My husband and I sailed the 7 night Mediterranean cruise on November 6, 2004. We are Royal Caribbean loyalists having taken 5 cruises with them in the last year and two more planned for the upcoming months. We arrived a day early in Barcelona and stayed at the Hotel Arts in Olympic Village. This property is managed by Ritz Carlton, and the decor in the public areas is simply stunning. We stayed in a standard room, but it was enormous, featured a marble bath, and had views of the torch sculpture remaining in Olympic Village as well as the sea. From here, we spent the day walking around Barcelona on our own. We walked the entire length of Las Ramblas and took in the sites and some of the goodies found in the beautiful bakeries along the way. We then headed over to the Sagrada Familia and climbed the spires. This is quite a workout, but is a lot of fun and offers great views and opportunities for pictures.
I definitely recommend that anyone embarking or disembarking in Barcelona allow themselves some time to see this city. It is a really impressive. Embarkation on Saturday was a breeze. We arrived shortly after noon and hardly broke stride going through the embarkation center. Nearly everything on the ship was in full swing when we got onboard. We enjoyed sail away on our balcony (this is a tradition of ours). There are a lot of sights to see going in and out of port in Barcelona. In each of the five ports we took shore excursions booked through Royal Caribbean. I will not dispute that the cruise line's shore excursions are incredibly overpriced. It is much cheaper to go on your own. However, all of our tours were very organized, had knowledgeable guides, and made good use of the limited time in each port. Having never been to Europe before, we feel we would not have known where to go on our own once we got into town anyway as the cities are so large even with reading and preparation beforehand. What really sealed the deal however is the fact that some of the cities are over an hour from the port, and if the bus is late getting back odds are the ship will wait on you!
We took the following tours and are comfortable recommending each of them: In Marseille, we took the half day excursion into Aix-en-Provence. In Villefranche, we took the excursion to Monaco and Monte Carlo in the morning and the excursion to Nice and St. Paul de Vence in the afternoon. In Livorno, we took a full day excursion into Florence featuring the Accadamia Museum to see the David. In Civitavecchia, we took the Imperial Rome tour featuring the Trevi Fountain, the Forum, the Colosseum, and St. Peter's Basilica. In Naples, we took our best shore excursion by far going down to Sorrento to stroll around town, visit a local olive, grape and lemon farm for a tasting, and lastly visit Pompeii. Pompeii was the highlight of my trip. It is a fascinating place if you are at all interested in archaeology.