The Day the Lights Went Out in Lisbon; We Just Partied On

Days 114-115, 2025 Grand World Voyage

Monday and Tuesday, April 28-29, 2025; Lisbon, Portugal, and Tangier, Morocco.

We were so excited to meet up in Barcelona with the Volendam, on its own grand pole-to-pole voyage, that we didn’t notice that both ships would meet up again just a few days later in Lisbon. And of course, we couldn’t have known that we would arrive there on the day the lights went out all over Portugal, Spain and parts of France and Italy.

The Volendam pulled to the pier in front of the Zuiderdam in the late morning, and I joined my sisters to just walk around the city. I sailed on the Windstar out of Lisbon five times in the 1990s and have returned on subsequent cruises. It’s a great city to explore on foot, full of patterned cobblestone streets, tiled buildings, sidewalk restaurants and great food.

Even before we left the cruise terminal, we reunited with friends we missed seeing in Barcelona, including Deb Arts, our watercolor instructor.

As we walked the few blocks to a pedestrian street lined with shops and cafes, we didn’t initially notice the storefronts were dark. We stopped at Manteigaria for Lisbon’s famous pastel de nata– an egg custard tart pastry – but they couldn’t serve coffee because their power was out.

As we moved on we learned it wasn’t a just local outage. It was all of Portugal, Spain and beyond. No one knew why, but the lines grew long at the ATMS. Thankfully, I had euros to fund our spending.

Despite the outage, we joined the throngs wandering the streets and eventually stopped for a still-cold beer. We were incented to walk back to the pier when it became obvious that few toilets were working, as the water pressure is driven by electric pumps. We ran into Jett and Kelly, who were taking advantage of the Volendam’s overnight stop to stay in a hotel – until the hotel closed and sent them packing back to the ship. Luckily, our ships generate their own power.

Capt. Frank delayed our departure by a couple of hours waiting for 10 passengers stuck in traffic to return. The Seattle office approved his plan to wait, as the passengers didn’t have their passports, couldn’t fly to our next port of Tangier as the airports were closed and wouldn’t have another chance to join the ship until a week later in Puerto Rico.

The delay cut short our visit to Tangier today, and I stayed on board. I had no specific plans as I was just here in December. I didn’t even take a photo of the city from the ship.

No worries. We had a grand seafood party on the Lido as we left, with stations serving lobster, mussels, crab and oysters and all the complementary beer and wine we wanted. (I hear they spent $40,000 in Lisbon for the shellfish.)

Just two nights ago was the Orange Party, celebrating the Dutch king’s birthday. All things orange, including wigs, came out, and the Rolling Stone Band had everyone on their feet for an evening of dancing.

I facetimed with Elaine on the Volendam – also in her orange wig – where the party was still a few minutes from starting and Eloise and Karen were celebrating.

Now we literally and figuratively are turning toward home. After six sea days crossing the Atlantic Ocean we will reach Puerto Rico, and then a couple of days later this grand world voyage will end in Florida. The days will be filled with more end-of-cruise parties, recognitions, packing and ultimately goodbyes. I, for one, am not ready.