Malaga, Spain

6/23/2026

Before lunch, I made an onboard-booking for us for the new Crystal Grace with Future Cruise and Loyalty Manager, Andrew Triplow. The reservation engine they use for booking makes the process very efficient, especially in my case knowing precisely what cruise and category we wanted.

After lunch it was Paddle Tennis for me and a long walk for Anne Marie and friend Andrea. Thank goodness for the breeze.

At 2:00 PM fireworks went off from the City Center. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen fireworks in the daytime. It is part of the holiday celebration. Back to the Promenade Deck for me after that. Got to work off calories from the incredible on-board food.

Before dinner we went to the Captain’s Reception and Crystal Society Party. It was very well attended. We went on the receiving line where we were welcomed by Future Cruise & Loyalty Managers Andrew and Maria, Captain Vincent, Hotel Director Hubert, and Cruise Director Raphael. As we continued our walk, we saw Head Sommelier Boris and Chief Engineer Nenad.

The evening was the first and only formal evening of the cruise. There was a nice range of formal attire including women in long gowns, cocktail dresses, dressy dresses and dressy pants and tops, and men in tuxedoes, suits, and sports jackets and dress pants.

Waterside menu from last evening.

On formal night the Waterside Waiters, Head Waiters and Restaurant Manager Leo were also in formal attire adding to the ambience in this dining venue.

Keith enjoyed Caviar and we each had a Lobster Cobb Salad and it was Lobster for our entree. We both certainly had our fill of Lobster between the salad and entree.

It was a lovely dinner. The only surprise was typically Waterside is very busy on formal night and that would not be the case last evening. Maybe because the formal night was later in the cruise and when people booked specialty restaurant from home formal night was shown on another night earlier in the cruise. Also on this who are on this sailing who have less than fifty cruises with Crystal had the opportunity to visit each specialty restaurant two times each rather than one time at each (based on availability) with no additional specialty restaurant fee. Add to this that Supper Club was offered and fully booked for last evening with over 100 guests dining in the Stardust lounge. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner with such wonderful service, cuisine and the beauty of this dining venue. Bon Appetit.

The morning would not be complete without all of our walks. A very early morning walk for Keith plus the Fitness Center and a walk after breakfast for Anne Marie.

It was too windy on the starboard side for Keith so he walked back and forth on the port side which worked like a charm.

Today's Daily Reflections.

We arrived at Malaga, Spain on-schedule.

Our first visit was in 2007 and our last visit was on the 2023 inaugural/relaunch of Crystal Cruises/Crystal Serenity.

Malaga lies along the beautiful Costa del Sol, and is located seventy miles inside the Strait of Gibraltar. It has a wealth of historical sites, including a 16thcentury cathedral and the Morrish Alcazaba Fortress

Malaga has a population of 600,00 people. It has a wealth of historical sites.

Highlights include:

Museo Picasso Malaga a museum which opened in 2003 and has 285 works donated by the Picasso family.

Gibralfaro; the castle was built in 929 CE by And-al-Rahman III.

Alcazaba Fortress which was build by the Hammundid dynasty in the early 11th century.

Catedral de la Encarnacion which is a Roman Catholic Church built in Renaissance Architecture. It was constructed over a long period between 1528 and 1782.

Centro de Arte Contemporanco is a modern art museum.

We visited Malaga in April of 2007 as part of World Cruise 2007. We took the shuttle into town but it was raining. Although we had our rain coats on and umbrellas with us we decided that given how hard it was pouring (with some thunder and lightening) that we would be best to just stay one the shuttle and return back to the ship.