Our Family of 4 (including two teen boys) had an excellent trip, made all the better by the service on the ship, our beautiful room and new friends made.

Pre-cruise we stayed one night in Barcelona at the Hotel Continental. This is the hotel that is toward the end of Las Ramblas and is also the all pink (inside) hotel. They have an all you can drink 24 hour soda fountain which was very nice, along with an all you can eat "buffet"- not quite so nice. The food just wasn't appealing so we went across the street to a Tapas restaurant called Cerveceria. An older gentleman came over, took my hands, and said, "I want to feed you". He sat us down at a table, asked if we like seafood, meat or both, and proceeded to order for us. It was delicious. We had hot bread, shrimp sizzling in butter, beef & chicken skewers, crab cakes, meatballs, etc. I highly recommend this restaurant. Back to the hotel....The beds were hard as a rock and it was very loud all night. The walls were very thin. However, it's in an interesting old building and the staff was very nice. The elevator broke down in the morning and we had to lug our 45 pound suitcases down 4 flights of stairs.

Barcelona: We had the hotel call us a van taxi to take us to the port in the morning. They picked us up at 10:30am. It cost 25 euro. After checking in on the ship we walked back out and asked a taxi driver to take us on a tour of Barcelona. For 2 hours it was 60 euros. He drove us to Sagrada La Familia; Gaudi's Guelle (based on Hansel & Gretel & quite beautiful to walk around and explore); and drove us around the Christopher Columbus monument and ended with a store to do some shopping. He helped us do some negotiating in the store as well. Read more