This is our 6th cruise and the second one with NCL. We arrived at Barcelona 3 days ahead and went home right after the cruise. Barcelona is very nice and easy to navigate on your own. We stayed at Hotel Principal and Confortel Barcelona. They are both very nice. Hotel Principal is off the beaten path around La Rambla which is very convenient. Confortel Barcelona is remote though somewhat near a Metro station. It is very nice but the location is odd so I won't recommend this hotel if you like to be close to tourist areas. We used the hop on hop off 2-day tour bus and enjoyed that very much.

The embarkation is a breeze. We are Latitude members and did not have to line up to check in. They welcomed guests with sparkling wine free which is unusual. Since we are celebrating our 21st anniversary, they also offer us a complimentary sparkling in our room with glasses. This is very thoughtful of them. They also gave us a bottle of red wine with bottle opener when there was a malfunction in the toilet one night for a few hours.

We ate all our meals in the dining room. The food is quite good except the sirloin steak. We tried medium and medium rare but they still turned out quite tough. However, the lobsters that they offered two nights were fresh and tasty. The food presentation was always nice. We've also tried the Blue Lagoon but that was so so. The Garden Buffet offered the same things everyday but we enjoyed the variety. I really like to chicken burger and fries which were always freshly done. There is plenty of ice cream and many flavors which is a nice touch. Overall the food is always plentiful at any hour. There were BBQ two times but the pork chops were always dried and the chicken is OK. Read more