Cruise Day 3: La Valletta, Malta

Today's port of call was La Valletta, Malta. Strangely, we didn't need to take our passports, just our Key to the World card and a photo id. We didn't have anything in Malta we were super excited to do; we really just wanted to see what it was like. So, we planned for a couple of the top tourist spots that are a short walk into town.

May 17

The cruise ship docks fairly early in the morning, and disembarking starts around 8:30am, so we got up at 7. Today, we decided to have breakfast at Lumiere's, which serves a pretty nice assortment of food. I had eggs benedict, Danny tried to get something that approximated granola with fruit and yogurt, but they didn't understand what he wanted and he ended up with some flavored yogurt with granola sprinkles on top.

Today's port of call was La Valletta, Malta. Strangely, we didn't need to take our passports, just our Key to the World card and a photo id. We didn't have anything in Malta we were super excited to do, we really just wanted to see what it was like. So, we planned for a couple of the top tourist spots that are a short walk into town. The town is fortified, and on a hill, so it's a bit of a hike from the water to get into the town, but not too bad. The town itself looks and feels European. Since the town is on a hill, you can frequently see the sea at the end of the streets, in any of 3 directions. The stonework of the town, especially on the approach, is very monochromatic. Everything is the one light brown color that can be quarried locally. Another interesting thing about Malta is that although they do have their own language, English was spoken everywhere, and all the signs were in English. This has to do with the relations that the knights of St. John had with the British crown in order to get their island back.

Fortifications of Valletta, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Valletta port, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

We saw St. John's co-cathedral first, which looks quite plain on the outside, but is heavily decorated on the inside. One of the more unusual things about this church is the floor - it's made up of hundreds of multi-colored marble slabs, each bearing a different pictorial memorial to a knight or noble. When you can see a lot of them, it almost looks like a tapestry.

St. John's, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

From Cruise 2010 - Ports

The next stop was the Armory and royal apartments. We wandered through the royal apartments, but there wasn't a lot to see there. Only a few of the rooms were open, so we saw a dining room and a pre-dinner lounge room, and a meeting hall. What we really came for was the Armory. This was divided into two sections, one for weapons and one for armor. The weapons room had swords, crossbows, pikes, cannon, and an array of flintlock pistols and rifles. The armor room had displays on the different types of helmets, and a large number of suits of armor from the Renaissance. The centerpiece was about 6 suits of very high quality armor, some of which had belonged to Grand Masters from the 1500s.

Part of the Armory, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

We'd hoped that we might find a beach and go swimming, but after looking at the maps the night before, I'd determined that the closest one was two towns to the north on a bus, so we decided not to do that. Instead we did a little bit of shopping, picking up a few bottles of exotic liqueur - a carob and orange, a prickly pear, and a fig and date, all made in Malta. We sampled the prickly pear in the shop, and it was unusual and good. We've since opened the carob and orange and it was interesting, but not that great. The orange flavor is too subtle and overall it reminds me of a much smoother version of Jagermeister. In addition to the liqueur, I bought a filigree maltese cross to use for costuming.

We also wanted to start the live blogging, so we needed to find a free wireless spot (the internet on the ship is $0.75/minute, and very, very slow) to upload our posts. The map that Disney provided had the free wireless spot in the wrong place, so it took a bit of walking around to find it, but we were able to connect at a restaurant right on the dock.

When we got back on the ship, we had a couple hours before dinner. The weather was sunny and slightly warm, so we decided to go for a swim in the ship's pool. We tried both the adult and the mixed pool, and the adult pool was the warmest pool I've ever been in. Someone told me later that it had gotten up to 90 degrees (there's apparently a TV channel with all the pool temperatures on it). As we were swimming, the time came to depart, and the captain announced that he would momentarily be blowing the ship's whistle from the forward funnel. I'd head that the whistle was fun, but didn't know what it was exactly, and wondered why a warning was necessary. It turns out the warning is because the whistle is really loud, especially when you're in the pool right in front of the forward funnel. It's not a regular whoo-whoo, or a whooo-gggaaa, but the Disney musical signature, "when you wish upon a star" in the very deep and resonating tones appropriate to a large ship. It was so loud and so Disney that we couldn't help but laugh.

Dinner tonight was at the Animator's Palette restaurant. This is well known for being a show worth seeing. We'd gotten a preview of the restaurant from our emergency drill, so I wasn't surprised by it. The restaurant is decorated entirely in black and white when you arrive, and the waiters are dressed in that as well. The walls are decorated with pictures of characters in various Disney movies, and as the dinner goes on, they light up in full color as the music from their movie plays in the background, or various hero/villain/lover medleys play. Since we knew somewhat what was going to happen, we dressed in our brightest, most colorful outfits - Danny in purple jeans, purple shirt, and purple tie, and me in sea blue jeans, and a bright green shirt with a blue zebra on it. Toward the dessert time, our servers said goodbye and enjoy the show. They disappeared while the scenes became colored, and then reappeared moments later in multicolored vests and led by Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey. A dance ensued, and the room became fully colored. It was a fun show, especially with Magic Mickey, but I think my expectations had been built too high.

Our most colorful outfits, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

One of the main courses, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

After dinner, we peeked in on another dead dance, and then went to the comic magician. We only caught the last half of the show, but he was entertaining enough to get us laughing pretty quickly. After the show, we went back to our room, did some Tunis planning, and went to bed.

Elephant, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat