We live on the Costa Blanca, Spain, half way between Malaga and Barcelona, and decided to sail from Malaga and have Barcelona as our first Port of Call. We drove down to Malaga on Monday afternoon and stayed at the Hotel Malaga Monte which is opposite the Port of Malaga. Very good hotel and not too expensive. We booked our car into a long stay car park at the Port with Red Parking Puerto (very good service).

Embarkation was very quick and efficient as there were not many people embarking in Malaga and we were in our cabin by 11.35. We had a balcony cabin which was more than adequate.

On our first night we dined in the Le Bistro as it was my birthday, good food and excellent service. On our second night we dined in Papa's Italian and again the food was very good. We tried the Grand Pacific once but found it too big and after that we always went to the Alizer. We very rarely had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table. We thought that wine was over priced but this is probably because we can get such good inexpensive wine here in Spain. Read more