Cruise Review: Day 1: Barcelona - Flew out the day prior on a "red eye" to Barcelona. We arrived in around 8:40am. The Barcelona airport has to be one of the most modern airports I have ever been too. Very nice airport and easy to get around, so there is no problem for those who do not have the Spanish Language down. Please keep in mind that the Barcelona Bag service is very slow compared to most major airports in America. It took about an hour to get our bags. This was mentioned as a common thing for this airport. I tell you this for folks who are planning drivers to pick them up or when taking private yours. We left for our hotel - The Renaissance Hotel at the Barcelona Airport. The hotel is only about five minutes from the airport. We took a cab - which there is a minimum charge from the airport per our driver. You pretty much can get ripped off when going to your hotel from the airport. Planning ahead better, the hotel does free pick up service to the hotel from the airport. The hotel was great and English speaking friendly. The service is very nice and the rooms are very nice. Be careful with late night TV if you have children. They have channels that go into adult programming without any pay per view. It is just their TV. The food at the hotel is expensive, but typical for a hotel. Location of the hotel is no where near any attractions or other places to see anything. It is best to take a cab into town. I highly recommend this hotel. I would give it a 4 star rating and they have 10 euro transfers to the cruise port. Once at the hotel, we rested some to prepare for a tour. www.barcelonadaytours.com. I checked many different tour companies and individual guides and I choose these guys. Carlos was our tour guide. I recommend everything about Carlos and his tour company. Very friendly and spoke English very well. He was extremely professional. After two days of tours with him, he was like a family member. He was always on time for all our tours. Our first tour was a four hour tour of Barcelona. Carlos picked us up from the Hotel and took us to see many of the cities site. He toured at our pace. He knew we wanted to see the most in the time we had, he did just that. We started with a tour in the Olympic park. He let us take pictures or access the restroom whenever we needed. We stopped at the city center building in down town - there was an incredible art exit and a beautiful coliseum in this building. We left from there to drop by the castle on the hill that overlooks the cruise port along with other Olympic park sites. The views were amazing. Barcelona is very clean for a port city. You could see the pride Carlos took in his city. After this, we took off for La Sagrada Familia Church. The church is absolutely amazing take on Gothic architecture. We did not want to go in, so we did a walk around tour. There is a lot of traffic here, so take all of the advice about putting money and ids on a money belt or in your front pocket. As we were warned many times about pick pocketers, we did not have any issues. We do know of one couple that a person asked them if this was his water, while the other took a purse that was on the other side. Just use common sense and you will be fine. We went to Park Guell and took a walk through of that with photos. We went down Las Rambles where we saw all of the street activity. It was a very fun area. Lots of things to see or do. Our tour guide then took us back to the hotel on time. The cost for four for the four hours was 69 euros each. Excellent price! We rested some more at the hotel and then took off to see Tablos Flemenco show on the Ramblas. We took a cab to show which cost us about 20 euro. The show was fantastic. There was a small stage and very intimate feel. The dancers were amazing along with the music. Kids may be bored with it. If you like dancing, then you will like this show. It is very powerful. The 7:15 show was the middle one. We then took a cab to Cal Pep for dinner http://www.calpep.com/english/index_eng.html. This is a highly reviewed restaurant. It is very popular for lunch and dinner. Definitely get reservations and sit in the back room. It only holds about 20 people very snug. There is no menu. They serve you a series of interesting taplas. The food is very fresh and allows for a slow and wonderful meal. If you are picky, you might not like it. If you love food adventures - this is your place. It was an awesome experience. English friendly too. We took a cab back to the hotel. Note about Food : Do not worry about food in Barcelona. Talpas bars are everywhere. Remember that they eat the big meal for lunch around 1-3pm. Dinner typically does not start until after 8:30pm. It typically consists of Talpas. Talpas - meaning the top - simply means appetizers. Much like you choose sushi from a menu, talpas are the same way. Sometime you just sit down and they bring food to you. Tourist area restaurants are more expensive.

Day 2: Barcelona We got up for a 9 hour tour with Carlos. He picked us up at 9:30. We went to take a tour of the Cava (Champagne) plant. The facility was huge. They sell product all over the world. It is the best tour of a facility that I have ever been through. You go through the whole process and actually have a ride through near the end prior to the tasting. Highly recommend this if production or wine fascinates you. We left the wine and headed for the Montserrat Mountain. It took about an hour. Near the top, our tour guide gave us time to explore the town. It is a small village and church that is situated on the side of the mountain. It was a little overcast for a bit, but we were above the clouds. Definitely take the train to the top so you can see a 360 view of the mountain. Beautiful views that alone are worth it. Another thing many people do is listening to the children's choir at 1:00. They were not singing that day due to the wedding. I am not Catholic, but the Black Madonna story is very interesting. The food at the food cafe is actually pretty good and not too expensive. Good lunch stop. We then headed back into town and visited the finshed Gowdy church closer into Barcelona. It was beautiful also. A fantastic day that cost 99 euros each for four people. Note on tipping. Tipping is given as a gratuity and is not always expected. 7-10% is standard if the service was really good. We tipped Carlos much more in appreciation of his services. After we got back, we rested and went to a very nice restaurant recommended called http://www.botafumeiro.es/indexen.htm Botafumeiro. It was very nice and the service was very good. The food is very fancy and there is a menu. It is English friendly. The food is expensive and much of the seafood is based on market price. Note... My family loved it. The problem I had was the King crab is served cold, not warm with butter. Not my favorite, but still, everyone else liked it a whole lot. We took a cab back to the hotel.

Day 3: Starting the Cruise We slept late and made arrangements to take the bus to the cruise terminal. We left about 15 minutes after 11:00 am. The port process was extremely smooth. They took the bags right from the bus and put them on the ship. You walk just a few step and you are in the terminal. The terminal is very organized and nice. They opened up the ship and started calling groups on the ship within about 15 minutes from getting there. You simply go with your group and get on the ship. Very easy process. There is even a spot to get euros in the terminal. Once on the ship, you have free roam except for the cabins. The cabins were ready at 3:00pm. The ship is huge and beautiful. This was the 10 year celebration of this ship. There was even a birthday cake given out for the celebration. The ship was recently in a fix up. The ship still feels new to me. I love the promenade on the 5th floor. We had a balcony cabin 7626 which looks back from the ship on the little "hump" that sticks out. A little larger balcony. The rooms are similar to other RCL balcony cabins. Very little sign of wear. Check this out - NO MORE LIFE PRESERVERS NEEDED DURING MUSTER DRILL. You just go to your spot and they do the announcements. Little lengthy due to the requirement to have it in both English and Spanish. We ate at the late seating at 9:00pm. We had Wilmar and Manual. They provided excellent service the entire cruise. They would try to help with any special request they could. The dining room is amazing. The bottom two floors of the dinning room are for regular eating guest. The top floor is for My time dining guests. This is where you set up a reserved time to eat. We love this ship! Read more