DAY 23 DAY 17 CRYSTAL SERENITY

ALICANTE, SPAIN

Today's Daily Reflections Program.
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These are menus from the Crystal Dining Room from last evening.

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We enjoyed a pre-dinner drink at the Palm Court.  While we were there we listened to music and spoke to several guests and members of the crew.  There were several groups having parties there.

Anne Marie with Ed.
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Afterwards we had our final "Taste" at "Tastes".  The Tastes dining venue will be transformed during the dry dock of Crystal Serenity to the Silk Asian Restaurant.  This transformation begins at the end of this voyage when Serenity goes to Germany for its dry dock.  

This will be the second transformation for Tates.  When Tastes debuted on the Serenity inaugural voyage it included evening dinner in a casual environment.  Its menus included appetizers, a couple of choices of salad and a range of entrees including seafood, steak and pizza.  A few years ago Tastes was transformed with a makeover including new furniture and living walls.  A Head Waiter was added along with three Senior Waiters and assistant waiters and people from the bar team to offer a new dining experience.  The cuisine is tapas served family style representing different areas of the world.  

Silk debuted on Crystal Symphony after its dry dock last year and we dined there in May of this year.  We look forward to dining at Silk on Serenity when we return later this year.

We enjoyed a fabulous meal.  Although the venue will change we don't think of it as our "last supper".  LOL.

Although it was tempting to order every item on the menu for one last "taste" that would not have been a good idea.

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This is the menu from Tastes.
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​We enjoyed the Squash Salad (Anne Marie), Greek Octopus Salad (Keith), Oven Roaded Cauliflower, Alsatian Tart, Gambas, Chermoula Baked Salmon,  California Street Tacos, Chimichurri Steak, and Saffron-Marianted Lamb Chops.
 
We asked for only one or maybe two courses at a time so the food kept warm and that we had plenty of time to savor the taste of the food and just enjoy a relaxing evening and the waiter did an excellent job on this.
 
The waiters not only use the hand held devices to take the orders but they can control when the orders are sent back to the galley.  For example we ask for eight items but he might send just two of them back to the kitchen or he could send them all so they can prep some of the items but instruct them not to cook them until he/she follows up.  
 
The assistant waiters will also bring the orders out  to the table and clear dishes and the Head Waiter will help where required.
 
We had an absolutely amazing dinner.
 
You may notice that we didn’t have any dessert or if we did we didn’t mentioned it.  Full disclosure…..We had some of the left over  Birthday Cake

Serenity left port at Midnight as the drive to our next port of call is a short distance.  

We began the day as we usually do with exercise and a light breakfast.

We arrived to Alicante Spain at 8:00 AM.

After the ship was cleared we took the port shuttle to the entrance of the port.  Unfortunately there was no shuttle bus and our experience is that when this happens and the town is not steps away it is because a shuttle bus is not permitted. Often this is to give the taxis the benefit of no competition.

The walk to town is about 20 to 25 minutes.  In Reflections they noted that without shade the walk might be challenging but given the time of year we decided to go ahead and walk to town.

​We arrived to Alicante, Spain this morning.  This city has a population of 350,000 people and was founded by the Ancient Greeks in 325 BC.  The Moors ruled here for over five centuries.
 
Major attractions include:
 
Castillo de Santa Barbara which is one of the largest medieval fortresses in Spain.
 
MARQ Archaeological Museum  which shows visitors the various methods and techniques associated with archaeology.
 
Explanada de Espana is a boulevard that is covered with 6.6 million red, black and cream tiles stretched around the marina.  
Mercado Central which is the central market of Allicante and built between 1911 and 1912.
 
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Alicante which is a municipal museum that exhibits mainly 20thcentury art.
 
 

As soon as Serenity was cleared, we walked off the ship and took the port bus that takes you on a five-minute drive and drops guests outside the port area.  From there we walked to the Explanada de Espana.  

We made a right turn and walked for quite awhile with the beach on our right side.  The tiles were amazing and looking down they looked three dimensional.  There were some people out and about walking like us and/or running.  The temperature was 63 degrees (F)
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We admired some buildings across the main street towards the city centre.  There was interesting scenery on both sides between the sand/palm trees/water and behind some of the buildings were hills.

Eventually we turned back and this time after getting back to our starting point we continued further up in the other direction with a different type of pavement on the ground and a beautiful yacht marina on our left.  We saw several kayak boats with people practicing for a competition.  All of this was very beautiful.

Next we reversed course and walk for a while and then crossed over to walk the city centre.  Once again the tiles changed in style and color reminding us of tiles you see in Rio and Portugal.   We walked up several streets in the city centre and passed by lots of restaurants and cafes and places selling pastries.  We visited Catendral De San Nicolas, and walked some of the residential areas.
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After a few hours it was time to return home to Crystal Serenity having seen another port of call for the very first time.  We see why this is a place that many people within Europe will visit for Holiday and was a joy to see for ourselves.

Once on-board Serenity we enjoyed lunch and our usual set of afternoon activities.

This evening we will be back in the Crystal Dining Room for dinner and attend the Crystal Society Reception.

Anne Marie & Keith