Finally, A Vacation On Instagram (Vol. 2)

My long overdue cruise recap (with pics!)

If you are one of the 15k people and/or bots who follow my Instagram (and let’s face it - why would anyone subscribe to my Substack but not follow me on Instagram?), then you’re probably already aware that one month ago I went on another Virgin Voyages cruise with my sister. I wanted to do this recap right away, but I made the mistake of getting the two disposable cameras we took on the trip developed at Walgreens, a process I have since learned takes one calendar month. And what good is a trip recap without a bunch of retro-looking of my sister and I looking glamorous in far-flung locations?

The pics arrived last week along with two CDs that I had to buy an external CD port to access. Finally, I was ready to write my recap. Though I should probably answer the most pressing question on all of my 15k followers and/or bots’ minds first…

How do I afford to go on all these luxury cruises?

The answer: I don’t. My friend works for the cruise line as such has the truly incredible superpower of being able to bestow cruises upon her friends. Without my magical friend and her special powers, I would never have been able to afford this cruise - or any cruise, really. And if I’m being perfectly honest, I didn’t so much “afford” this cruise as I did “accrue a significant amount of credit card debt that I have yet to pay off.”

Now that that’s settled, here are the deets:

Day 1-2: Board the cruise in Barcelona

outfit deets: top from Cider, shorts from Old Navy, hat from Amazon (clipped to my carry-on with these incredible little hat clip things)

I’ll start my recap off with a recommendation to anyone who plans to fly to Europe from the east coast: take a red-eye. I flew out of JFK at 11:45 pm and arrived in Barcelona at 1:30 pm. At some point on the journey, biology overtook comfort and I even got some sleep. Once I arrived at BCN all I had to do was take my ADHD meds and - voila! I was refreshed and ready to take on Spain with minimal jet lag.

I did, however, make one critical error in booking my flight out by using a third-party app. I did this because it allowed me to freeze the price while I waited for some crucial direct deposits to hit, but it also meant that none of my mobile boarding passes worked and I almost missed my flight because the gate changed unexpectedly last minute and I had no idea what was going on. Never again.

My sister and I spent a lovely 24 hours in Barcelona before leaving in which we stayed at one of the airport hotels because it was the cheapest option and - like I said - we were only there for one day. It was here that I decided I would eat oysters at every single one of our destinations. My sister doesn’t eat oysters so this meant at each destination I housed a tray of oysters all to myself - true luxury. On day two we boarded the Valiant Lady where we had a reservation at the ship’s Mexican restaurant, Pink Agave, which ended up being our favorite. I recently saw a TikTok from a person who did not like the Virgin Voyages cruise because they said they could never find any food. All due respect to that creator…but this was simply not my experience.

It is here that I should tell you that over the duration of the cruise, I gained nine pounds and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the oysters.

Day 3: Sweat your little titties off in Marseilles

outfit deets: Amazon hat, Stan smiths, romper from Nuuly, fanny pack from a little shop in Havana that I’d link here but they were kicked off Etsy because the embargo is bullshit.

Prior to this trip I’d been to France exactly once with an ex-boyfriend who I stayed with way longer than I needed to because I’m a Taurus who hates change his parents were going to fly us out to visit them in London that summer and I really wanted to go. This included a brief trip to Paris where I saw all the Paris things (Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles) and got really, really sick from some beef tartare. TBH tat was probably some sort of cosmic punishment for using my honestly very nice ex for a free trip in the way that I did, but oh well. It was worth it. I got to do the Harry Potter studio tour and everything.

As for this trip, Marseilles was very beautiful but simply too hot to be enjoyed. We enjoyed some pretty good weather for most of the trip, but that first day in Marseilles was simply brutal. After I had eaten my requisite oysters we hustled our asses back to our air-conditioned sea-palace and ate at Test Kitchen, the experimental cuisine “laboratory.” I’d already been there once on my last cruise and we were served the exact same menu. This time the magic had worn off and I realized that an egg yolk surrounded by peas is simply not enough food, even if it is served on a bed of smoke that smells like apples. After we were done we promptly went down to the galley to indulge in a second dinner.

Did I mention I gained 9 pounds?

Day 4: Beach clubbing in Cannes

outfit deets: pants from a Cider two-piece set, ta3 swim/body suit

When we arrived in Cannes the film festival had just ended and it seemed like 90% of the city was under construction in preparation for the next one. To make the construction less visible to tourists, the city put up large temporary walls covered in red-carpet photos of assorted celebs during their time in Cannes. Unfortunately, this also covered up the entire view of the coastline. Personally, I’d rather look at a beach with some construction than random red-carpet photos of Salma Hayek in 2003, but maybe that’s just me. Salma Hayek is very beautiful.

After walking the construction-laden coastline ended we made it to a beach club, where for a nominal fee we were given access to some lounge chairs and an umbrella and commenced drinking champagne by the sea. It was at this point that we took some mushrooms I had acquired and realized they were significantly more potent than we’d anticipated. If you’ve never taken mushrooms and waded into the Mediterranean, I highly recommend it.

portrait of a woman unexpectedly tripping balls by the sea

That night we ate at The Wake, aka the ship’s fancy-ass steakhouse where I had - if you can believe it - the steak. It comes in a solid third in our on-ship restaurant ranking.

Day 5: Chasing olives in Mallorca

Day five of the cruise was our first day “at sea” and was also the best. We lounged by the pool and I read my ludicrously capricious book (pictured above) and we ended up skipping our dinner reservation because we ate far too much fried pulpo (that’s octopus for the uninitiated) at a surprise Greek-themed event called “Opa Hour.”

When we finally docked in Palma we disembarked only to find a long line of cruise Karens (a very particular type of Karen) who were absolutely incensed that there were no taxis available. One woman, who we will call Queen Cruise Karen, had the most rancid energy of anyone my sister and I had encountered and we immediately made a plan to just walk 50-ish minutes to the city center rather than stay even one moment longer in her cursed presence.

(If you can’t already tell, we’d also already taken more mushrooms.)

This ended up being an amazing decision because it allowed us to harshly judge rich people’s yachts as we walked along the docks to a 600-year-old olive tree I saw on Pinterest.

Portrait of two women tripping in front of a 600-year-old olive tree.

outfit deets: dress from Nuuly (Nat’s top is from a store in Lisbon)

Day 6: Puking in a cave in Palma

On our second day in Palma we went on an “excursion” to the Dratch Caves, which I’d bought as a birthday present for Natalie. Maybe it was the mushrooms, maybe it was the oysters, but I ended up getting very sick in the caves and puked literally moments after we made our exit. (Props to my gastrointestinal system for realizing that letting loose while we were actually in the caves would have been like, a whole thing.)

The caves were very cool but also insanely crowded and full of babies who had no business being in a cave and made that clear by screaming constantly. The cave tour ended with a musical performance in which we sat in pitch darkness while a bunch of candlelit boats carrying violinists floated out from the depths of the cave and they played classical music. Despite multiple announcements, several people simply could not resist trying to film the performance on their phones with flash and were ejected from the cave, just like my lunch was ejected from my stomach once we were safely above ground. Afterward, I rallied long enough to buy some very beautiful Mallorcan pearl earrings.

None of the photos from inside the cave turned out but here’s a pic of the cute-ass dress I rented from Nuuly. I have dreams of buying it one day after my aforementioned cruise-induced credit card debt is handled.

After it was all said and done we ate at Razzle Dazzle, which had good food but a less concrete vibe than the other restaurants and we were served what ended up being frankly too much gazpacho. Too much gazpacho is still better than too little though so we ranked Razzle Dazzle at #5 and still well above Test Kitchen.

Day 7: So this is Ibiza…

outfit deets: Old Navy from head to toe (bikini top, skirt)

The next day was another “at sea” day which we used to take advantage of the ship’s spa. I covered myself in mud and relaxed on stone slabs. Unfortunately, my mellow was immediately harshed when I checked my phone and saw that the Supreme Court had overturned affirmative action, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Natalie believes the salt room gave her a runny nose.

Before heading out into Ibiza we had dinner at the ship’s Korean BBQ restaurant (#4 in our food ranking) in which you are randomly sat with other sailers and forced to play drinking games. Natalie and I misunderstood the menu and instead of ordering a sensible bottle of sake for two ordered an enormous bottle of vodka, which made our table mates think we were insane. Everyone on the ship was buzzing about attending a Calvin Harris show that night, which we considered doing until we heard he would not be going on until maybe 2 AM. It was at this point that I realized that perhaps Ibiza is not for me.

Once we got off the ship that hunch was confirmed. Ibiza is basically Las Vegas with much hotter people. We couldn’t walk two feet without being accosted by club promoters screaming “CHICAS! CHICAS!” and trying to convince us to come to their bar by offering free “shots” that were actually just sugary shooters that tasted disgusting. On the bright side, Natalie took an extremely beautiful photo of me which I immediately posted to Instagram to much fanfare.

portrait of a woman who just gained nine pounds

outfit deets: dress from Nuuly

Day 8: Port girl problems

outfit deets: yet another swimsuit from Old Navy which I paired with these pants (not pictured)

Day two in Ibiza was rainy and we were hung over (thanks disgusting shooters!) so we stayed on the ship and posted up on an upper pool deck where I once again tried to make a dent in my ludicrously capricious book.

On this night we ate at Extra Virgin, the Italian restaurant most people told us was their favorite on the ship but ended up being our #2 after Pink Agave.

Day 9: Back to Barcelona

outfit deets: pants from Cider, shirt from a random store on the side of the road because the one I was wearing was too hot and didn’t pair well with the pants and I looked like shit

We had a full day in Barcelona before it was time for our flight, which would have been annoying if Natalie hadn’t had a friend in the area who let us store their bags at their apartment. It was here that I enjoyed my last round of oysters before we went to the Barcelona airport, where I once again could not access any of my mobile boarding passes and was “randomly selected” for a security screening that I’m convinced was also because I booked through a weird app. Like I said, never again.

And now Substack is telling me this email is too long, so I suppose I’ll leave it there. And I didn’t even get to tell you about the ship-wide party known as Scarlet Night!

Perhaps another time…

Besitos,

xoxo

alise