Hi!
My family and I went on the 11 night Med cruise last summer. We didn't know much about Malta prior to the trip but this truly ended up being one of our favorite ports. It's such a beautiful place. We did the Blue Grotto Tour and it was hands down our favorite excursion of the cruise. We are all adults and had a blast. Our excursion left in the afternoon so we spent the morning exploring on our own - went to St. John's Co-Cathedral and a GREAT jewelry shop with filigree silver - it was one of the Disney recommended shops - you MUST go there. The necklace I bought there was just 18 euros and my favorite souvenir from the whole trip. It's called Ardnael Filigree Works. It was a small shop that sold local Maltese silver filigree. The owner Vincenzo was there and we watched as he made these tiny silver necklaces, earrings, bracelets, etc. It's on the same long street that St. John's is on - you have to walk down the hill a little bit to get there but so worth it.
I pulled up the blog I did last summer while on the cruise and figured this would be the best way to give you details on the Blue Grotto excursion... Enjoy!
Our tour met in the Walt Disney Theatre at 12:45 and we were placed on Bus 16. We had a great local guide (I think her name was Helena) who told us the history of Malta and interesting facts as we drove around the island. Here's a few new things I learned: the movies Troy and Gladiator were filmed here, all compact cases for makeup are made here in a factory then shipped all over the world for makeup to be placed inside them, the Maltese language is the only Arabic root language written with English characters, Malta was a British colony until 1964 so there are still many British influences such as red phone booths and red mailboxes.
We first stopped at a beautiful cliff to see the caves of the Blue Grotto. We then drove over there and had a snack and the local drink called Kinnie which was a mixture of bitter oranges and herbs. It was very bitter and no one in our group really liked it. Then we went down to board the small boat for the Blue Grotto tour. They only fit 8 people. Me, Ashley, and Andrew sat in the first row. The seas were very rough and we kept bouncing up and down on the waves! We got over to the caves and the water was super blue and full of jellyfish. We went in several caves and the whole experience lasted about 20 minutes. We had a lot of fun and were laughing a lot as we bounced around in the boat. When we got out, we still had about 30 minutes to explore the area and we took some photos of the sea. Then we drove to the other side of the island to a small fishing village called Marsaxlokk. It was full of brightly colored fishing boats that all have eyes on the front of them to protect them while they are at sea. A lot of the souvenirs consisted of these eyes, the Maltese cross, silver filigree, and handmade lace. I also bought a silver filigree necklace of the Maltese cross. We then rode back into town and when we got off the bus I tried to find wi-fi so I could connect to Skype. No luck. The signal was very weak.
...the only redeeming feature for DH at least, was that you could buy a beer there off the menu...we have never seen this offered in a McDonalds before !!!
