{"id":2706,"date":"2011-05-26T03:24:18","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T07:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_travel_adventures\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2022-05-05T00:27:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T04:27:00","slug":"where-are-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/where-are-we\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are we?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transatlantic Cruise on the Disney Magic May 2011 \u2013 Day 9 Madeira<\/p>\n

Cast of characters:<\/p>\n

Mic from The Magic for Less Travel<\/p>\n

Missy, from The Mouse for Less and of Minnesota mom\u2019s runaway to WDW fame, one of Mic\u2019s BFF\u2019s<\/p>\n

Ross, Missy\u2019s darling husband (aka DH)<\/p>\n

Mic here, after six wonderful days at sea\u00a0 with no obligations beyond showing up for trivia, the show and dinner, and those only if we \u201cfelt\u201d like it, we arrived in Funchal, Madeira.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We decided to skip the report on yesterday, while it was another wonderful day of relaxing for us, makes for a rather boring blog.\u00a0 BUT we did want to mention they let us into the lab to make FLUBBER!\u00a0\u00a0 Super cool, and yes some adults couldn\u2019t quite get it to work right.<\/p>\n

Madeira is a Portuguese Island off the north west coast of Africa.\u00a0\u00a0 (for those of you that know Nikki from Spain, these islands are north of the Spanish island Tenerife where she lives).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had really been hoping the stopover was Tenerife as it would have been great to see Nikki, and this was where the Magic stopped on its first transatlantic a few years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 Madeira is a well kept European secret, they do not get many American guests as you would have to fly to mainland Europe and catch a flight to Madeira.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Temperatures on Madeira hover around 70 degrees F year round.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The island was formed from a volcanic explosion and we got to see exactly how this works when we visited the caves on the north Coast.\u00a0 Madeira is known for Madeira wine (we didn\u2019t like it too much, it was very strong, and to me tasted like bad cooking sherry), wonderful fruits and tropical flowers, total population on the island is about 280,000, with 180,000 of those people living in Funchal.\u00a0\u00a0 As Madeira is so mountainous, most of the farm areas are terraces.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most families have either a small \u201cfarm\u201d area for their own consumption, or possibly they sell their fruit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bananas are big and grown at the lower elevations; up higher they would grow grapes for the wine.\u00a0\u00a0 As it\u2019s a small island many items had to be imported from the mainland.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We had originally planned a DCL excursion, but decided to cancel that and booked a private tour through Daniels Taxi Tours (I highly recommend them; I think we were all quite happy).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Upon arrival at the port there were traditional Madeira dancers and musicians playing in the terminal, then a photo op in a bobsled or cart type thing, which is steered down the mountain by two men (we opted out of doing this actual adventure).<\/p>\n

We were met outside by a driver with my name on a sign, his name was Oscar.\u00a0\u00a0 The owner of Daniels Taxi Tours was there as well, Daniel so we got to meet him.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We had two things on our priority list, the caves and seeing the Santana houses (super cute traditional houses that are only found in Santana apparently), and had asked Daniel\u2019s wife to build us a tour around them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately there had been a landslide on the north shore, and the road between the two was closed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So we had to choose one or the other.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As we felt the caves would give us much more information we chose to do the northwest side of the island.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0So we now had a new itinerary.<\/p>\n