towelling dressing gowns and stepped out onto our balcony to watch our final approach. It was still very dark, making photography difficult, but it did show up some illuminated Christmas decorations along the seafront.

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Once again we were surprised just how quickly it got light, and once the sun came up we thought how much more attractive the port looked than our previous two, not least because of the lack of high-rise buildings.

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None of the ship’s tours offered in Gran Tarajal had greatly inspired us, and also we were only due to be in port for a half day, setting sail at 2pm. We therefore decided to do our own thing, and just have a wander around the port at our leisure. It was a lovely bright and clear sunny day, and we had just a short stroll along the quayside, with it’s brightly painted pedestrian lane clearly marked, before we reached the town. As we walked we could hear quite loud music coming across the bay, from we assumed a local band playing further along the waterfront.

Just outside the ‘terminal building’ – more of an archway across the road – we saw some sculptures and the crane which has clearly the illuminated green triangle I had noticed earlier from the ship when it was still dark.

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As we began to walk along the seafront towards the source of the music, it was clear that if the big thing for Funchal and Madeira was painted doors, then in Gran Tarajal the big thing was murals painted on the walls of buildings – and on road barriers! They were everywhere, and some of them were very good – we were particularly impressed by the one of the camel standing in the water.

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Sure enough after a while we reached a square where a local band were playing some attractive and catchy music, and a mixture of local people and passengers from our ship were dancing away in front of them. We paused for a while to watch and listen, before continuing with our exploration of the town.

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We stopped in a couple of shops, the first was an amazing ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ – a big shop full from floor to ceiling and wall to wall with hardware, stationery, clothes, electrical items, Christmas decorations – you name it, they had it! The second was a more refined affair, with some lovely artworks and housewares, were we fell for a couple of lovely Christmas decorations which we bought.

In another square we found a tall Christmas tree decorated with clocks (?), and an attractive fountain decorated with seahorses. Outside one shop we could see quite a crowd had gathered and we wondered why – on getting closer we found two things were going on, there was a small fashion show just finishing with models parading up and down outside the shop, and a Father Christmas was entertaining some small children too.

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As we made our way back towards the ship, we found just outside the ‘terminal building’ a great huddle of officials, ships officers including the Captain, and the press – it was a maiden call for Balmoral into Gran Tarajal and this was the ceremony where plaques are exchanged between the ship and the port. We did not stop to watch or take photographs as by now Carol was feeling under the weather with a 24 hour cold, so we carried on to the ship so that she could rest up.

After lunch we were resting in our fabulous suite when the ding-dong indicated that Captain was about to make what we assumed would be the usual pre-departure talk over the tannoy. However this time it was far from standard – what he announced was that the wind was too strong for the ship to safely manoeuvre out of the narrow harbour, and we would have to remain for at least an hour or two until the wind died down.

After a couple of hours he then made a further series of announcements, to the effect that the wind had not died down, so they would be unable to depart until they had the assistance of a tug. However there is no tug in this tiny port, and the nearest tug was busy assisting another cruise ship in a different port, and could not get to us until after dark, and restrictions on manoeuvring in the dark in the port therefore meant we would have to remain in port overnight and sail the following morning. This in turn meant that our planned next port of call, Agadir in Morocco was now cancelled, and instead we would sail directly to our final port of call, Lisbon in Portugal.

In the postscript to my last post, I said that Carol and I were disappointed that we were dropping Agadir (an infrequently visited port) rather than Lisbon (a very frequently visited port). Apparently we were far from being alone in these views, and after a lot of complaints the Captain sent out a letter of explanation for the decision to all cabins. This pointed out that they had calculated that a combination of deviating to Agadir and then potential delays in the Bay of Biscay from forecasted bad weather (!) would mean we could not dock in Southampton until at least 5pm on the changeover day, which was not viable, so Lisbon it is.

Staying in port overnight did mean that we got to see the town lit up in the warm low sunlight just before dusk.

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Around 10:15 the following morning the tug finally showed up, and very quickly a line was attached to the stern of Balmoral so that she could help pull our ship safely out of the harbour. Not surprisingly there was quite a crowd on all the available decks watching the proceedings, and before long we were out of danger and pointed in the right direction for home. The tow rope was let go, and we finally set sail for our next port, some 20 hours late.

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Our adventures in Lisbon are likely to be the subject of my next post.
Postscript 1

While it would be all to easy to fill my blog with negative comments about things that sadly aren’t quite right on board, (for example yesterday they announced at around 1:10 there was a bar-b-que lunch outside, when many people had already eaten or eating their lunch), I much prefer to dwell on the good things on board.

This time I would like to praise the amazing Balmoral Show Company. Regular readers might remember that I was a huge fan of the Black Watch Show Company on this year’s world cruise (see W1801 – In the pink! and W1801 – Safe Oceans), and thought at the time that no other show company could come close – well the one currently on Balmoral are certainly giving them a good run for their money! Their first couple of shows where the usual mixture of song and dance, then few of nights ago they did a dance-based show, with an astonishing array of different dance styles, including ballet and tap, while last night it was the high-octane Ministry of Rock show, which left us amazed that they could possibly come back out on stage and do it all again just 50 minutes later! I don’t want to single anyone out, they were all so good and work so well as a team – bravo! Here are a few snaps of last nights show:

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Postscript 2

I am amazed to find that this post is my 200th one on this blog! When I first started the blog, it was to record what I saw and did on my cruises partly for my own memory, and partly to share with close friends and relations. At that time I never dreamed that it would become as widely read and as popular as it has become now. I must thank everyone for all their kind comments and ‘likes’, which have encouraged and inspired me to make the blog what it is today. Of course the biggest thanks must go to my amazing, wonderful wife, Carol, who is so patient when I take so long to write each post, select and process all the photographs that go inside it, and who carefully proof-reads and edits each and every post. Thank you one and all.

L1836 – A Pair of Canaries

In my last post, L1836 – Back to the Beginning, I described a wonderful day spent in Funchal on the lovely island of Madeira, where we went on a great tuk-tuk tour with the amazing Andrea, and returned to the place where the friendship and romance between Carol and myself first began nearly two years ago.

We sadly set sail from Funchal around 4pm that day, and then sailed overnight and for much of the following morning towards our next port of call, Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. We were not due to arrive in the port until lunchtime, so I was very surprised when I was busy writing my previous blog post mid morning to hear from Carol that she could see land ahead. A short time later the cruise director came on the tannoy to confirm that we would indeed be docking early. I put down my keyboard as it were, and joined Carol out on the balcony to watch us sail in. As we did so I was soon reminded why I love Funchal and Madeira so much more than the larger Canary Islands, Gran Canaria included – the vista ahead was filled with tower blocks and unattractive square flat-roofed houses, rather than the consistent and quaint whitewashed walled and orange tiled houses all over the hillsides of Funchal.

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I have been to Gran Canaria many times before, and for various reasons I have ended up doing the same ship’s tour a few times – the one that goes down to the lovely Puerto de Mogán in the south of the island. Knowing this to be the most attractive and interesting place to visit on the island, and that Carol had not been there before, I decided to bite the bullet and recommend to Carol that we book this tour. The tour is one of those marked as “Must Do” in the tours brochure, and therefore it was not surprising to find that we were on one of five coaches doing the same tour.

We drove out of Las Palmas on a fast ‘motorway’ style road, which varied between three and five lanes in our direction – such a contrast from the quiet twisty lanes that Andrea had taken us on the day before in Madeira. For a while there were lots of out-of-town shopping centres and warehouses, which eventually petered out into parched and barren-looking ground which our local guide used to be fields for agriculture – he told us that agriculture exports had dropped by a staggering 70% to 7% in recent years, as the same foods can be grown more cheaply on mainland Europe.

After a time we turned off the main road and drove to our first and only photo-stop, to view the vast and amazing sand dunes at Maspalomas. We seemed to drive past endless small holiday apartments before we were dropped off close to a large hotel, for a short walk through it to see the dunes.

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When I had done this tour before, it made a second photo-stop at the resort of Puerto Rico, and then took a narrow twisty road that hugged the coastline on to Puerto de Mogán. This time we just sped on by Puerto Rico on the main ‘motorway’ road, which passed through numerous tunnels as it marched inland towards Puerto de Mogán. The nett result was that the total journey time was much shorter, meaning we had much longer (around 2.5 hours) freetime in Puerto de Mogán.

Our local guide led us from the coach park down to the harbour, before releasing us for our free time. The area close to the harbour is lovely – the attractive houses and walkways with bougainvillea growing over archways, and a couple of short ‘canals’ which have rather optimistically generated the nickname for the place as ‘Little Venice’.

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We walked around for a while, and then Carol decided to stop on a bench and people-watch while I got busier with my camera. To be honest the amount of free time seemed rather long (ironically before when the journey time was longer, it used to seem rather short) – this was not helped by us making a classic mistake – each thought the other had brought money with them, so we were unable to make use of any of the many cafes and shops in the area.

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Eventually it was time to wander back to the coach park, for the drive back to our ship. On the way back once again we saw the barren landscape punctuated by the empty fields, and by mostly abandoned plastic greenhouses; and in just one small area dozens of wind turbines, which our local guide told us generate 11% of the island’s electricity.

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As we neared Las Palmas the traffic got much more dense, and so we returned to our ship a little late and with not much time to change for our dinner.

After dinner I went up onto the top-most deck to take some photographs of the port lit up at night.

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Carol enjoyed the tour – she was impressed with the extensive dunes at Maspalomas, and by how attractive Puerto de Mogán was. However of course I had seen it all before – several times – and generally I am so underwhelmed with what I find as barren and ugly Gran Canaria (as I find the other large Canary Islands) compared to the attractive and green Madeira.

Around 9pm we set sail for our next port of call, which we would reach early the following morning – Tenerife – another large Canary Island!
Postscript 1

Both Carol and I woke very early the following morning, and as we looked out of the windows of our suite we could already see the lights of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the distance up ahead. We both decide to put on our towelling dressing gowns and go out onto our balcony to watch our approach. After a few minutes we thought we felt a spot or two of rain, which suddenly became a short sharp down-poor, so we were glad that part of our balcony was covered over by a roof so we could shelter there.

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Both of us have been to Tenerife before, I have been to the island on numerous occasions and done just about every tour in the book. We therefore decided not to book a ship’s tour, and instead just have a wander around the city centre at some point during the day. This we did after lunch, and found that the ‘blue line’ which you follow to reach the city centre seemed to wander even further around the port than before. Reaching the small lake with (usually) a fountain, we stopped to rest a while, and were bemused by the scene before us. There was a bunch of media guys – we were not sure if it was TV or radio or what – and a lady who was posing dance moves in the lake – complete with shoes! The sound guy also seemed to be recording the sound of her walking along the edge of the lake in her wet shoes. Weird!

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Once we decided nothing more interesting was going to happen, we wandered off around the nearby streets and I snapped away with my camera as usual.

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After a while the lure of ice-creams from the Gelato counter on the ship grew too large, and we made our way back there for another delicious treat.

That evening we set sail for our next port of call, Gran Tarajal in Fuerteventura, our third and final island in the Canaries, which we would reach early the following morning. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.

 

Postscript 2

I am writing this post while we are moored up at Gran Tarajal in Fuerteventura. We were due to leave the port at 2pm this afternoon, bound for Agadir in Morocco. However around half an hour before we were due to sail, the Captain announced that due to a combination of a strong onshore wind and a very narrow gap between us and shallow water and another stone harbour wall, it was not safe for us to try to leave the harbour until the wind dies down.

A couple of hours later he made a further announcement that the wind was forecast to remain strong all day, and that we would not be able to leave the harbour without the assistance of a tug, which could not reach us until after dark. We are therefore stuck in port overnight, and will attempt to sail around 10am tomorrow morning once the tug is here to help. He further announced that our call in Agadir was cancelled, and that we would be sailing directly to our last port of call, Lisbon in Portugal.

Carol and I have absolutely no problem with putting safety first, and not attempting to leave port until it is completely safe to do so. Where we are disappointed is the decision to cancel Agadir and not Lisbon. So many cruises call into Lisbon, that I am sure nearly all the passengers on board will have been there before, most like us several times before. However we suspect that not nearly as many will have been to Agadir. We are so disappointed to be missing out on going to a very different new port, and for me one in a continent I have rarely visited.

L1836 – Back to the Beginning

In my last post, L1836 – Which way?, I described our visit to A Coruña in Spain, and the tour we made from there to a small town and to a garden beside an estuary. We sailed from A Coruña late in the afternoon, and we were concerned to see that sick bags had been put out in the corridors when we came out of dinner that evening. While the ship did roll around a bit during our two days at sea sailing towards our next port, Funchal on the island of Madeira, fortunately the sea was nothing like as bad as we feared or have experienced in the past on our many voyages.

Very early on the third morning some vibration through the ship alerted us that we might be approaching Funchal, and when I pulled back the thick heavy curtains I could see in the darkness the twinkling lights of the port in the distance ahead. Usually on cruises we sail in ocean view cabins, and at this point I would have to rush to get dressed and then scramble up on deck to watch our approach. In this case, as we are lucky enough to be travelling in a large suite, it was simply a case of putting on one of the towelling bathrobes and wandering out onto our balcony. The town, with all its houses and other buildings rising up the hillsides, looked lovely with all the lights, but getting a photograph to do the scene justice was difficult in the very low light conditions on a moving ship.

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As we turned and reversed against the quayside it seemed to get light very quickly, and soon the town came properly on show.

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Carol and I went out onto our balcony before breakfast and to be honest we got a little emotional to be back in Funchal. Regular readers might remember how Carol and I first met at the start of the world cruise on Black Watch in January 2017, and that it was in our first port on that cruise, Funchal, that we first spent time alone together which was the start of our friendship and romance, and ultimately our marriage (see W1702 – Funchal Fun). On that day in 2017 I had spent the morning on my own doing a tuk-tuk tour, and in the afternoon I had taken Carol for a walk to see all the painted doors in the oldest part of Funchal.

This was the first time that Carol and I had been back to Funchal since then, and there was only one way that we wanted to spend the day, to complete the circle as it were – a tuk-tuk ride in the morning, followed by a walk to see the painted doors once again!

Long before we sailed I had contacted the wonderful tuk-tuk driver that I first met on a ship’s tour back in April 2016 called Andrea. She so impressed my elderly family friend Barbara and myself then with her passion and knowledge for her island, combined with her caring and helpful nature showing us around (see D1602 – Third time extremely lucky). At the end of that tour she had given me her contact details, and in 2017 I had been delighted to do a different tour with Andrea once again. Although this year Andrea was now working for a different tuk-tuk company, she was still pleased to be able to show me even more of her island.

After a hearty breakfast we watched from our balcony and saw Andrea arrive down on the quayside, this time in a smart red tuk-tuk. I had to look carefully to check it was Andrea as she had completely changed her hair style, but once sure we made our way down to the quayside to meet her. I was so pleased and proud to be able to introduce Andrea to my wife Carol – very aware of the huge change in my circumstances since the last time I was with Andrea, when I was a very confirmed bachelor! Introductions and hugs over, we agreed our route and set off from the port. Andrea was rightly very proud of her new tuk-tuk, which had the bonus of a clear plastic sunroof, and clear plastic windows that could be zipped in place when needed. She told us that she was much happier now working for a small company, and asked us about all our travels since we had last met.

Our first stop was at Doca do Cavacas, where Andrea showed us the natural swimming pools in the rocks below, and the lovely views along the coastline. As ever Andrea was keen to use my camera to take photographs of us, and to allow us as much time as we wanted at each stop.

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We then drove on to Câmara de Lobos, the lovely fishing village famous as somewhere that Winston Churchill came to paint. I had been to both this and the previous stop on my first tour with Andrea, but it was the first time for Carol and she loved all the brightly painted fishing boats and the stunning fisherman’s chapel. Andrea pointed out that the ‘painted doors’ had spread to other parts of the island, including Câmara de Lobos.

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After wandering around the harbour by ourselves for a while, we rejoined Andrea, and she took us on the scenic route to our next stop, Cabo Girão. The road twisted and turned as it snaked its way up the steep hillside, giving us amazing views most of the time.

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Cabo Girão is a viewpoint on the second-highest cliffs in Europe (580m), and features a walkway – part metal grid, part glass – that extends out over edge of the cliffs. Regular readers will know how Carol has a problem with heights, but she was very brave in this instance and came out onto the walkway with me – albeit by always looking into the distance rather than straight down to the beach and sea far below. Unfortunately for me, but probably fortunately for Carol, low cloud / mist was swirling around and rather impeded the otherwise spectacular views that can be seen from the viewpoint.

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Once Carol and I had finished looking at the views, and around the couple of souvenir stalls there, we rejoined Andrea who then took us on the faster ‘motorway’ route back to Funchal, pausing as we reached the fast section to close the plastic windows so that we did not get cold at the higher speeds. At the tuk-tuk stand near to our ship she paused briefly so that she could introduce her new boss to us, and then we were on our way again, driving through the centre of the town and then climbing up and up towards the agreed end-point for our tour, Monte. From there you can either take one of the wicker sledges half-way back down towards the town centre (guided by two men in their traditional straw hats and blazers), or as we planned, by cable-car.

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It was time to say our sad farewells to Andrea, once again she had given us a fabulous tour, and we cannot recommend her highly enough (you can find the company she now works for at tuktuking.pt). Of course we have already told her the date next year when we will be returning to the island, so that we can do another of her fabulous tours, and catch up with her again.

We then bought our tickets for the cable-car ride back down to the old town, the station at the bottom is very conveniently very close to Rua Santa Maria, the long street with all the painted doors. Again Carol was very brave with the height of the cable car above the ground, and I suspect she was helped by it being a very steady and smooth ride down.

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We then made our way up Rua Santa Maria, my camera at the ready to photograph any doors that I did not remember photographing when I have visited the street before. At the far end of the street we reached the viewpoint overlooking the sea, where back in 2017 we had stopped for some time chatting and laughing together – a spot that definitely could be considered where the our relationship very first began.

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Just as last time, we very reluctantly tore ourselves away and started to make our way back to the ship, for once again the ship was leaving the island far to early, this time around 4pm. We returned to the ship too late for lunch, but we did make do with a large ice-cream each from the new gelato bar on the ship – and I am pleased to report they were delicious! We watched the sailaway from our balcony, and Andrea’s bright red tuk-tuk was clearly visible parked up in the stand as we reluctantly sailed away from our special island.

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We then sailed overnight and during the following morning towards our next port of call, Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post, which once again may well be delayed as we are in a run of five different ports each on consecutive days.

 

Postscript

The evening before we arrived in Funchal we made good use of our super-sized suite to do some entertaining. We wanted to invite three members of crew around – William and Scout from the Destinations team, and Bethany the Future Cruise Manager (otherwise known as ‘Dad’ and two of his ‘daughters’ – see W1801 – Turkish semi-Delight) – who we had got to know well when they were on Black Watch on our second world cruise. In particular we wanted to thank Bethany as it was her that suggested we did this particular cruise so that we could be in our fabulous Owners Suite. We all had a really good and fun evening, and it was very entertaining and interesting to hear the many anecdotes from our guests.

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