3 nights, Málaga to Barcelona

This is a short, port-heavy run up the Spanish coast with one crossing to Morocco. Three nights, four cities, no sea days: you wake up somewhere new every morning. The shape is compact and walkable. Málaga drops you almost into the center, with a Moorish hilltop fortress, a 1st-century BC Roman theater, and the Mercado de Atarazanas a flat walk from the pier. Tangier swaps registers entirely, a walled medina and hilltop kasbah you reach on foot from the city-center terminal. Alicante stacks a castle, a 1920s food market, and a whitewashed old quarter inside one walkable radius, and Barcelona closes it with Gaudí, the Gothic Quarter, and Sagrada Família.

Who it rewards: travelers who want range over depth and like a city a day with no down time. If you want to settle into one place, this is the wrong itinerary. Two things to know going in. Barcelona docks at Terminal H on the distant Adossat quay, so a shuttle or taxi eats the start of that day, and Sagrada Família timed entry sells out, so book a morning slot before you sail. Tangier rewards a petit taxi up to the kasbah and a walk down through the medina, not a climb up.

Explora II is all-suite and all-oceanfront.