We just got back from the cruise and still recovering from the time change. It is definitely worse returning from Europe than when you fly over for the cruise. In summary we had a great cruise and two day pre cruise stay in Barcelona. Now for the details:

We arrived on May 2nd flying in on Continental non-stop from Newark. Flight was great with good service but we did experience a ground delay due to congestion at Newark. All told we were about 45 minutes late arriving into Barcelona. We hopped on a free shuttle offered by Marriott and got to the hotel around 11:15 am. After checking in and using my points for the stay we talked to the concierge and got free transportation back to the airport to catch the airport express into town. We used this method the entire time and did not find any problems with it. We later found out that this one of hotels the NCL puts people in if they choose the pr/post cruise option with NCL. Nice hotel. We made it to Plaza de Catalunya in about thirty minutes. We strolled the Las Ramblas and took in all the sites and sounds. We found out the Burger Kings and McDonalds were good places to use facilities with no problems. We walked all the way through Las Ramblas and then on to Port Olympic. We ate at La Barca de Salmanca based on a recommendation here on the boards. We had the seafood paella and it was excellent. Cost was approx. 38 euros. We then took the metro and bus to get to the Tablao de Carmen to see the flamenco show. We enjoyed the show. We left the area and walked down the hill and happened on the fountain show at Montjuic. It was excellent. A big crowd was there to enjoy the show and it was beautiful. We then caught the transportation back to the hotel and slept in on Saturday morning. We went to the Sagrada Familia and the Bari Gothic area and had tapas on Saturday afternoon. We went back to the hotel early to get ready for the cruise the next day.

We ate most of our breakfasts at Cagney's. Great perk! On the Civitavecchia port, Madea, our butler brought us breakfast. We attended three out of the six shows. With this being a very port intensive cruise we just did not have the energy to stay up until 11:00 to watch the shows during the Italy port stops. The Gem Shows were good. No more Jean Ryan shows. On Sunday we arranged transportation to the port through the concierge at the hotel for 10 euro per person. It took about 35 minutes to get to the port and I got real excited when I saw the Gem waiting for us. We got to the terminal at 11:35 and checked in, met Claudio our concierge, and walked on to the Gem at 11:45 am. He said our cabin was not ready but I went by room 9670 the AE suite and it was ready for occupancy. The room was excellent and the view from the aft is great. I now know why everyone falls in love with these aft cabins. We met our room stewards and proceeded to the Grand Pacific for our first meal on board. We later found out we could have gone to Cagney's but we did enjoy the Grand Pacific. The muster drill took place at 5:00 pm and we went to dinner at 7:30 pm at Magenta for another great meal. Throughout the week the menu changed and outside of a couple items, we thought the food was better than our trip on the Pearl last year. Read more