Day 5

Tuesday 14th February: Valentine's day in Casablanca! We got up earlier today, Mark and I had bought Valentine's cards before we left so exchanged them in the cabin, Charlie and Courtney opened them for us. We ate breakfast in the Bora Bora restaurant before disembarking for our trip into Casablanca. Originally we were going to book an excursion for here but on further research we decided we only wanted to see the Hussain II mosque and a market so no need for a trip. We could see the mosque as we walked out of the port and after making our way past the entourage of taxi drivers we followed the crowd! It was a fair walk! Charlie is amazing us how much he is walking on this holiday, he only asks for pick ups occasionally and seems happy walking all other times. The weather was lovely, it's so nice to feel the sun after being so cold lately at home. We arrived at the mosque, it is a stunning building.





Not surprisingly there is another entourage of taxis at the mosque and some drivers are quite pushy, much more so than the ones at the port. In the end we do decide to take a taxi to the Medina, it only cost 5 euros for us all so not too bad! The market was almost as we'd expected, a lot of leather goods, camels and polished wooden boxes etc. We thought we might see stalls selling spices but there were none.

The streets in Casablanca are unbelievably uneven! We had to be very careful and pushing the pushchair was not easy at all but it was an interesting experience! All we bought was a bottle of water for on the ship! The Medina wasn't too far from the ship so the walk back wasn't quite as bad as going, although saying that even once we entered the port area again it was still a good long walk back to the ship! Once back on board we had a late light lunch in the Bora Bora restaurant before looking into the afternoon's activities in the kids club. We arrived just in time for the video club and he stayed for the Duck, Duck, Goose session and balloon party! Mark, Courtney and I came back to our cabin whilst he was there so she could have a little snooze. We then went for afternoon tea before picking him up. It was a nice surprise that Charlie was in there having a snack too. As they were led back to the play centre past us Charlie had a huge smile on his face and was talking to a little girl. It made me happy to see him so confident and happy. We picked him up shortly after and he was full of kid's club, he'd really enjoyed it! We came back to the cabin and got ready for dinner in the Villa Verde. The Americans weren't there this evening so we had the table to ourselves. After dinner we decided to go and watch the show in the Strand theatre. On our way there, there were a few Valentine activities. We had our photo taken with a huge balloon heart shape and entered a romantic words competition. The best wording wins a prize. I wrote a sentimental message for Mark and looked up to see Charlie had wanted to enter too. He had written his name and I, drawn a love heart and asked Mark to spell out Mummy. Bless him, I was so emotional. It was totally un prompted and a clear winner in my mind.

The show had just started when we arrived, we found a seat and Charlie and Courtney clapped away, danced and were amazed by a magician. It was an excellent show, a great variety of singing, dancing and illusions! My favourite part was a tribute to Michael Jackson, it was fantastically put together! We walked past the photo stand on the way back to our cabin and tried to look for the Captain's photos from last night but they're not ready yet. Just as we arrived back we left the port of Casablanca so put the front camera on the TV. We then relaxed whilst Charlie and Courtney slept.