First off, I want to thank everyone who posts on Cruise Critic because that was so helpful to me!! I really do appreciate all of the help with this cruise. There are things that we did on the ship that I would have had no clue about if it were not for the posts on here.
We flew into Barcelona a day early just in case of travel mishaps. I am sure glad we did. We flew United Air and they lost our luggage. Well delayed it by 16 hours. So I spent the first part of our vacation figuring out how I would do the trip on what I had in my 2 carry on's, what I was missing, etc. Not a great way to start!!. Oh yeah, it took us 1 hours to go through customs at the airport. Not sure why, it was the big La Merce festival going on that weekend so maybe that's why, lack of employees but it was a mess. It took us 3 hours total at the airport. We arrived at the W Barcelona at 10 am in the morning and checked in. They were able to get us into a room earlier than 3 thank goodness and help us call United to find out the status of the bags. The W is beautiful, amazing and modern. I loved it because I was not able to sleep that night due to the lost baggage so when the EPIC pulled in at 3:30 am into port, I was there to watch it as the W is located at the port. I was so excited then!! Our bags finally arrived, we checked out of the W and headed to the EPIC at 11:00 am.
We got to the port at 11:15 am, checked in which took 5 minutes and were whisked away to the priority lounge for suite passengers. We waited there (they have yummy sandwiches, drinks etc) for about 20 minutes until Ruth, the concierge came and got us. We were the first group to board the EPIC. How exciting that was!! We passed up the line of everyone else waiting and were on board in less than a minute. Once on board, we went straight up to the Epic Club Lounge and a butler gave us a tour of the suites and their amenities. Oh wow, we were in awe as to how beautiful and grandiose everything was. Upgraded everything let me tell you!! Our rooms were ready about 12:30 so meanwhile we ate in the EPIC Club. Oh so yummy. We sat there and watched the long line of taxi's pulling up and dropping off passengers to board the ship. We then were taken to our Spa Suite #14151 where we saw the awesome room we had for the week. Everything I expected. I looked at the You Tube Video of the room online and it was still the same. I personally loved the vanity area, the shower ROCKED (besides it not draining and overflowing into the bathroom) and the balcony was the biggest I have ever had. Waiting for us was lots of treats from the Captain, our bottle of chilled wine and a huge WELCOME TO Vacation feel. We took a tour of the spa and unpacked our stuff. That night we watched Blue Man Group, which I have seen before but my husband had not. They were just as good, if not better than they were in Vegas. Since it's a smaller venue than in Vegas, they were able to do things they cannot in Vegas. I loved it of course. Without giving it away, make sure lots of people sit around you and there are no open seats behind or in front of you. You will see why!!