Completed: Our European Adventure: London, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Vigo, La Coruña to Southampton

I will be in Vigo in November. What is the name of the gelato shop? And very cool about TransAtlantic cables (?)!
 
Day 14: La Coruña

Today marked 2 weeks since we began our grand adventure. The seas were a little rough since we'd gotten into the North Atlantic, especially the night before. Our oldest woke up not feeling well. We figured a combination of the seas and the fact she was staying out late every night with friends.

I loved the port views. La Coruña has these beautiful white faced buildings all along the port.

IMG_3209.jpegMy oldest two decided to stay back as we headed off the ship for our first activity in port. We decided to take a quick walk to a beach. It was only a couple blocks from the port. It was a beautiful little beach.

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The weather wasn't hot but it was pleasant. The water was quite cold, but the kids didn't care. I waded in just a bit but mainly just hung out while they played in the ocean. It's nice you can get towels as you come off the ship. There weren't any real services at the beach but they had bathrooms and showers. The only problem was they were on either end of the beach and we walked into the middle. It wouldn't be a bad place for a beach day but we only planned to spend an hour or so because we had other plans.

After the beach we cleaned up and grabbed lunch. I found a Segway tour on Viator (Segway Tour Tower of Hercules) during some of my early trip research. It sounded really interesting so I booked it. We ended up having to move our time because the tour operator reached out that Disney Cruise line needed his morning slots. Turns out there was a DCL excursion that did the same thing but it wouldn't have allowed my youngest and it was significantly more expensive.

The tour was at the Tower of Hercules, an ancient Roman lighthouse that was renovated in 1791. It's pretty incredible to think about how old it is.

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The one challenge with going on our own was we had to figure out how to get there ourselves. It ended up not being too bad to walk to the taxi stand just out of the port and split into two cabs. They sometimes have cabs at the port but I think they mainly come in the morning. The taxi stand though is only a block or so away.

We got there a little early and got to wander for a bit and see the tower. It was obvious where to meet our tower guide, he had a van that was clearly marked with a sign in the window when he'd be back which corresponded to our tour time. We soon realized he was finishing an earlier tour as they all came back riding on Segways.

The guide was absolutely incredible. He started out making sure we knew the safety rules and gave us the basics. Then he took each of us one by one and made sure we could safely operate our Segways. They weren't too hard to get the hang of. I appreciated though he wanted to make sure everyone was comfortable before we headed out.

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Soon we were off to explore the area on our Segways. The views were stunning, photos don't capture how beautiful the scenery was.

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The guide gave us information about the history of the area. An oil tanker ran aground in this cove a number of years earlier. It resulted in an ecological disaster that they spent years recovering from. It sounded like it was part of what led to the larger area becoming a park.

He was a great guide. We also learned about ancient history and how the Galician people are connected to the Gaelic people. I found that connection super interesting. We really enjoyed riding around and everything he showed us.

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The tour lasted about an hour and I wished it had gone longer. It was a solid 10 / 10 one of the best excursions I've ever done. I really loved riding a Segway, it was my first time, super fun and I was disappointed to learn they no longer make them. It was good I got the Euros out the other day as I definitely wanted to tip our guide for his excellent service.

We debated taking taxis back to the port but the guide told us it was a pleasant walk and we had time. So we took the walk back and go to explore more of La Coruña. It really was a pleasant walk and along the way I found this place.

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Argentinian empanadas are something I love and I was definitely up for a snack.

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As we approached the ship my daughter wanted to do more shopping so we split off and I went with her to find a souvenir shirt. Along the way I found another empanada place. I wish I had gotten more than one at the last place so I decided payment for the extra shopping time would be swinging by and getting another. Both empanada shops were really good and she found a shirt she liked.

I really liked La Coruña. Of all the places we visited on this trip it was probably the place I'd most want to live. It was a beautiful city and I loved walking through it. We also loved Lisbon and Barcelona but I'm partial to smaller cities. Not that I'd ever likely move there but maybe in my dreams.

My wife and I sat on deck 4 to watch sail away and were interested to see the characters came out to wave goodbye to the locals. I don't think Disney ships visit this port often and there was quite a crowd to see the Fantasy off. I thought it was awesome the characters came out to wave. We also got another photo with Donald while he was there. He was happy to see all his fans including me!

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That night we had Chris Cox the mentalist performing in the Walt Disney Theater. He was so funny and such a performer. We really enjoyed his show. I even got to participate a little bit. I thought maybe I'd be called up on stage at first but I got selected to select the unlucky victim for the show. It was one of the best variety acts I've seen.

I don't remember what else we did that night but dinner was good. We were enjoying our servers, they had figured things out by this point and we enjoyed them. This had been a really good day! We were starting to feel ready to go home but also sad things were wrapping up. Fortunately we had one more sea day to go!

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Okay life got crazy and I'm behind wrapping this trip report up. Need to get that done because we had a somewhat last minute opportunity and will be on another cruise here shortly. Can't board with a TR unfinished 🤣

Day 15: Crossing the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel

I got up and ran a 5K on deck. Our cruise group organized a 5K at sea complete with cool wooden medals. Maybe more important though it was the last sea day which meant I needed to work up an appetite for these:

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They had an apple compote on the breakfast buffet and let me tell you combining that with the churro waffles was next level good.

This was a nice sea day all around. I think I did some trivia, some relaxing, nothing particularly noteworthy.

I've heard crossing the Bay of Biscay can lead to some crazy seas but things were okay, we definitely felt motion on this cruise from the time we left the med and entered the Atlantic but it never got crazy and I don't remember this day / night being anything more than any of the other nights. It was cool to say we crossed it and then of course the English channel on our way to Southhampton. The sailing parts of this itinerary are definitely unique experiences to check off.

They did have some pretty cool Star Wars photo ops we took advantage of. I don't think we've seen this opportunity on any of our prior cruises. Each of us took a turn getting some "Jedi Shots".

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Jedi master or crazy Dad, I'll let you decide. 🤣

Looking through my photo reel I don't have much else to say. It was a solid final sea day. We got to see Believe which is a personal favorite show as a Dad. Dinner was good. I stayed out late to get some final ocean photos.

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I'll wrap it up with one more post on our disembarkation and visit to Stonehenge when I get another minute.
 

You did an awesome job with this trip report! Been following along and did want to make sure you got home safely. I personally had problems with the Bay of Biscay on my last cruise. Apparently ships can go two ways - up and down bow to stern OR side to side and it's the side to side motion that gets to me. I stayed in bed that first day and ate crackers which I had bought the day before in London. Yay crackers!

Anyway, thanks so much! Very comprehensive. Great photos. Where to next????
 
Day 16: Disembarkation and Stonehenge

We woke up early and went to Cabanas for breakfast. It was our first time doing this, they don't really advertise Cabanas is open but it is for a bit in the morning. We wanted to do express walk off so we could get going first thing and stop by Stonehenge before heading to the airport. It worked pretty well. Disembarkation in Southampton was super easy and smooth, much better experience than most of our Port Canaveral cruises though maybe express walk off helped.

I scheduled a 8:00 AM private transfer with Project Expedition to take us to Stonehenge and then Heathrow. We were off the ship by 7:40 AM, a bit earlier than I planned I had expected a bit more process but it was so smooth. Our driver reached out and was able to come a few minutes early and we were off. The one big call out about this transfer was that the van had the two seating benches facing each other which meant half of us had to sit backwards. I don't know why sitting backwards is so common in Europe but it led to some car sickness. We are not fans of that aspect. Otherwise the driver and transfer was great!

Stonehenge was about an hour away. On the way we realized we should probably arrange our tickets. There is a discount for buying online in advance. We just booked on our phones and still got the discount. We arrived before they opened but they had bathrooms available and we just hung out until they opened at 9:30.

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Technically Stonehenge is just a bunch of rocks but they are cool rocks. You can either walk or take a shuttle from the visitors center to the actual site. The buses run pretty constantly. We were on the first bus and got to walk around the site with minimal crowds. This let us get photos without people in the background which was pretty cool.

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We didn't have a lot of time because our flight time had changed from when we first booked. It was enough though. We spent about an hour at the site and then another 15 or so at the gift shop and were off by 10:45. There was more to see, I saw a little museum and not sure what else but we were able to experience the main site which was what we really wanted. I was really glad we made this happen.

I think a trip to Stonehenge before/after a cruise from Southampton works pretty well. You just have to give yourself some time in case of traffic issues. We discovered the main highway had an accident and was really backed up. Our driver took us on back roads. We made it to Heathrow just after noon. Our flight was leaving a bit after 3pm so we made it the 3 hours ahead of time as recommended.

It was pretty awesome to check off this bucket list item. I've seen so many photos but seeing in person was definitely worth it.

Check in at Heathrow was fine. It is a big airport though and felt super crowded. Our travel home was pretty rough. We had people who got sick probably partially from car sickness though I wonder if a bug was involved too. Flying home was not fun, we had a connecting flight that was delayed and we were so tired. We didn't land until like 2 am and I don't think I climbed in bed until closer to 4am. Next time I would try harder for a direct flight home. The direct left too early and wasn't every day which was why we didn't take it back. The jet lag on the way back was pretty brutal. Took at least a week or so to start to feel normal. I was glad we came back on a Friday and I had a weekend before trying to work.

This was a most incredible trip and I'm so glad we invested in it. So many memories, so many bucket list experiences. Not sure when we will make it back to Europe but we really hope to someday!
 
You did an awesome job with this trip report! Been following along and did want to make sure you got home safely. I personally had problems with the Bay of Biscay on my last cruise. Apparently ships can go two ways - up and down bow to stern OR side to side and it's the side to side motion that gets to me. I stayed in bed that first day and ate crackers which I had bought the day before in London. Yay crackers!

Anyway, thanks so much! Very comprehensive. Great photos. Where to next????
Thanks for following along!

We had an opportunity come up to do a 4 night on the Wish in a couple weeks for fall break. I'm excited to finally try a Triton class ship even if the Wish isn't everyone's favorite. A nice relaxing Bahamian cruise sounds nice right now! Then this next summer we are booked to do the Magic in Alaska. Really excited to get back on the Magic and everyone says Alaska is epic.
 

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