Months ago our friends which we have know since the mid 70's were planning a cruise to the Mediterranean, The Mediterranean was always on our bucket list especially since the seven ports ( in five countries: Spain,France, Italy, Greece and Turkey) to which they were going were Nice, Florence, Rome, Athens, Santorini, Kusadasi and Naples. Jack mentioned the trip to us again in June and under much pressure from my honey bun, I relented and booked our trip.

We booked a deluxe balcony on the Royal Caribbean, and because we were members of the Crown and Anchor Club, we got a deal we couldn't refuse (cabin 9068). Our airfare was rather expensive at $1100 per person but it was the flight that everyone was on so that was great. Iberia Airlines was amazing, they served us supper and breakfast, the seats were comfortable and the movie was enjoyable.The only snafu was when we touched down in Madrid, the walk from the international section to the domestic section which was not only a very long walk, but required that we go through security again. My second half of my boarding pass did not have my seat number on it and the security agent did not want to send me through. We told him that we were all traveling together came in from Boston where we checked with the agent there about the missing seat assignment and she stated that my seat was the same as it was on the Boston flight 12d and thus didn't require another boarding pass. We thought we were all set, all our friends got though, Arnie got through, but that damn agent was not going to let me by. He finally called his supervisor over and she said yea, yea,see, she has a ticket stamped from Boston to Barcelona and she said it was OK to go but the jerk still wanted to keep me from going through. When we were finally through, we wondered what gate because it kept listing different flights that would be taking this particular flight, very confusing but we managed and landed in Barcelona before noon-time.

The rest of our entourage had transfers and were staying at the Citadine in Las Ramblas, I booked a 4-star hotel through Hotwire for $97.00 that was amazing, large king size bed, a jacuzzi, shower and double sink (huge by European standards). One very strange and erie coincidence was that our room was #911 and our huge wall of glass window overlooked Spain's Twin towers that was erected in 1992 for the summer Olympics very very spooky. The only drawback was that it was far from the action of Las Ramblas but we could walk to the Olympic Village and we took a bus to Las Ramblas and Familia Sagrada which was very convenient to the hotel and very economical. Our friends were not happy with the sleeping accommodations because most of them had pull out sofas and paid a lot more than we did. Read more