Any one done a tour of Granada?

Malagà, Spain
The ship docks right in the downtown area of Malaga. If you do not want to take a tour, you can just walk into town. The reason for a stop here is to see Granada and the Alhambra. I would suggest the ship’s tour in this port – the normal cost is about $140 including lunch.

Renting a Car
It is quite a distance and not that easy to find, so it depends on how adventuresome you consider yourself and how much you like to do this type of thing. We pre-arranged Hertz – the office was about a 10-minute walk from the ship. It was not too expensive – about $70 for the day. The drive takes a while, about one hour to an hour and a half. It is not that easy to find, but there was good signage and we managed. We also had time to see some of the highlights in town on our return. Be careful when arriving in Granada – there are men waving you into a small area as if this is where you are supposed to park. We were fooled. They charged different amounts for everyone and basically you are just parking on the side of the road. There is a proper car park further down around the corner where you can park and walk up to the main entrance.

Granada and the Alhambra
Really worth the effort to see – an exquisite complex and larger than I thought. The detail is fantastic. The Moors did a remarkable job on this palace and the gardens. The views are also lovely. Definitely an enjoyable day.

Highlights of Malaga
The Cathedral is really quite lovely – very close to where the ship docks and just around the corner from the Hertz Rental car office. There are also two fortresses, one high and one low. We drove to the high fortress, which was fairly interesting, but we did not have time to see the lower one as well.

Mijas Village (Ship Excursion)
Unfortunately I could not find anyone who did this excursion, as everyone went to Granada and we simply ran out of time to check this out. It sounds interesting from the write-up in the shore excursion brochure.

We really enjoyed the Alhambra. It was a fine excursion.

We've booked a private van and driver for the day in Malaga with Gerry Kerkhoff of spanish-fiestas. gerry.kerkhof@spanish-fiestas.com
Website: http://www.spanish-fiestas.com

We'll be going to Granada and the Alhambra, of course, but with the far greater flexibility provided by the private tour compared to the ship's tour. Gerry is also obtaining our Alhambra tickets and entry reservations for us. Gerry comes highly recommended both by Anne & Gary and Claudia. So far, their recommendation appears to be a good one - he has been very responsive to my emails. The tour for the six of us, including the entry tickets (but not lunch) is about 750 euros, which comes to about 125 euros per person (about US$ 150). Thus, it is in the same ballpark as the ship's tour, which LeeAnn said was $176. when she took it last year.

There is some good info on the area on the spanish-fiestas website. Gerry also does private car tours if it is only for two or three people, rather than the larger van.

Happy hunting.... Cheers, Fred

FWIW - We have often found that as soon as you are a "group" or more than two or three people, private tours of 3-6 people are quite similar in price (and sometimes even lower!!) than the bus tours.

This is all great information. We will be in Malaga on the Silver Cloud in April and have been anxiously waiting for the excursions to open up for booking, which I think will finally happen tomorrow (the 60 days out mark).

Fred, we have looked at them as a private driver, but so far we have not been able to find anybody else going on our cruise to share excursions with. I agree that private tours with enough people are always a much better way to go. Maybe we will still find some people to share with.

We also looked at renting a car. Less expensive than the ships tour especially if you could share it with another couple, but seemed like a hassle to find parking, figure out the turns when you get to Granada, and then having to get the car back before closing, because they do not allow for after hour drops.

Then the train. Not convenient at all, not direct, and a long trip getting there and back. Not an option.

Then there is the bus. Actually a decent option. Bus leaves Malaga at 9:00 and gets into Granada at 10:45. (Return bus at 5:00 getting in at 6:45 which is OK, since our ship doesn't leave until 11:00) Of course the downside is, you need to have a pre-reserved time at the Alhambra or you may not get in and they only give you a 30 minute window. So, if the bus is late for whatever reason, you have just wasted almost two hours going and two hours on the return!

Well, half the fun is planning anyways. Right?

and again.. Don.. if you have tickets ( reservations )and are not there at the time alloted to you ( I think they give a 15 minute window) you may not get in. So best to go with ship or Gerry ( Spanish Fiestas)..he'll get the tickets for you.
Good luck and have fun!!!!!!
P.S. there is also a new Picasso museum in Malaga now..

Oh, yes! I LOVED Granada and the Alhambra! I'll try to find my review of the day we spent there, and post it...

Okay, I just found my journal of my day in Granada. It's written as a journal, not a "review" per se, so you can just ignore all the extraneous stuff. But I think it gives a good feel for the excursion, and what you'll see and experience. Here it is:

May 5 – Malaga

Losing two hours of sleep stinks, especially when you know you have a 9-hour excursion ahead of you. I’m still a little foggy why we had to turn the clocks forward two hours – something about GMT and DST and a bunch of other time-related acronyms, but the bottom line was, I didn’t go to bed any earlier or drink any less wine, and I had to drag myself out of bed two hours earlier this morning. Ick. But in the end it worked out – it was a 90-min. bus ride each direction, during which I mostly slept, so I gained it back!

The tour to Granada and the Alhambra Palace was really fascinating. I am glad I did the Alhambra – it’s certainly different from anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s like some of those places that you really should see once in your life if you are there, like the Accademia in Florence or the Leuve in Paris or the Leaning Tower in Tuscany…but once you’ve done it, you’ve done it and you can skip it the next time you are there and take in the more local pleasures. I didn’t do much research at all into the Alhambra, so I had little idea of what to expect.

The palace is an ancient Moorish work of art & craftsmanship that is very different from what you see in most European palaces & castles – almost austere if you compare it to the elaborate and gilded confections you might see in Germany or Italy, yet very ornate in more subtle ways. The walls were covered in carvings and Arabic writings, but there were no paintings or depictions of living creatures as that was perceived as heretical. There was room after room, each more ornately carved and impressive than the next, and exquisite courtyards with fountains and lush greenery. We had an energetic young woman guide who gave us quite a detailed history lesson and taught us about the various rulers who occupied this hilltop palace – their harems, their politics, and fascinating stories such as the Crown Prince who had an entire family of 36 executed in one room because one of them had slept with his favorite concubine. Talk about a fatal attraction! Too bad Loverboy, my rejected suitor, wasn’t on this tour – might make him think twice about attempting to have adulterous affairs with married passengers.

After spending a couple hours on that guided tour, we walked up to the beautiful ancient gardens and through the labyrinth there. The gardens were quite ornate and beautfully designed, and the views from up there were breathtaking. You really get to see the whole region. This place is just steeped in exotic history -- you really feel as if you stepped back in time, to an ancient culture that is like nothing you're familiar with. It's quite different from other ancient, historical places such as Rome...the Moorish influence is very evident, and very unusual (to me, anyway).

Some in our group elected to wait at the bottom of the gardens, as there was a lot of stair-climbing involved, and we’d been going going going since 8:15 am and it was now after 12. Next we hit a couple of shops that sold the characteristic inlaid wood crafts, and I bought a couple more boxes for my collection of small boxes from around the world (like I need more).

Unfortunately, some people took forever, and it was now almost 2pm and I’d had no food since my light b-fast at 7:00 am, so I was feeling a bit crabby and light-headed. That’s the problem w/ these bus tours – you only go as fast as the slowest straggler.

Finally they marched us down to the Alhambra Palace Hotel, which was very beautiful in a more luxurious European way, rather than the equally beautiful but sort of alien and Arabian-exotic feel of the hotel in Rabat. Again we had our own room, and were treated to a nice lunch. This wasn’t nearly as impressive as the Moroccan lunch – it was served in the standard way by waiters & we had nice tables w/ china & linen, but the food was unremarkable – a rather dry chicken breast and some veggies. They did serve us some really delicious wine, and we marveled that we’d made it to almost 2:30 pm before anyone thrust a glad of booze in our hands. How unusual! Meanwhile, a group of Flamenco guitarists played for us for a while and placed several copies of their CD on each table. After a while, when no one bought any, they went around and gathered them all back up and left.

I slept most of the way back.

Thanks, LeeAnne for rounding this up for us Malaga bound cruisers.