Leisurely River Cruising on the Gil Eanes

It’s been an enjoyable cruise and we’re glad we signed up for it.

That’s the consensus opinion of the Five Amigos (as Brian describes our family group).

The Gil Eanes, named for a 15th century Portuguese explorer, was built by French-owned CroisiEurope Cruises in 2015. It holds only about 130 passengers, mainly French with some Americans and Spaniards added to the mix.

It’s very relaxed, even laid back, with a friendly and impressively multilingual crew, and its highlight is its French cuisine. The ship serves only one set menu but will offer you an alternative dish if you don’t like choice. We’ve only been disappointed once, and that was a salty cod served as part of the Portuguese-themed dinner.

Today we sailed back down the Douro to the “home dock” across the river from Porto. There are free optional excursions offered most days and a modest on-board activity program.

As with most rivers, the Douro offers changing views, and this somewhat foggy Sunday was no exception.

We again traversed the tallest lock in Europe before traveling through this lock at the side of a large dam.

Ellyn leans out for a look and decides to snap a photo.

Some of us watch in the comfort of the forward (and only) lounge.

Later we “raft dock” against a sister ship.





Todays lunch is typically enjoyable, starting with shared Portuguese charcuterie.

The main course includes a langoustine and a portion of sole.

Tonight, the fourth night of our five night cruise, includes a reception and “gala dinner,” meaning we’ll dress up a little.

It’s been a pleasant way to explore a scenic corner of Portugal. Here are a few views of our Friday shore excursion.

Gala night…

Up Portugal’s Lazy Douro River on CroisiEurope Cruises

As we get ready for bed in our tiny cabin for the second night of a five-night cruise on Portugal’s Douro River, the Iberian Peninsula, we reflect on the fact that getting there is not always half the fun.

Kathy and Brian had it easy. We did have to switch Houston airports from IAH to HOU at the last minute, but our flight to Dallas was flawless and we spent some time in the American Airlines Flagship Lounge before boarding our 777 for Frankfurt.

We fly to Frankfurt on AA70.

The ride is choppy between Iceland and Ireland but we get a few hours of sleep before landing at 7:30 am.

The Airport Hilton has a room ready for us at 9:00 am. Actually, we find ourselves in a junior suite. We’ve heard that Hilton Lifetime Diamonds are recognized in Europe, and are happy to confirm that in person.

We nap and then visit our favored FRA restaurant, Paulaner, for a hearty German lunch.

We nap again and spend an hour in the Hilton Executive Lounge, and then we sleep some more. It helps to learn that Tom, Ellyn, and Greg overcame deicing delays at Durango and made their connection at Denver on United Airlines.

The following morning we meet up with Tom, Ellyn and Greg in Terminal 1 without any difficulty and spend some time in a Lufthansa Senator Lounge before boarding our LH flight to Porto (Oporto in Portuguese) Portugal.

We had booked a car in advance and Antonio drove us in his large van to our river boat smoothly and efficiently through the hilly streets of Portugal’s second largest city.

We board CroisiEurope’s Gil Eanesand and are escorted to our tiny cabins.

This is a French-owned company and the food so far is excellent.

Canard…

Profiteroles…

The sightseeing along the Douro River is beautiful.

As we awaken Saturday morning after our second of five nights aboard, we’re looking forward to more of the same.

A Corner Room and a Cancelled Flight in Houston

It was a beautiful intimate wedding on a rainy Houston day.

Kathy’s nephew and his bride had planned a ceremony in a gazebo on the grounds of Brenner’s on the Bayou, one of Houston’s best known restaurants.

They wisely moved it into their private dining room, and we arrived in time to see an earlier wedding party getting soaked in the gazebo. Inside it was dry.

We thoroughly enjoyed the wedding, the dinner, and the chance to spend some time with two of Kathy’s nieces, a nephew (the groom), a grandniece and grandnephew, and of course her youngest brother (the father of the groom), with whom we hope to meet up in Frankfurt in a couple of days.

Our downtown hotel was the C. Baldwin, Curio Collection by Hilton. We’ve stayed in corner rooms, but this was really a corner room.

Experienced travelers that we are, we moved out to the IAH Doubletree the night before our flight and went to bed early. Brian awakened at some point and noticed our flight to Dallas had been cancelled. That captures any traveler’s attention.

AA had already rebooked us, and we noticed only when retrieving our boarding passes that our flight was out of HOU, the small Houston Hobby Airport, rather than IAH, Bush Intercontinental Airport. Another day, another 30-minute Uber ride at 5:30 AM before the heavy traffic started.

We’d experienced a similar switch between airports back in April with grandson Jace (ORY to CDG - actually two switches in total), so this is déja vu, as the French would say.

We’re starting this travel day tired, which may help us sleep on our DFW-FRA flight.

We’ll see if any more travel surprises lie ahead.

Dress to Travel or Travel to Dress

As we make plans to set off on a trip with a mildly complicated itinerary later today, we looked back on what we wrote in 2009, Packing It in.  We've written several posts about packing since then (our favorite documents the time we packed two separate rollaboards for back-to-back trips to Quebec City and Hong Kong and managed to take the wrong one to Quebec City), but our modus operandi remains the same as it was in 2009.

We maintain a check list of travel requirements that we review before every trip.

We review the weather forecast at our destinations and pack accordingly.

We cross our fingers that we haven't forgotten anything.

Our journey starts this afternoon with flights from Bellingham to Seattle to Houston (Alaska upgraded us to First last night on both flights - Yay!). Tomorrow we attend a nephew's wedding and reception in Houston.

After a couple of days in Houston, we fly to Dallas to catch a flight to Frankfurt that we managed to upgrade using the awards provided to Alaska's 100,000-mile (100K) flyers. Those have been very difficult to use, and we're not all that disappointed they're going away. 

After an overnight stay in Frankfurt at the Airport Hilton, we'll meet up with Tom, Ellyn, and Greg, Kathy's two brothers and one of her sisters-in-law, and fly together on Lufthansa to Porto, Portugal. There we board a CroisiEurope five-night cruise on the Duro River. 

After the cruise, we plan to spend a couple of nights in Evora, a small city recommended to us. We'll then go by train to Lisbon, where we board Oceania's Marina, a ship we know well, for our umpteenth transatlantic cruise, this one to Miami, with stops in Madeira, Antigua, and Puerto Rico before we dock in Miami Thanksgiving Day and fly home. 

Our challenge is to board Marina in clean clothes, ready to make use of their free laundromats. We remind ourselves that we'll be lifting those rollaboards into overhead compartments on planes and carrying them on and off trains. 

"Dress to travel" is still the way to go for us.