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Hotels near pier in Barcelona Spain


laxcr

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From what pier will the 10-Sep-07 Barcelona to Venice cruise depart?

And, does anyone know of a nice, mid priced hotel around the pier. We plan to arrive 4 days early and would like suggestions on how to spend the time. We have never been to Barcelona. We have been to the western side of Spain though.

Cheers

Sophisticated CoolCats

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We are currently researching the same thing for a cruise later this year. We are spending four days in Barcelona pre-cruise.

 

From our research and other CC members info we booked the Continental Palacete. We have read many good reports on these boards as well as on trip adviser. It is centrally located. Barcelona seems to be a small enough city that you can get anywhere quickly. Including the port.

 

As to what to do, this city looks to rival Rome as an incredible place to visit. Grab some Fodor's, Top Ten, Frommer's books, surf the web and check out this wonderful thread http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=380847

 

It was started and is kept current by a cruise critic member who lives in Barcelona. She is wonderful about answering your questions.

 

Since you go before us, we expect a full report when you return.

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We stayed in the Gothic Quarter at The Colon Hotel. Anywhere on La Ramblas is also close to the port by taxi. As mentioned Barcelona is fairly compact and a great town to walk around in.

 

Have a great time!

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We second the Continental Palacete or its sister hotel the Continental. Both are in good location and a short taxi ride to the ship. The Palacete is a bit nicer and quieter. We've stayed there twice...prices are reasonable for Barcelona, with a 24 hour mini-buffet that includes coffee, tea, wine, bottled water, soda, juices, etc...a nice saving. Short walk to the fun section of the Ramblas and to lots of sightseeing. There are several other nice hotels in same area - suggest you ask on the Europe board for more ideas. You'll love

Barcelona.

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We went on a Med cruise a couple of years ago and stayed at the Atrium Palace, a short walk to Las Ramblas and convenient to the pier via taxi. From what I remember, depending on your pier location as there are a couple cruise ship piers. Rooms were spacious, even for three people - we had 12 people on cruise and we all were comfortable at this hotel for both pre and post cruise stays. Enjoy.

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Completely agree with Hotel Palacete. Nice facility, great location. We took the airport bus to downtown. Not a very good idea for us with all our cruise baggage. About a 4 block schlep to the hotel. Would take a taxi if I had to do it again. If you're looking for something different do while in BCN, try the evening guided tour of old Barcelona and the seaside by Segway! Very cool! The nice folks at the Palacete front desk should be able to give you details. Have a wonderful time!

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Just thought of something else...if you haven't made hotel arrangements in Venice yet, The Locanda Orseolo was one of the nicest, friendliest places we've ever stayed. Large, lovely rooms, many overlooking a small canal, very close to St. Marks square, but on a private courtyard. Fanatastic home cooked breakfasts. Barbara and Matteo and their family and friends run the place. You can arrive either by foot or by water taxi directly to the hotel. Check out http://www.locandaorseolo.com or email info@locandaorseolo.com, Suggest room #14 or 15 for size and size. I didn't exactly look forward to Venice, but I was blown away by the place, in part because of the great experiance at the Hotel. Within minutes of arrival we were called by our first names. They book up way in advance. Have fun!

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The Barcelona Hilton is a ten minute ride to the pier. It is in a great area of Barcelona, right on the waterfront. The Diagonal Hilton (Barcelona Hilton) is very modern. There is a tourist trolley service that goes all over Barcelona, that you can pick up nearby. It is a great value and easy to get around on!

 

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We went on a Med cruise a couple of years ago and stayed at the Atrium Palace, a short walk to Las Ramblas and convenient to the pier via taxi. From what I remember, depending on your pier location as there are a couple cruise ship piers. Rooms were spacious, even for three people - we had 12 people on cruise and we all were comfortable at this hotel for both pre and post cruise stays. Enjoy.

 

I wouldn't worry about staying AT the pier itself as the hotel that's right at the pier is VERY expensive. I pre-arranged a private taxi service (Angie’s taxi) to pick us up at the airport and take us to our hotel which was located in the L’Example section of Barcelona.

 

After dropping off our luggage at our hotel, the Apsis Atrium Palace, we walked a couple of short blocks to Las Ramblas and headed north up the Ramblas to Casa Batlló – a unique building designed by Gaudí in 1905 which uses curving iron and stone and glittering collages of broken tiles and ceramic on the façade. Its balconies are skull-like formations that are surreal. The building was opened to the public in 2004 but we didn’t have time to tour it as we were headed to Gaudi’s other building - La Pedrera. (I think this is a good enough reason to return, don’t you?)

 

Commonly known as La Pedrera (The Quarry), the real name for this spectacular work of Antoni Gaudí's is the Casa Milà – a superlative example of modernista architecture. The entire building was restored in 1996. At that time they installed a museum in the attic and refurbished one of the apartments to how it would have looked at the time of its early-20th-century residents. It certainly was an extravagant showpiece to say the least! The rooftop is certainly the highlight of the tour!

 

We went back to the hotel, checked in and carted our luggage to our room. Then we called a cab and were whisked off to Parc Guell, Gaudí's whimsical public park. In 1900 it was going to be a model garden city community of 60 dwellings with its own market and church but it was never completed and the city took over the property in 1926. The park is spread over several acres of woodland high above central Barcelona with wonderful views at every turn. It’s considered one of the most unique man-made landscapes on the planet! Arriving at the main entrance in the Carrer Olot, you are greeted by two gingerbread-style gatehouses. The main steps to the Sala Hipóstila (marketplace) feature a spectacular tiled lizard, the park's centerpiece. This lizard is an icon in Barcelona and its likeness can be found in souvenir shops around the city.

 

one of the surprise highlights in the park was walking all the way to the top and seeing Celebrity’s Millennium ship docked in port! Knowing we would be on that ship the next afternoon was exciting! When we were finished meandering through the park, we walked a few blocks south to catch a taxi back to our hotel.

 

From the hotel, we walked back to Las Ramblas and found a nice Tapas restaurant (Txapela) for dinner. We had fun (and beer) selecting our tapas from the menu of 51 choices and just people watching as we waited for our food. We weren’t too daring (we were hungry) so we selected tapas with cooked salmon, shrimp, proscuitto and tuna. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and called it a night.

 

The hotel was upscale and modern. Our room was pretty large for European standards and had a large balcony (overlooking a school yard). The only problem with our accommodations was that the bed was so hard, we might as well have been sleeping on the floor! The hotel had a reputation for hard beds so I let it be known when we checked in that I didn’t want one of those rooms – so I can’t imagine if there were beds that were harder than the one we slept on! It was so bad, I called for a foam pad or featherbed or some type of padding. All they could offer was a blanket. I’m not sure what they thought adding a blanket to the top would accomplish but I ordered four extra pillows and slept on top of the pillows! (And that was no easy feat in itself.)

 

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel (included) and then called a taxi to take us and our luggage to the pier terminal (Moll D’Adossat). The taxi driver drove some major streets we had not seen previously so it was a treat to see yet another section of Barcelona. We arrived at the pier about 11:15 a.m. and were quickly processed and welcomed aboard Celebrity’s Millennium with a glass of champagne. Unlike last year when we docked almost at the foot of Las Ramblas, our berth at the pier this year was so far from Las Ramblas that we decided to spend the rest of the day onboard ship rather than venture back into town.

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... We plan to arrive 4 days early and would like suggestions on how to spend the time.

 

here's my notes from our day in BCN in 2004...

 

We took a Princess bus tour in Barcelona – the Highlights tour – that drove to the top of Montjuic hill for a panoramic view of the city and a look at the Olympic fields from 1992. It was amazing to see the swimming pool, which was perched on the side of the hill and overlooked all of Barcelona. It must have been breathtaking for the swimmers to dive from that location!

 

After descending Montjuic, we passed Gaudi’s La Pedrera house (also called Casa Mila) whose exterior had metal balconies and a curing roofline. Then we passed Gaudi’s other modernistic building – the Casa Batllo with its interesting rooftop and ceramic walls. Then, after a 30-minute bathroom/shopping break right across the street from the cathedral, we toured the La Sagrada Familia.

 

This is a huge cathedral started in 1883 by a gentleman named Gaudi, which is STILL not finished more than a century later. This cathedral is so big that you need a wide-angle lens… and to be a block or more away to capture everything on one photograph! The outside is of a nature of which we’ve never seen before with a façade of Jesus’ birth and early life on one side and the Passion and Death of Christ on another. That is, within the wall of the side of the building are these statues depicting the life of Christ. The façade of Jesus’ birth is sculpted in realism while the façade of his death is sculpted in abstract modernism.

 

There are going to be 12 bell towers (one for each Apostle) in all; 8 are finished. At the top of some spires are bundles of fruit – which reminded me of Carmen Miranda’s headdress. Currently, the vaults of the main nave are finished, and work now commences on the transepts and apse. They said the cathedral should be completely finished by 2025 (or earlier). When it’s finished, at least a block of now-occupied buildings will need to be demolished to make way for the lawn!

 

Below the cathedral is a museum, which shows the past, present and future of the cathedral through scale models, photographs, and such. Personally, I thought the entire church was quirky! But, if nothing else it was easy to identify a Gaudi piece of work!

 

After our tour of the cathedral, we drove through the Barceloneta fishing village on our way back to the ship. Some passengers got off the bus at the Columbus Monument located at the foot of Las Ramblas promenade but we made our way back to the ship for lunch as it was pretty hot again today (high 80s and humid) and we were ready for another dose of air conditioning. We thought it was interesting that Columbus’ monument points toward Italy and our cruise ship’s berth (not the New World).

 

We went back to Las Ramblas around 3pm for about an hour. We strolled down the grand boulevard and watched the vendors and street performers entertain the crowd. The street performers were dressed in bizarre costumes and activated when a pedestrian put a coin in the box in front of their “stand.” There were performers dressed as a flamenco dancer, a man in a black and gold suit wearing wings and reading a newspaper, and even a man spray-painted in white with a white derby hat and white business suit – sitting on a porcelain white toilet with his pants down around his ankles and white coffee mug on his platform! To say the least, it was a sight to behold! Along the way, there were plenty of sidewalk cafes where folks were drinking beer and eating tapas. While we were in town, Princess had a special program with flamenco dancers onboard to entertain those already back on board the ship.

 

What we missed – the Gaudi museum at the top of Casa Mila, the clock at the Academy of Medicine, the Cathedral of Barcelona (Santa Eulalia), the Spanish Village (Poble Espanyol), Gothic Quarter, Queen Isabella’s palace, the Museum Picasso building, Parc Guell with Gaudi’s works, seeing the unique La Boqueria market (St. Joseph’s Market), eating tapas and a dinner and show at Tablao Cordobes. (There was a hop-on, hop-off bus in town but we felt we didn’t need it after the Princess half-day tour.)

 

My impressions of Barcelona – it was very interesting and there are enough sites left for me to want to return to see the rest. I was concerned about pickpockets on Las Ramblas but when we were there, the boulevard wasn’t really crowded so [i thought] it was easier to keep an eye out for pickpockets.

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Laxcr - We booked the Grand Marina Hotel for our cruise in December 2. The rates during that period are between 160-300 Euros per night. Nice location and very contemporary modern. Many find it is lacking in character and prefer the Las Ramblas area.

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usavvy2: Thanks for all the good ideas for our next visit to Barcelona which hopefully will be in 2008! I'd love to visit the Gaudi buildings and plan to go back to Parc Guell.

We stayed at the Hotel Continental Palacete last time, and highly recommend it. We took the Aerobus from the airport to Placa Catalunya and walked with suitcases to the hotel, which was easy to do but we like a lot of exercise and some may prefer the taxi route.

 

I had posted the following in another thread for friends going to Barcelona later this year, so I’ll post it here too for the OP. We’ve been to Barcelona twice for a total of 5 days, and it is one of our very favorite cities.

In Barcelona, definitely walk Las Ramblas. It is like a three-ring circus with vendors, mimes, live music, markets, and pickpockets (watch your valuables!). There is a very interesting & lovely gothic, old town area off of La Ramblas.

 

I consider Parc Guell and La Sagrada Familia as do-not-misses, which are north of Las Ramblas. Both feature the very famous Antonio Gaudi architecture and art. La Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) is a non-active church (now a museum) and Parc Guell is a large multi-acre park with his art & architecture including a museum with some of his pieces. He is one of the most fascinating and creative architects and artists of all times.

 

In the Gothic Quarter, the City History Museum was built over Roman ruins; you can actually take the elevator down and see centuries of Roman ruins. We're into ancient civilizations, so this was very fascinating for us.

If you like castles, go up to the top of Montjuic. What a view from the top of the mountain. The hop-on hop-off bus I mention below goes there, but I think you may need the cable car to get all the way to the castle, which is what we took. The Olympic area is in route.

 

To make it easy to see a good percent of Barcelona, consider the one-day or two-day Hop-On Hop-Off bus pass to get all around Barcelona. You can just ride it or get on and off as many times as you like. They also give you a booklet of discounts for some of the places mentioned, plus the bus goes to all these places I mentioned. There are 3 lines (blue, red, & green) and the pass is good for all three. The Red and Blue are the best because they go to the best sights. The Green goes along the water and to beaches. You can get the Red and Blue buses at Placa Catalunya, the main plaza off of La Rambla de Catalunya, which is very close to Hotel Continental Palacete which is also on La Rambla de Catalunya. Placa Catalunya is also the transfer point of Blue to Red or vice versa. You can get the Green bus at the Columbus (Colon) Monument at the foot of La Rambla. The main transfer point is in the Gothic Quarter to switch to the Blue line, I think. Or you can get the buses at any of the major sights with other transfer points available. The tour guides on the buses narrate what you are seeing from the bus, but you can get off at a stop and re-board later or just continue riding around. The bus is double-decker –- enclosed downstairs and open on top.

 

Barcelona has a Picasso Museum, which we have not been to yet. Also, there are several Gaudi buildings that you can tour and other monuments, parks, shopping, & museums. For shopping, El Corte Ingles department store is at the Placa Catalunya. Las Ramblas has another large flower, fish, cheese, fruit market along with all the vendors up and down Las Ramblas.

 

Kathy

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Completely agree with Hotel Palacete. Nice facility, great location. We took the airport bus to downtown. Not a very good idea for us with all our cruise baggage. About a 4 block schlep to the hotel. Would take a taxi if I had to do it again. If you're looking for something different do while in BCN, try the evening guided tour of old Barcelona and the seaside by Segway! Very cool! The nice folks at the Palacete front desk should be able to give you details. Have a wonderful time!

 

Thanks for the Segway idea! What a great idea. We think it is way cool. Found their website if anyone else is interested. (http://www.barcelonaglides.com/index.asp) Thanks for the idea.

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From what pier will the 10-Sep-07 Barcelona to Venice cruise depart?

And, does anyone know of a nice, mid priced hotel around the pier. We plan to arrive 4 days early and would like suggestions on how to spend the time. We have never been to Barcelona. We have been to the western side of Spain though.

Cheers

Sophisticated CoolCats

 

we are going to be there shortly and are using the HOtel Sercotel Barcelona Princess. Central location not far from pier. We got a very low rate through Venere.com.

 

good luck !

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OP, you should definitely take a look at all the hotel offerings in Barcelona by going to tripadvisor.com. They show maps for each hotel, along with reviews by travelers who've actually stayed in these hotels. They rank them and let you check prices at most of the major booking sites. You can sort them by the section of Barcelona you want to stay in. Last year, I found a sizeable difference in the prices among the booking sites for the Hotel Montecarlo. We were able to get a special price through one of the links. The Montecarlo has a good location, too, at the North end of Las Ramblas. We were able to walk everywhere. We found several nice, reasonably priced restaurants off of Placa Catalunya for dinner in which we were the only tourists. That was fun. The restaurants on Las Ramblas seemed pretty overpriced, for the most part. The open air market was great for buying fruit for our cereal, a bag of nuts to take onboard, and some dried fruits.

 

The El Corte Ingles department store on Placa Catalunya has a full-fledged grocery store in the basement. It's sort of a Spanish version of Harrod's. We bought milk, Cheerios, juice, and such and had breakfast in our room each morning. We also bought our stock of caffeine-free sodas which we took aboard. BTW, liquor was cheaper there than in the duty-free shops at the airports. And this past November, when we boarded the Millennium, no one cared what type and number of alcoholic beverages we took onboard. We were astonished at that. There was a liquor store IN the port AFTER security and check-in, so we went back off of the ship and picked up a few things. I don't know if that was a mistake, but we took advantage of it that time.

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Laxcr - We booked the Grand Marina Hotel for our cruise in December 2. The rates during that period are between 160-300 Euros per night. Nice location and very contemporary modern. Many find it is lacking in character and prefer the Las Ramblas area.

Jim,

 

You'll enjoy your stay at the Grand Marina. We stayed there four nights prior to our Millennium TA last November. What I particularly liked about the hotel was its location. It was much quieter than a hotel near Las Ramblas.

 

The best advice I can give you about the Grand Marina is to check the hotel booking engine frequently. The hotel must use some kind of yield management system to determine room rates because they fluctuated frequently. For example, our room started at 260 Euros a night but dropped to 205 Euros a night over the course of three or four months. A couple of weeks prior to our stay, the rate increased to 215 Euros a night.

 

I checked the hotel's web site weekly and would cancel and rebook whenever the rate dropped. I think I did this four or five times. It was worth the effort.

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Laxcr,

 

Your cruise will most likely leave from Terminals B or C at the Moll Adossat. Here's a map showing the location: http://www.apb.es/en/PORT/Cruises/Terminals/files/PortBcnTerminalsFerrisiCreuers20050413_EN.pdf.

 

Barcelona is an amazing city. Last year, I used the free online Take Off Guide to Barcelona to help plan our trip. I suggest downloading the entire guide to your computer for easy reference. They've just added a guide to Rome. The link is: http://www.takeoffguides.com/english.html.

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DaveFR - Thanks for the advise. I think I got a pretty good rate so far. Originally I booked a standard room at 160 Euros and then upgraded it to a City View Suite at 300 Euros. I also like the quieter location.

 

Is the hotel close enough to where you check in for the cruise to walk (with your luggage) or do you have to take some type of transport?

 

 

Jim

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Is the hotel close enough to where you check in for the cruise to walk (with your luggage) or do you have to take some type of transport?

 

 

Jim

Jim,

 

The cruise ship terminal is probably 1.25 to 1.5 miles from the hotel. It may be a little further. We took a taxi. Frankly, I didn't pay much attention to it but I seem to remember at least certain areas along the road to the terminal where you would have to walk in the traffic lane.

 

To whet your appetite, here are a few pictures showing the view you'll have from your suite. Have a great cruise.

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Jim,

 

Frankly, I didn't pay much attention to it but I seem to remember at least certain areas along the road to the terminal where you would have to walk in the traffic lane.

 

 

Case in point: here is a photo of Millennium docked in Barcelona (2nd ship from the bridge). The only access to Barcelona is via the highway and bridge--no sidewalk is visible.

 

03-Adossat03.jpg

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Case in point: here is a photo of Millennium docked in Barcelona (2nd ship from the bridge). The only access to Barcelona is via the highway and bridge--no sidewalk is visible.

 

03-Adossat03.jpg

 

I was really excited to see the picture. Where can we find it?

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We did walk from the ship to La Ramblas early evening after the ship docked. It was a about a 15 min. walk. There is a sidewalk, but I wouldn't recommend it. There is a lot of traffic at that time of the day and we had to cross traffic to get to the bridge. Also, we stayed in town for Tappas for dinner and had difficulty getting transportation back. Many taxi drivers in Barcelona do not speak English or acknowledge speaking Spanish (they speak Catalan). My husband had to use sign language to convey where we wanted to go and we just prayed we'd end up in the right place. Celebrity had buses for a nominal fee to town and back, but the last bus left before we reached the bus stop. So....my suggestion is to take a bus to town - it was lots of fun, but be sure to arrange transportations back and don't stay too late!

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Dr. Koob, I can see the photo, it is even embedded in your reply post. Maybe it is a computer setting or a downloading speed problem. At any rate, here is a link to the photo:

 

http://www.apb.es/en/SERVICES/Pictures_Gallery/files/03-Adossat01.jpg

 

There are more port photos to see from this website (the official Port of Barcelona web page): http://www.apb.es/en/SERVICES/Pictures_Gallery

 

Upon closer inspection of a larger version of the photo (1200x800) I can see the small sidewalk on either side of the road and bridge that spengle refers to, so I stand corrected. But it is not the kind of sidewalk (design and distance) that you want to use to walk with your luggage to a nearby hotel! The view of the cruise ships from the bridge must be magnificent.

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