We booked this cruise in December 2015, our TA got us a great deal on an Ocean Suite, however, my wife was taken into hospital 3 weeks before we were due to sail. We feared that we would have to cancel, but her health improved quite quickly, and we both decided that it would probably be beneficial to have 8 days of rest and relaxation aboard ship but not do any off ship excursions. This proved to be a good decision.

We had booked the Hotel Continental in Barcelona for a 2 night pre-cruise stay, it is a wonderfully quirky place and we had an excellent room with a queen sized bed and a balcony overlooking Las Ramblas. We loved this hotel and have already booked there again prior to a cruise we are taking next June.

On departure day the cruise terminal was extremely busy and the safety drill later in the day was a bit chaotic. We found out later that the previous cruise was delayed arriving in Barcelona due to engine trouble and that as a result everything was running behind schedule. We had to queue for about 20 minutes before we could drop off our luggage, after that we were checked in and aboard the ship pretty quickly. As we were in a suite we had priority check in, so that probably helped. We were also pleased to discover that as suite guests our room was ready straight away, this enabled us to drop our hand baggage off and go to the Lido buffet for some lunch. Read more