We recently returned from a cruise to visit the Canary Islands and Madeira. As photographers, we had our good photography gear with us and picked a few destinations we wanted to photograph.
If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you’ll know you wake up in a new port every morning.
During our 7-day cruise from Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Madeira, we also had two sea days to recover from our excursions.
I love going on a cruise holiday. Especially if you stop at different countries, it’s a fantastic way to get a glimpse into a new culture, and you can plan to come back later and explore specific destinations in more detail.
This certainly happened for us again on this trip. We particularly loved Maspalomas in Gran Canaria and Madeira, our favourite destinations on this trip.
Fuerteventura
In Fuerteventura, we took the transfer to Corralejo. This was a combination of visiting the town and the dunes near Corralejo.
As soon as we stepped off the bus in Corralejo and saw all the souvenir shops, we took a taxi back to the dunes. We spent the whole time there, walking around, looking for shapes. We had about four hours, which was fantastic.
We walked across the dunes down to the beach and even saw an egret doing its thing.
Lanzarote
We took a small trip to the famous lava tunnel La Cueva de los Verdes in Lanzarote (Jameos del Agua).
Due to the overcast weather, the light in the tunnel lake was not great, so I focused on other things (mainly plants and birds).
Gran Canaria
In Gran Canaria, we booked a half-day trip to the dunes of Maspalomas, and we could’ve spent another full day and more there.
The area is huge, and you can try different compositions only by walking around (with difficulty through the deep sand).
Also, we spent most of the time waiting for the sun to peek out of the clouds, which it eventually did. When the light finally appeared, we only had 30 minutes to return to the bus and our ship.
Madeira
We booked a day trip along the West Coast in Madeira with “Get your guide.” This tour had nine stops in total, and at every stop, we had 15-20 minutes to take in the surroundings before getting back on the bus and continuing to the following location.
When we finally stopped for lunch in Porto Moniz and saw the fantastic waves crashing into the lava rocks, we just got a snack from the supermarket and took all the time to squeeze the last click out of our cameras before returning to the bus. A good photo of waves takes a long time (unless you’re super lucky). You need to study the wave patterns, see where they break, pre-focus, and hope for the best.
Funchal in Madeira goes all out with Christmas lights
The Christmas markets were in full swing in Funchal, Madeira when we arrived there in December 2024. The whole town lit up around 6 PM. It was absolutely wonderful and we loved the decorations across the town.
You probably won’t take award-winning photos on a cruise holiday
We lugged our gear to Tenerife and religiously took our cameras on all the trips.
However, most good photography happens at the edges of daylight, during dusk and dawn.
When you join an organised trip, you’re not in control of the time, and you have to be back on the bus to visit the next destination.
Great photography takes time, planning and revisiting
While the cruise was excellent, and we certainly came home with incredible photographs, it wasn’t a photography holiday (well, saying that, we both took thousands of photos each!).
Even though we had 4 hours in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, we didn’t appreciate the size of the area (4 square kilometres!) and the difficulty walking in the deep sand.
Maspalomas is massive, and before we even went into the dunes, we were distracted by a little nature reserve, and we watched the birds for a while.
Once we ventured into the dunes, you needed to walk for quite a bit to get away from people, and then you had to take time to explore the dunes and work on your composition. On top of that, the light wasn’t great. We saw the clouds moving and hoped we would get a few rays of sunlight to lighten the sand dunes.
The sun came out for 10 minutes, and the whole area completely transformed into a sea of different shades of gold. We were taking so many photos during that short light window, and at the same time, we had to walk back to the bus as it was close to sunset and depart to get back to the ship.
On Madeira, we booked a local tour along the West Coast. It included nine different photo stops. It was a whistle-stop tour of West Madeira.
It included a few famous tourist locations, such as Fanal Forest and the black beach in the North of the island. The guide was awesome, and he told us a lot about Madeira, its history and bananas.
While we loved the tour and got a glimpse into what Madeira has on offer, it was also frustrating not to explore specific areas and spend more time. Especially Fanal Forest, a protected area with trees over 500 years old, offers fantastic photo opportunities – fog amongst the trees in the right conditions. It was very foggy when we arrived, and we were very excited to venture into the forest. However, we only had 20 minutes amongst the trees, and the wind blew the fog away after 10 minutes. It was grab-and-go, but it left us excited for more.
Another cruise in the future?
We did come home with excellent photographs. However, it left us wanting more.
We’re always on the go on holiday, trying to capture more images. Photography is a collector’s hobby. We collect memories and try to take home our interpretation of how a place spoke to us. However, we had to adhere to our cruise schedule, which was very limiting for great photography.
We could’ve spent a full day at Fanal forest in Madeira and then some. The same applied to Maspalomas in Gran Canaria.
Coming home with fantastic photographs takes time and a very loose approach to time. The time constraints during our excursions and having to return to the bus for a particular time stopped us from creating great photographs.
It was worth it, though! And we found our best way how to cruise on this one…
We’ve tried different options in the past. We had a balcony cabin during our Asia cruise, but we never used the balcony because of the humidity and heat. We had a window cabin on a cruise with Mom in Norway. However, there was a walkway in front of the window, so privacy was not great. Also, if you’re docked against the industrial side of the harbour, it’s not really that exciting.
This time, we opted for an inside cabin. The price difference was enormous. We only paid less than £500 per person for a 7-day cruise, including the use of most of the 17 restaurants on board. We treated ourselves to a private “island” spa session with fizz and nibbles a couple of times and didn’t have to watch the pennies when we fancied a cocktail in the evening. We had privacy and a quiet cabin, and we only spent time in the cabin sleeping or winding down.
AIDACosma is the largest AIDA cruise ship and amongst the 10-largest cruise ships in the world.
Fancy a cruise?
If you’ve never been on a cruise, you will probably have an opinion about it. Maybe you think you will be trapped, or there are too many people, or it’s just about the food, or it’s just full of “old people”.
I’d encourage you to try it. I’d recommend NOT to do a small river cruise as your starter cruise, as the river boats are quite small and there’s probably not much to do on board.
On a larger cruise ship (2,000+ passengers), there will be different restaurants, entertainment and sports facilities.
AIDACosma is huge and can have more than 7,000 people on board.
We never struggled finding a sun lounger or booking spa facilities or finding a place at the bar.
AIDA is a a German cruise line and a “club ship”. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere on board and there’s no dress code.
The flowers in Madeira are amazing
We visited Madeira in early December 2024. I can only imagine the wealth of flowers in bloom during spring and summer.
