Carnival Pride Europe Cruise Review: Day 7 – Gibraltarfeatured

I have a (fairly recent) love/hate relationship with port days.

I love exploring new places and finding new things to love about old favorites. I love the challenge of getting by in a place where I don’t speak the language. I love exploring new cuisines. I love the shopping — that goes without saying.

But I hate the early wake ups and the exhaustion that comes on port-heavy itineraries. My friends will say “Something something your vacation,” and I have a hard time calling any trip where I get less than five hours of sleep a night vacation. Some of that is controllable — I could go to sleep earlier, but then I’d miss out on more fun. First world problems.

There’s a nice middle ground, though: we generally only have to wake up early for port days where we’re on an organized tour. I can usually squeeze a little extra sleep in on days where we just explore on our own. So on our second full day onboard, when we docked in Gibraltar, I didn’t even wake up until we were long docked in port.

Gibraltar is a UK territory, a peninsula that juts out of Spain, separated from Africa by just the Strait of Gibraltar. Legend has it that Hercules, himself, in his infinite strength, created the Strait of Gibraltar when he separated Europe from Africa, creating the Hercules Pillars at the Rock of Gibraltar and the Jebel Musa in Africa.

Most people who travel to Gibraltar will want to visit the Rock of Gibraltar, a prominent rock structure so big it’s impossible to ignore from just about any part of Gibraltar (which is so small, by the way, that it’s only 2.6 square miles). You can do it on your own or you can do it via tour. We weren’t going to do it all — the Rock is home to dozens, maybe hundreds or more, of feral monkeys. And if you followed our trip to Malaysia back in 2019, you’ll know that one of the many things we don’t mess with is wild monkeys. They’re mean and they carry diseases. Instead, we decided we’d just explore on our own, walk to the city center and see what we found.

A leisurely port day used to mean port day breakfast in the main dining room, but they took the breakfast board (with that incredible house-made pastrami) off the menu, so we had a quick breakfast on Lido deck instead. Arepas from the Blue Iguana Cantina were the perfect consolation prize.

We disembarked just before 10:00 AM. Most folks had already disembarked so it was a quick and easy trip down to Deck A. The terminal at Gibraltar is small, but houses a duty free store, a craft boutique, a bar and an office for the tourism board. Outside, you’ll find taxi’s, independent tour operators and a shuttle to the city center for £4. If you opt to walk (like we did), it’s a quick 20-minutes that’s pretty flat with plenty of benches to stop at if you need a break.

There were many grocery stores and pharmacies on the walk over, but we also found many of them in the city center, as well, so if you need to pick up anything, Gibraltar is a great stop for it. Otherwise, if you just keep walking towards the Rock (or the posted signs), you can’t miss the city center.

The city center is just behind the sky high, stone wall’ed Grand Casemates Gates. Immediately, we found a bustling square with cafes, shops, pubs and even a Burger King! We grabbed a quick cold brew at Costa and plotted out our next moves. We knew there was a possibility of rain when we hit Portugal, so we added an umbrella to our shopping list!

Just beyond the city center is Main Street. If you ever weren’t sure who Gibraltar belonged to, it’s impossible to miss once you walk past Casemate Square into Main Street — there were British flags, posters of Queen Elizabeth and specials for the Queen’s Jubilee all over the place. It’s almost kitsch.

We popped into and out of some of the shops, picking up souvenirs and British candies. We snapped a ton of pictures. Despite the heavy British influence, I found Gibraltar to be a melting pot of many cultures — there were so many shops and cafes for different ethnicities and cultures, which was really cool to experience from this corner of the world.

Down one of the winding side streets, we found the Gibraltar Tea Company and figured that, since we were in the UK (technically), we should have a proper English tea service! Our afternoon tea was incredible (and only £19 per person— would have only been £24 if we wanted two hours of unlimited bubbly with it!) and the servers were warm and friendly.

Back onboard was around 3:30 in the afternoon and we didn’t want to cut it too close, so we headed back to the ship after tea. Well, we didn’t head straight back — we stopped at McDonalds because Stephanie wanted a “fountain Coke Light” (apparently, it is superior to all other Diet Cokes/Coke Light’s) and right next to McD’s, we found Morrison’s, a local grocery store. We love shopping at local grocery stores and this one was massive. It almost gave me, like, upscale Wal-Mart vibes? If we had more time, I would have roamed up and down every aisle but instead, we just picked up the essentials: more soda for Stephanie to carry back onboard (which she did with no problem) and some Cadbury chocolates. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different types of Cadbury chocolates — I was fascinated by it! They also had pharma, booze and clothes, so it truly was a one-stop shop for anything we could have forgotten or needed.

The walk back to the ship felt ten times as long with our heavy bags, but I couldn’t help but notice just how lovely Gibraltar was. It was clean, the residents were friendly, the streets were just covered in lush foliage and vibrant flowers. It was nearly 80 degrees, so it was very tropical, but even in the heat, it was such a pleasant walk with the breeze coming up off the water.

As we made our way through the terminal, we noticed that, while small, it offered quite a bit. In addition to a booth for the tourism board (where you can book tours and get tips on getting around), there was also a duty free shop, a local handicraft store and even a small bar.

We quickly made our way back onboard, dropped our bags back in the room (where our room steward had left some cookies for us!) and headed upstairs for lunch. Blue Iguana Cantina tacos never disappoint and the staff there are always helpful and willing to modify my order for me (steak tacos aren’t on the menu but they make them for me every time anyways!).

Even though we had a balcony cabin, we wanted a panoramic view of sailaway, so we headed down to Deck 4. One of our favorite parts of the Spirit-class ships is how linear they are — you can walk front to back in a straight line inside. And on deck 4, you can walk port to starboard side from the aft, offering unobstructed view as we sailed away. This one was particularly special because we were navigating through the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow waterway that separates Europe from Africa. From our vantage point, we could see Gibraltar, Spain and Africa all at the same time. And there were dolphins. In addition to being home to some very animated monkeys, Gibraltar’s waters house a large population of dolphins and they love swimming in the wake of the ship. We’d never seen dolphins outside of the Shedd Aquarium, so this was super special for us.

We headed back to the balcony for a few hours — it was just so beautiful out — and enjoyed the scenic cruising as we sailed along the Spanish coast (and caught more dolphins dancing across the water!).

Instead of dinner in the main dining room, we opted for a quick dinner up on the Lido deck, where they were doing a showing of The Lost City. We grabbed sandwiches from the deli (which didn’t have the makings to prepare all of the items on the menu without modifications, but had the kindest staff) and enjoyed them in the warm, late evening air.

Tonight’s entertainment was Chuck Wagner, a former Broadway (and General Hospital!) star. He put on a great set and was such an animated storyteller.

We took a walk out on the promenade after the show. Even after 10:00 PM, the sky was lit up with a beautiful dusk. It’s my favorite and least favorite part of cruising Europe at this time of year — the sunset is SO late, but it messes with my time perception so much! But we weren’t the only night owls — there was a deck party rocking up on the Lido deck and we couldn’t stay away from the fun upstairs.

The seas were a little rocky as we sailed towards our next stop in Lisbon, Portugal. But you know, for me, rocky seas just mean a great night of sleep and I’d need as much of that as I could get!