When my step-mother (65) invited my husband (34) and I (45) to join her on the Liberty of the Seas 7-Night Mediterranean Cruise, I have to admit that we were a little hesitant. A cruise, on such a massive ship, was never something my husband and I had ever considered, but my step-mother's excitement rubbed off, and since we hadn't seen her in almost five years (we live in Europe and she lives in Canada), we decided to make an adventure out of it.

The bus shuttle located across the street from the Colon (Columbus) statue in Barcelona at the bottom of Las Ramblas takes you to the ship and costs €2,00 per person one-way. The ride took 15 minutes on an empty shuttle, but I imagine it takes longer when packed and dropping off people to other ships.

Once at the ship's terminal, it took all of 20 minutes to drop off our bags, move through the security, fill out a health status form and do the check-in to get our SeaPass. It would have probably gone faster if we didn't have one pen between us to fill out the forms and if we hadn't lingered in the duty-free shop, which didn't really seem very duty-free to my husband and I, although my step-mother thought the prices significantly cheaper than back in Canada. Read more