P&O Azura 14 Night Mediterranean Cruise – Day 12: Gibraltar

The last stop on this cruise is Gibraltar and this would be my third visit.

Mr FFFand I have previously done a tour of the rock and been to the siege tunnels and we found both very impressive but this time, we just hit the shops where I managed to get myself a pair of shoes for a bargain price as well as picking up a couple of gifts.

Unfortunately, we were in port at an odd hour: 07:30-13:30 so it didn’t leave time for much else. We didn’t see the point in going ashore before 9am as I doubt much would’ve been open.

Once back on board, we had lunch before finding a spot on the promenade deck from which to view sail away and hopefully spot some of the dolphins that the water off Gibraltar is renowned for. Unfortunately we were in for a bit of a wait as there was a family of 4 who were late getting back to the ship. I don’t know if they thought we were back on ‘home’ time but they were almost an hour late and if it hadn’t been for the fact that they were brought from the dockyard gate to the ship in a port vehicle, they still would’ve been past the all aboard time even wirh the 1hr time difference. However, this did give us plenty of opportunity to admire the views of Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of The Seas who was berthed alongside us as well as one of the Saudi Royal Family’s yachts.

Anyway, with them safely back onboard, we headed out into the bay where we were treated to a fantastic acrobatics show by dozens of dolphins. This is the first time I’ve seen any on this cruise and, although I’ve spotted them on previous cruises, I’ve never seen them leaping so high out of the water as I did today. It was really spectacular to watch.

Following nature’s show, we went to see the early showing of today’s theatre show ‘Astonishing’. Designed by Stephen Mulhearn and Johnathan Wilkes, it saw the ships singers and dancers performing a selection of illusions including one which the audience participated in. Although it was obvious how some of the tricks were performed, the quality of the performance, costumes and visual effects was stunning.

And so to dinner which tonight was in the ship’s specialty Indian restaurant, Sindhu.

Between us we ordered a real variety from the menu including tiger prawns with pineappple, Tamilian siced chicken with coconut relish and and beef pepper fry on a flatbread that was as crispy and butteru as flaky pastry.

Mains saw us ordering lobster with seafood biryani in a coconut and mango sauce, tandoori chicken and theor speciality, a trio of curries. These portions were huge but on top of that, they also brought us extra rice, lentil dhal and a Bombay potato dish.

Even though I hadn’t eaten everything that had been put in front of me, I was feeling pretty full and so I broke with my tradition of ordering the chocolate option and instead ordered the mango and passionfruit parfait with chilli glass. It was a great choice as it was light and refreshing but still felt indulgent. Mr FFF chose the kulfi trio and MIL chose the cardamom bread and butter pudding with ginger custard. I never would’ve thought to add ginger to custard but again, it’s something I’ll possibly be doing in future as it worked really well.

The food was all delicious and the service was fantastic. With the added bonus of poppadoms, an amuse bouche, pre-dessert and pettit fours, we thought it was excellent value at £20pp and was possibly the best food we’ve had on this cruise which is saying something as it’s all been very good.

We had considered taking in another show after dinner but we were all so full that we decided to take a quick stroll on the promenade deck, where we caught the end of a beautiful sunset, befote retreating to our cabins and succumbing to the inevitable food coma!