Christmas on AIDA

Lots of people are against cruises, for a good reason. 

Despite our own reservations, my family and I decided to spend Christmas on AIDA Nova cruising around the Canary Islands for a week. 

Why? We were a little tired of the same Christmas traditions year after year that low-key stress everybody out even though we tell us every year again that there's nothing to be stressed about and we don't even do so much that could even cause any stress but still. So we wanted to be together but not do Christmas really. I think we succeeded in that and I would do it again minus the cruise part. Enjoying 20°C sunshine when everybody else is in the gray Germany Christmas stress is a very good alternative, if you ask me.

I very nearly didn't write a post about the trip because of the negative role model that going on cruises is, not to mention flying as far as Africa for only a week. Should I defend it? There's little reason to. Should I say only negative things about it? No, because we had a nice time, even if we didn't feel completely comfortable on the ship. 

But now with the whole world being locked in their own homes due to the Corona-Crisis, I have more time on my hands and am in need of something creative to do, plus you might enjoy the imaginary journey that reading travel blog posts take you on. Also, we always hear the negative sides about cruises but rarely ever coming from someone who has experienced one. With this post, you get a first-hand account of what it was like for us. 

So, firstly, here's a video that will give you mostly an impression of the landscapes: 

This is the route our ship took: We flew into Gran Canaria where I met my family, then went to Madeira (including two days on sea to go there and go back), Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, and then back to Gran Canaria. 

https://aida.de/finden/NO07201107/PREMIUM?id=18582

On our and their behalf, I have to say that AIDA NOVA is the first ship that is fuelled 100% by natural gas and not by diesel like the other cruise ships, giving it the "blue angel" of being nature-friendly. It's still not eco-friendly to travel on cruise ships, though, so in my view this is a good start but not nearly enough, if cruise ships can be justified at all. 

Also, why does a cruise ship have to have 20 decks, 17 restaurants, 6 pools, 3000sqm spa and 2500 cabins? That's just unnecessary luxury and far too big. 

We had already been on another AIDA cruise in 2006 when I was maybe 16 or so and back then I didn't like the way you're being shipped around and unloaded at scenic spots being very touristy - I was itching to travel independently and not quite as sheltered, which I got to do in my Gap Year in 2010-2011. The rest of my family had been on another trip around the Middle East, and now we were tempted again by the big variety of foods and the comforts of the all-inclusive journey. 

We boarded the ship in Cran Canaria on the 22nd of December. My sister and I shared an inside cabin whereas our parents had a balcony cabin. This meant we were pretty far apart inside the ship and with there being only expensive ship-wifi we had no means of communicating on board other than using the cabin phones, or when we were on land and could use our roaming. On the first morning, we were on the sea and we hadn't agreed on a meeting point or time and I ended up walking the ship up and down for half an hour in search of my parents. After that, I knew my way around, after all. 

mini-golf area

one of the whirpools

The first day was a sea-day on the way to Madeira, which is 750km from Gran Canaria. We didn't do much apart from lying around, eating and watching a show in the Atrium. The show was great, though, it reminded me of the Friedrichstadt-Palast shows in Berlin. 

They only showed it one evening, unfortunately, which I didn't understand at all as I would have watched it at least two more times if I would have been able to.

Early the next morning, the ship anchored in Funchal, Madeira. In the morning, I walked around Funchal with my parents, we had some nice, strong, and cheap coffee and enjoyed the city with its glittery Christmas decorations in 20°C warmth.

alllll the fruits in the market hall

In the afternoon, I had booked a Santa Maria cruise with my sister and we got to sit around on the sailing boat enjoying the view and spotting dolphins and big rock formations. We could have booked the same cruise for half the price on-site and not through the AIDA travel agency but oh well, it was a nice afternoon and we couldn't have known. It's generally fine to get to the harbours and book activities from there, they´re usually much cheaper than booking the activities through the activity center on the ship.

They served us local sweet dessert wine that tasted like Marsala and some nut cake which compensated the fact that the swimming stop didn't happen, even if we probably wouldn´t have wanted to swim after all as it wasn't quite warm enough for it. 

In the evening, we set sail again (the engine kind), listened to the typical Enya "Sail Away" song that is played on board when leaving a harbour, and watched the glittering Funchal slowly slip away in the dark night. 

Christmas Eve

The next day was a sea day again as we had to get back all the way to the Canaries and I took part in one of the gym classes, a zumba-style dance class. Have you ever tried dancing with the waves moving the earth around you? It´s quite challenging but adds an extra level of fun to the whole thing. 

The day was normal, but in the evening most people dressed up in nice dresses and headed to dinner. We also dressed in our Christmas dresses and had some champagne in the restaurant Bella Donna, which also served some red cabbage, goose, dumplings, and other christmassy foods. 

Afterwards, there was some Christmas singing in the Atrium with the staff singing in their local languages on the stage and then the guests singing "Stille Nacht" in German. It feels very far away now but it was quite nice then. We didn't give each other presents that Christmas, as a) we had been feeling for a while now that presents meant mostly unnecessary consumption, and b) the cruise was our gift to ourselves after all. 

Day 4: Tenerife

My mom and I went on a bus tour to the green North of the island while dad and Jule rented an e-motorbike and rode aorund the island in a small group. The bus trip was ok, it was fun to put our bare feet in the black sand and see all the green foliage, the banana plantations, and hear about the history and culture of the place from our local bus guide, like the fact that the Canaries used to be a strategically important point on the sea-route of the Spaniards en-route to South America with its location in between both places and off the African coast.

Day 5: Fuerteventura

Finally, I got to do an activity that I had wanted to do very badly: an e-bike-tour around the island. I wanted to be active, not the passive watcher from the bus. I loved the tour and the scenery on the island. It was completely different to tropical, green Tenerife with its red, sandy and rocky desert landscape. 

There was a big group of a familys and their friends on the tour that was behaving like idiots and my dad spend some time bickering with them. It was a good tour nonetheless, even if we managed to lose the group in the end and my dad decided to not listen to the advice the guide had given us before and not wait until the guide came back for us which resulted in us finding the group again but without the guide who had gone looking for us.

In the summer, this must be a pretty intense place. 

By now, we were pretty tired of the restaurant foods as they weren't very inventive but more playing-it safe family classics such as Schnitzel, chips, and so on. In the huge variety, we had become super picky and only ate the same things over and over again. 

I can't leave the fact unmentioned though that for breakfast there were like 7 varieties of milk, including banana milk, soy milk, low fat, oat milk etc. Also, they have fruit bars where you can go, choose a fruit and they will cut it up for you. Papaya, maracuja, mnom!!

Lanzarote

Just a short ship-ride away was the next stop, Lanzarote. We had booked a day trip to a little island next to it as a family and enjoyed this trip very much. 

Caleta del Sebo on La Graciosa

The island was called La Graciosa and it was, in fact, quite gracious. It has a very laid-back feeling to it and we first wandered around the little village with no paved streets but only sand between the houses which was great for its surfer-vibe, and made friends with the locals. 

Afterwards, we boarded another small boat which took us to a beach where we swam, kayaked and snorkelled for some time. All to soon we had to get back on the boat where they served us paella and sangria in the sunshine. Don't forget that this was two days after Christmas, so this felt pretty special. 

It was our last day, on the next day we only got back to Gran Canaria and boarded our planes in the afternoon/evening to get back to cold and wintery Germany. 

All in all, it was some nice family time, but the cruise ship thing is not okay. It's a luxury which our society can't afford any longer, if you ask me. It's too much, too big. 

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News from everyday life

Jan and I just moved into our own apartment in Herrenberg, which is also where my school is. The apartment is great, spacious, and very bright, and so far we're loving it. Moving in together in Corona self-isolation times means you get a lot of time for settling in and I was afraid it was going to be too much for the first weeks - to move in together and spend so much time with each other right away - but it was totally fine and we settled into a nice routine quickly. 

We bought second-hand e-bikes as my old bike is a city bike with only two working gears and we'd like to be able to explore our surroundings with some comfort (if we didn't have those bikes, we wouldn't be doing those tours at all, so...). There is great nature around us: we're just 300m away from the city borders, there are meadow orchards after that and the Swabian Alb that starts after that which is a low tree-covered mountain range. We can also walk up the castle hill from our apartment and enjoy the city view from above. It's a boring walk up but once you're up there you can see all the surroundings for the next dozen kilometres (I´m bad at guessing but that's how it feels). Tübingen is only 14 km away and we're about 2 km from the train stop which goes directly into Stuttgart and also to Jan's work without having to change so that's nice. 

We have a big balcony with a large garden sofa on it on which we eat lunch most days. 

I applied to get a small allotment next to our school but it's unclear when we can get one, so for now I'm starting to plant some veggies on this very balcony. 

Soon, I'll know in what way school starts again but I guess it's not going to be in the normal way. We have to see but so far I'm finding Corona self-isolation life less stressful than  normal life, even if  I do miss it. 

So, that's that for now, I hope you're all safe and happy!

Greetings :)