Las Palmas, Canary Islands....Tues, 17 April.....We were scheduled to arrive late today at 1 PM and stayed until 8 PM.Bad planning (or good planning depending on your point of view) as many of the shops, but not all closed from 1 till 3 PM for afternoon siesta. T his is, after all, part of Spain. Very nice city though with a lovely beach. We enjoyed walking around exploring this very European style city.We had an early dinner at a great restaurant called "The Happy Cockerel." Wonderful sea food and a great bottle of wine.We really enjoy eating ashore whenever we can. QE2 food is generally very good, but not perhaps as good as it used to be several years ago before Carnival took over the cruise line. Good though it may be, there is a sameness about it after 3 months and a different chef cooking really fresh sea food ashore is a nice change.    ..........................................................................................Funchal, Madeira........Wed 18 April........Another beautiful city with mosaic paved pavements and attractive buildings and gardens. We had been there twice before but enjoyed seeing it all again.Took a cable car ride to the top of the mountain at the back of the town, passing close to many hillside homes to a spectacular view from the top.It is from there, if you wish, you can ride a type of toboggan down the narrow streets and alleyways back to town. Two men stand alongside the device and, hopefully, guide it safely to the bottom. We chickened out. It looked like a rough, bumpy, hairy ride and we already bought round trip tickets on the cable car.Had a great seafood lunch in a small back-street bistro style restaurant used by the locals. Very good and very cheap.Afterwards we went to Blandys, the main outlet for Madeira Wine. A very large, but very quaint series of large rooms where they were happy to serve you quite good size free samples of as many different types of Madeira that you could drink. Great place to spend an afternoon. We bought a couple of bottles to carry back to the ship.Madeira is a really nice place to spend time as those of you who have been there will, I am sure, agree.We now sail away to dear old England (Southampton) where many of the "World Cruisers" will be leaving us. We have just over a week to Fort Lauderdale.