Pedro and I wrapped up our time in Europe with our first Transatlantic cruise on Costa’s Favolosa. We departed from Barcelona on November 25 with scheduled arrival in Santos (Sao Paulo) December 14 (19 nights).
She’s a 3,800 passenger ship and I think about 3,500 of those on our ship were Brazilian, so it was definitely a festive boat!!! Her maiden voyage was in 2011 so a fairly new ship. We nicknamed her the “Pasta Favolosa” because you literally had pasta at every meal. Costa is an Italian line so things are a bit different then the US ships; not bad, just different. There is definitely something different about boarding and unpacking for a 21 day voyage. We not only didn’t know the date, we eventually lost track of the day of the week about midway through our voyage. Food, entertainment, relaxation, and sailing. Quite relaxing!
The ports of call included: Cadice, Arrecife, Las Palmas, Recife, Maceio, Salvador Bahia, Ilheus, Rio de Janeiro and Santos (Sao Paulo).
Our sea days: we had a total of 10 sea days with 6 of them being the longest stretch between land. The seas were as calm as one could ask, with very little rocking and rolling. I think we only had one half day of rain and warmer weather each day as we made our way south. A truly perfect crossing!
We made a number of new friends on board. The main dining room had assigned seating and luckily for us, the foursome next to us were 2 lovely couples from Sao Paulo. Roberto & Marta and Tales and Ana Maria are lovely people who we quickly became fast friends with. We looked forward to each evening knowing that we could catch up from the days events with them.
Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures of another couple, Carlos and David, a lovely couple whom own a B&B in southern France. Carlos, originally from Brazil, and David, from the UK, are very nice folks we had the opportunity to share a few meals and show with.
We disembarked early, in Recife, Brazil, so that I would have the opportunity to spend some holiday time with Pedro’s family before heading back to the States to visit my mom for Christmas. Plus, we have two more Transatlantic’s scheduled in 2018 which between the two of them, cover the same ports. It was REALLY great getting to spend some time in Governador Valadares with our Brazilian family on a surprise holiday visit!
We’re off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for New Years and to celebrate Pedro’s birthday! We will be in Mexico for two months and after Vallarta, will be visiting Guadalajara, Mexico City, Merida, Cancun, Cozumel, and Playa del Carmen. Ms Nancy (Mom) along with Curtis and Jonathan will be joining us in Playa for Moms birthday and a belated wedding honeymoon for Curtis and Jonathan.
It has been an AMAZING 2017. Hard to believe that we left the US a little more then 6 months ago on our journey around the world. Below is a pretty accurate map of our journeys so far (compliments of the iOS app EveryPlace).
We have some fantastic destinations scheduled for 2018 and will be sharing those with you as we wander around this great, big beautiful world of ours. We look forward to making more friends and hope to see you out there, somewhere.
Until next time….
Original Sail Dates: November 25, December 8, 2017
Governador Valadares Dates: December 8, 2017 – December 15, 2017
É maravilhoso e um grande prazer fazer parte da história da vida de vocês…. Amo vocês P.S
Foi um prazer enorme estar com vcs.Temos saudades desse lindo casal. Amamos vcs. Só tem um probleminha: fiquei com um pouco de inveja, também gostaria de realizar essas tuas viagens. Brincadeira. Dia 21 iremos fazer um cruzeiro para Argentina e Uruguai. Em março iremos a Portugal. Em 23 de agosto faremos uma viagem de navio saindo de Veneza para as ilhas gregas através do MSC e, em novembro, faremos a travessia com o novo navio dessa mesma empresa. Quem sabe a gente se encontra.
Estamos torcendo por vcs. Bjs. Ana e Tales.