My husband and I sailed on the Celebrity Century from Barcelona on a 12-night cruise. We are both in our early 30s and this is our second cruise. We have previously done a 7-night Caribbean cruise on Princess.

We arrived in Barcelona three days before the cruise, which was a great choice because the airline lost our luggage and it took a few days to get it. Barcelona is so much nicer than I expected... the travel books make it sound like a filthy city that is overrun by pickpockets. For the record, it is very clean and in our three days I didn't encounter one unpleasant person and certainly no pickpockets. We stayed at the Hotel Villa Emilia, which was great. It is in the L'Eixample district, so it's several metro stops from the tourist center of Las Ramblas, etc. Even so, we liked being in a quieter neighborhood and found lots of cute restaurants and bars. The Hotel Villa Emilia has a rooftop bar that is great for pre-dinner drinks and a business center with free Internet.

We took a cab to the port on Tuesday morning and embarkation was a breeze! So much easier than it was with Princess. We were literally on the boat in 10 minutes. We showed up around 1:30 p.m. and our room was ready. We had a Concierge Class balcony stateroom and overall it was very nice. I can't imagine cruising without a balcony... we spent so much time out there. The room was in good condition, although the shower was a little grungy. Our room attendant, Benny, was great and very accommodating. Read more