Our Serenade Story - Review Oct 10 - 22 Med Cruise

Okay,

This is this first time I am posting a review. Almost all of the review was written by my husband as a journal of sorts while we were on our trip. I added in a few more details and thought it might make a nice review.

It will focus more on the ports of call because that was our main focus on the trip. I will put in as many pictures as I can.

The first couple of posts are mostly back story about the planning and incidents leading up to the cruise. Let me introduce everyone and then I will get started with the review.

We are the Inman Family! We cruise as often as we can but that is not near often enough. It is a little difficult to cruise living in far North Idaho but we do the best we can. We are -

Will (42) -works for the government to pay the bills but is really a writer. He has one book in publication and is working on the next few in the series.

Sarah (40) - stay at home mom, homeschooling my kids, loves to plan vacations :D

Caitlin aka Caitie (15) - teenage girl :eek:

Seth (11) - our boy who was obsessed with climbing the tower of Pisa

So I intended for these photos to be attached to the last post but apparently I needed a little tutorial in posting photos. I'm crossing my fingers that this works. Here's my family -

43775760272 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

43775760152 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Let's get started!

Our journey to the Mediterranean began many years before our actual trip, and, by all rights, the trip nearly failed on many occasions. My wife and I are avid cruisers, having taken our first trip in 2004 on the Rhapsody of the Seas with Royal Caribbean. We have taken a cruise somewhere almost every year since. I firmly believe that cruising is the complete package when it comes to vacations. The world's greatest destinations come to me, and all I have to do to enjoy them is to get out of bed, all the while eating the finest cuisines, drinking the smoothest Scotch, viewing the finest art, and smiling with the perfect wife. Going to sleep in one continent and waking up in another is a privilege that I don't enjoy casually.

While enjoying our second Alaska cruise, which happened to be the Rhapsody again, my wife, Sarah, and I discussed our future cruising plans. We rather enjoyed cruising in the company of Sarah's grandparents, who are excellent travel partners, and I discussed taking a Galapagos trip with Papaw. Unfortunately, he went on to his reward before we could cruise again. So, Sarah and I decided that we had enjoyed 7 night cruises so much that we would really enjoy a longer cruise. But where to go? We found a lack of interesting cruises in the States that excited us, so we concluded that we simply had to commit to a Mediterranean experience. Essentially, our October 2013 cruise began in 2009, while skirting the edge of Hubbard Glacier. We just needed to put a plan together.

Sarah is the consummate planner, who can't seem to go to Walmart without a trip planner, which is neatly bound into a binder, which becomes the Bible. If you're only going to Walmart, this is overkill. However, if you are going on a cruise, it is the most important thing, second only to your airline tickets. My ADD forbids me from obsessing about petty details such as points of contact for an excursion, or the dates of the cruise itself. I am truly blessed to have an obsessive planner in my life.

Well, my excessive planner started researching European cruises in 2009 and we began to make plans. We knew it was going to cost a fortune, and one of us would have to sell a kidney in order to make it work. (Fortunately, one of our three kids was a perfect match for a Russian mob boss, who paid us cash, no questions asked. Consequently, Annabelle will not be attending the cruise because she can't leave the closet, where she has lived quietly for several years now.) By 2010, we had a rough idea what we wanted from the trip, so we began making actual plans. In between, we went on a Disney cruise to Cabo, and a Carnival trip to Cozumel, and the Mayan ruins in Progresso. I will never, ever, sail with Carnival again, but that is a post for a different day.

We knew we wanted to visit France, Italy, and Greece, and I wanted to throw in someplace like Austria or Hungary, but I suppose the country actually has to connect to the Sea before you can cruise to it. Go figure! We also knew that there are only certain companies we are willing to cruise with, and Royal Caribbean is one of them. So, now we were down to actually selecting a ship and an itinerary. Only...we knew we couldn't afford such a trip unless we allowed plennnnnty of time to budget it into our vacation portfolio. We simply couldn't get the cruise companies to publish their itineraries 3 years in advance. I'll talk to the Captain about that when I get a chance. You can count on it!

In 2012, my wife was at a family reunion in Las Vegas and mentioned the cruise. Several of her family members gathered around and began a long discussion that turned into a planning session, which turned into an actual ship name and itinerary. Looks like we were going to have company on our 2013 vacation! In the end, we had a party of 15 which included Sarah's parents, sister and brother-in-law, and many of her brother-in-law's family.

Now we have a great ship and an equally incredible itinerary, which will make this trip unforgettable. How can you go wrong with Barcelona, Cannes, Florence, Naples, Rome, Athens, Turkey, and the Greek Isles? Talk about the ultimate in awesome ports, not to mention Europe and Asia, plus the coast of Africa off the port bow! This trip is gonna rock! Now we only have to pay for it...

000 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

I am looking forward to reading your review. We are on the Serenade sailing in May doing the same itinerary that you all did. Sounds like you hit a few bumps along the way but I was happy to see that all worked out. Hope you are feeling better and thank you for taking the time to share your vacation with us! :)

Dolfans from Miami

Our cruise was to depart on Thursday, Oct 10th. Monday (Oct 7th) morning we loaded the car and embarked on our vacation. We planned to drive the 100 miles to Spokane, WA, which is the nearest airport and spend the night at the Ramada right next door.

002 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

003a by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

The Ramada Spokane Airport

004 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

We stopped at the Verizon store and had them insert the proper SIM card into my phone so we could have a short upgrade to Global Roaming. (I'll discuss whether or not the upgrade was worth it at the end of the trip.) Anyway, our plan for that day was to eat a very early supper at around 3 or 4 that afternoon, and then go to our hotel and take a Benadryl and go to sleep between 6 or 7. We had two reasons for attempting that idea. First, our flight from Spokane left at 6 AM, and we were going to get there 2 hours early, which meant we had to wake up at 3 AM. The other part of our idea was that it would help us to acclimate to European time. We were going to take another Benadryl when we left JFK in New York and force ourselves to sleep on the plane and "Presto!" when we arrived at Barcelona, we would be refreshed and ready for the day. So, we took our sleeping pills and went to bed. It ended up being 8 PM when we actually got into bed. The bed was hard, and my broken ribs were screaming at me, even through the pain pills I took, so I woke up around midnight. Sarah woke up around 2 AM. The kids got up at 3, and our vacation was officially launched.

008 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

All smiles at four o'clock in the morning

009 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

013 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Looking a little less smiley by the time we got to JFK

We had two domestic flights from Spokane to Salt Lake City, and then to New York. Our flight was supposed to leave JFK at 7:45, but there were delays with Delta, so we left an hour late. By the time they served us our in-flight dinner, which was chicken with mashed potatoes, it was 10 PM. We took our sleeping pills and waited for the magical sleep. But it never came. We tried and tried to sleep, but it just wouldn't happen. The kids finally dropped off at about five hours into our 7 hour flight. But Sarah and I didn't even nod off. So, by the time we actually landed, we were already 24 hours awake.

I am looking forward to reading your review. We are on the Serenade sailing in May doing the same itinerary that you all did. Sounds like you hit a few bumps along the way but I was happy to see that all worked out. Hope you are feeling better and thank you for taking the time to share your vacation with us! :)

 

 

Dolfans from Miami

Thanks for checking out the review. This was the most amazing trip especially after all the hurdles we jumped to get there! It was all worth it. You will have an amazing time.

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

At this point we are still excited about this flight across the Atlantic. You can see on the back of the seats that we upgraded to Economy Comfort on Delta. In my opinion, it was not worth the price we paid. The extra room was not enough to make any difference in comfort (at least on this plane, the plane we were on for the flight back was much newer and may have been a different case).

017 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

019 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

My pictures from our tour of Barcelona and the airport are mostly non existent. We were in full zombie mode by that point and my brain was not firing on all cylinders! Sorry! I'll post what I've got!

We had planned to be picked up at the airport by Barcelona City Tours to enjoy a 4-hour tour of the Barcelona Highlights. We hoped that this would help us to stay awake and begin to acclimate to the time change.

A couple of random thoughts on flying into Barcelona. Once you land at the airport, it is a LONG walk to baggage claims. The signs do have English on them and there are enough arrows to point you the right way. Customs and Immigration were very simple. The officer hardly inspected our passports and then actually stamped them. Most cruisers don't get to have stamps in their passports, and if you're into stamps, you can collect one there. We never actually went through a customs inspection. Just a guy with a stamp. When we finally got our bags we had spent about an hour at the airport. We left baggage claims and followed the arrows into the customs inspection area (just two lines, one for those with nothing to declare, one for those with things to declare but there seemed to be no one doing any inspecting) which opened immediately into the unsecured part of the airport. A very long line of tour guides stood with white pieces of paper with people's names on them.

We found Jordi near the end of the line, and he greeted us with a smile. It was a good start!

Once we initiated our tour, Jordi asked when we were going to board the ship, and Sarah responded "Thursday", to which he said, "Oh, tomorrow." We said, "No, not tomorrow, Thursday." He looked at us queerly and said, "That is tomorrow." Somehow we lost an entire day on our journey, and failed to recognize that we lost an entire half day due to the time changes. In our minds, we had an entire day in Barcelona on the day we flew in. In reality, we landed around 10 AM and by the time we went through customs, which, by the way, was as easy as buying tickets to see a movie, and retrieved our luggage, it was already 11.

Our guide, Jordi, took us from the airport and went straight to the Olympic complex, which was built in order to accommodate the 1992 games. Barcelona should be, and is, proud of what they built. It is awe inspiring. The sculptures are nothing short of art, and the entire complex was charming. Do you remember in 1992 when the archer shot a flaming arrow into the Olympic torch and ignited the flame? It was a magnificent moment in sporting history, but when you stand in the stadium and see what that archer actually accomplished, you have to stand it awe of his skill and audacity to think he could pull that off! Brilliant! We were sufficiently impressed!

020 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Our first Barcelona fountain! And the old bull fighting ring in the background.

043 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

The torch from the 1992 Olympics.

042 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Our first family photo in Europe, we look tired!

038 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Part of the Olympic Stadium.

We left the complex and immediately drove to the Montjuic Castle, which offers a commanding view of Barcelona, the Mediterranean, and the mountains beyond. I highly recommend touring the castle if for no other reason than to see the grandeur that is Barcelona. It was built in the 17th century and is a fun stop, especially if you have children with you. There is a small snack stand in the castle, which sells sodas, coffees, wine, beer, and snack type items such as candy bars, nuts, pastries, sandwiches and hot dogs. This is the place we were instructed by Jordi to grab a snack and failed to do so. I would like to encourage you to follow his advice. We did stop and buy some Cokes because I had to take a Hydrocodone for my pain management, and we picked up a bottle of water as well. (Note: we are from Texas and we are native born Texicans, which means every type of soda ever made is a coke. You go the Dairy Queen in Texas and order a Coke, and the kid behind the counter will ask, "What kind?") Caitie actually got a Coke, Seth got a Sprite, and I picked some kind of local soda that turned out to be sparkling water.

045 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Montjuic Castle

046 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

That's the Mediterranean Sea behind us! Yippee!

047 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

And the city of Barcelona below us.

048 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Sagrada Familia from Montjuic.

We spent 20 minutes or so at the Castle, and that was enough time to visit it. I didn't see a museum or any other type of facility. But it did have a restroom! You can ride cable cars to the castle, but we had a tour guide who drove us to it. Other than that, the castle is an easy tour. When we left the castle, Jordi took us on a rather pleasant drive through the city where he pointed out fantastic fountains and monuments, spectacular architectural wonders, and the tranquility of the beach. Everyone was fully clothed on the beach (I wasn't sure what to expect), but it was also only 70 degrees. Pleasant, but not exactly sunbathing weather.

056 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

The Columbus Monument

062 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

On the beach, maybe the delirium is beginning to set in!

Yay, another Serenade review! We were on the Venice itinerary a couple of months back and had a wonderful time.

Looking forward to the rest of the review ... I am enjoying your sense of humor.

Some of the places he showed us include The Poble Espanyol, which is a place we really want to take time for a return visit. We left the Poble and saw the walls of the Raval district, and then drove along the beach to the Ribera and Barceloneta and then into the Barri Gotic district. Somewhere along the way we toured the area designed for the World Fair, which occurred back in the late 1920's. That area had the bull fighting area, which has been converted into a market when they outlawed bull fighting in 2012. Another highlight was the Apple of Discord, a street in the Exiample District, which is a remarkable place to see. It is incredible. The Casa Batlo was remodelled by Gaudi and resembles a dragon. You have to see it to understand what I mean. We stopped at the Sagrada Familia. I cannot summon the words to describe it. If you're in Barcelona and you only get to visit one place, make that your stop. It is Gaudi's masterpiece, and is not describable. Jordi then took us to the Park Guell (pronounced "well") which is another of Barcelona's architectural marvels designed by Gaudi. If you have not slept in 30 hours, it scrambles your brain. If you are fully alert and refreshed, it scrambles your brain. But my, what a place to see! And it was free! We spent about 15 minutes walking around it, but that was woefully insufficient time. If you go, plan at least an hour. There are several buildings to tour, and vendors lined the sidewalks selling jewelry and other trinkets such as magnets and dust collectors. One part of the Guell was a structure with about a thousand or maybe a million or so columns. Of course I'm exaggerating, but there were a bucket full of columns. The kids and I decided it reminded us of the Mines of Moria, where Gandalf illuminated the mines and allowed the Hobbits to see the columns in The Fellowship of the Rings. Surprisingly very similar. When we left Park Guell, Jordi drove us past the Hospital de Sant Pau, which covers about 8 blocks. Again, it is an architectural wonder. But if you are ever significantly ill, go to that hospital. Just being in it will make you feel better. By that point, our 4 hours were spent and we went straight to our hotel.

067 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Spires of The Barcelona Cathedral in the Gothic District

068 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Apple of Discord

069 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Casa Batlo

076 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Sagrada Familia

077 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Detail of Sagrada Familia

I am enjoying your review. I hope you at least brought Annabelle a magnet back. After all the trip wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

More Pics!

The Magnificent Park Guell

084 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

086 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

089 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

092 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

093 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

094 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Yay, another Serenade review! We were on the Venice itinerary a couple of months back and had a wonderful time.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review ... I am enjoying your sense of humor.

Thanks for stopping by! Yours was a great review! I don't do much posting but do a lot of reading. Before the cruise I read every tidbit I could about this cruise unfortunately there wasn't much, so I decided the best I could do was share my experiences for the next person who comes along. I find myself still reading reviews of these trips!

I would love to do the Venice Itinerary sometime!

I am enjoying your review. I hope you at least brought Annabelle a magnet back. After all the trip wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

Oh Annabelle! She is a fixture in our family! A funny story about her...My husband and I had joked with our daughter from the time she could understand speech that there was a kid who lived in the house named Annabelle. Anything unexplainable that happened was always blamed on Annabelle and eventually my daughter caught on to the joke and started playing along with it. Then my son was born. Annabelle was already a fixture and we talked about her as such. Just a few years ago (he was probably 9 at the time), we were having a conversation about Annabelle and suddenly he slammed his hands down on the table and said "Can somebody please tell me who the heck this Annabelle is?" Apparently, he had NOT caught on to the joke...He is now fully informed :p

Annabelle is still part of the family though...

Now I haven't even discussed the painters Picasso, Dali, Joan Miro all of whom had great influence on the city of Barcelona. We wanted to tour the art museums, but we ran out of time. Barcelona is a city you can't rush through. To do it properly, plan 2 or 3 days, or a week. Our 4 hour tour was a great way to start, though. Jordi drove us past places that we marked down as spots to return and explore. I highly recommend you follow the same approach. Besides, it helps keep you awake, and it is unlikely your hotel will let you check in at 10 AM, and if they did, it's so tempting to crash into a bed and sleep, but if you have the fortitude to push through until the evening, your Circadian rhythm will eventually thank you.

One of the hardest things we had to plan was our hotels in Barcelona for the day before the cruise and the day after. Many of the hotels in Spain don't accommodate 4 people. If you needed more space, you got a second room. Since most of the rooms we were considering were running between 100 - 200 Euros each night, two rooms was going to significantly increase our expenditures. But, Sarah, excessive planner that she is, found two hotels within our budget and desired area that would accomodate 4 people to a room. She fussed with the details for a long time and when she found a rate she liked, she jumped on it. In our opinion, we weren't going to find a better deal. So, we ended up with reservations at the Hotel Regina for 150 Euro/night. We were right off Plaza Catalunya and just at the top of Las Ramblas. A great location.

Jordi dropped us off at the door to our hotel and gave us a recommendation for dinner. We thanked him for a wonderful tour and proceeded to check in to our room. Check in was quick and easy. They do take all of your passport numbers down for the tourist tax and I had to fill out a form as the head of household stating that my children are under age 17 so they would be exempt from the tax.

No matter where we go our children seem to enter a hotel room and then immediately detonate a dirty bomb. They seem to explode upon entry. I'm sorry we forgot to take pictures before we turned the kids loose. But these pictures will work, I hope. They have to. We have no others.

098 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Our room for 4 at the Hotel Regina

100 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

The bathroom

We were so tired by this point; we actually had the discussion that we might just skip eating entirely for that day and go straight to bed. But, Sarah and Caitie were starting to get headaches, so we summoned the strength to walk the two blocks to the restaurant.

Sarah's sister, brother-in-law, and parents as well as several of our cruise critic roll call buddies had been in Barcelona for several days already and had been posting pictures of the wonderful tapas and sangria. We were determined to not to get on the ship without having sampled the food. Jordi recommended Ciudad Condal, it was just a few blocks from the hotel. It was very easy to find and we were quickly seated. We sat for a few minutes examining the menu but were so tired that nothing was making sense to us. The waiter finally came by (he was from the Philippines and spoke perfect English) and we explained that we had been up for 30 hours, did not know what we were doing, but really wanted to try some tapas and sangria. He suggested we let him choose some of the more popular items to bring us. This sounded like a plan we could get behind! We tried some delicious tapas. Unfortunately, it is a blur. I know there were some bread and ham type meat. There were veal medallions on toast. There were papas bravas. The kids had some mini hot dog and hamburger tapas. The sangria was delicious but went straight to our very tired heads. It turned out to be a great meal. We were very satisfied with our tapas experience.

097 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

095 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Our first meal in Barcelona!

On the way back to the hotel the kids spotted a Burger King. We stopped and picked up some nuggets and fries to carry back to the hotel in case someone woke up hungry at some strange time. We didn't have to worry about that because as soon as the kids got still they were down for the count!

102 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

103 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

That night we went to bed at 6:30 and slept soundly until 4 AM. Hotel Regina is a very nice hotel, and the rooms are comfortable, the beds, which were all single beds, were comfortable, and I suppose the bidet was comfortable, if that's possible. One quirky thing about the hotel was trying to figure out how to turn on the lights. We walked around hitting every switch and looking for a breaker box, but then Sarah remembered reading that your key card must be inserted into a slot on the wall. We did that and, "voila" the lights came on! Very clever, so long as you don't lose your key. Plus, it helps you remember to take your key with you when you leave your room.

099 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

When we woke up (at 4am) it was much too early to get going so we used the excellent hotel Wi-Fi to FaceTime my parents back in Texas. Of course it was like midnight to them so we woke them up, but they were glad to hear from us none the less. We chatted for a while and got ready for the day. We left the hotel about 8AM to walk around the town. We ambled down a very quiet Las Ramblas until we found La Boqueria. We wandered around the market marveling at all the item being set up for the day. We found a little spot at the back of the market to have some breakfast. Churros y Chocolate! Delicioso! And the coffee was also fantastic. The kids ate the chocolate with a spoon!

128 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

La Boqueria

134 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

138 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

140 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Chocolate by the spoonful!

141 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

142 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

143 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Spanish Coffee was the best!

145 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

115 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

113 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

130 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Thank you for revisiting you trip for us. Love it so far......keep up the great review.

At this point we are still excited about this flight across the Atlantic. You can see on the back of the seats that we upgraded to Economy Comfort on Delta. In my opinion, it was not worth the price we paid. The extra room was not enough to make any difference in comfort (at least on this plane, the plane we were on for the flight back was much newer and may have been a different case).

 

017 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

 

019 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

 

My pictures from our tour of Barcelona and the airport are mostly non existent. We were in full zombie mode by that point and my brain was not firing on all cylinders! Sorry! I'll post what I've got!

 

 

We had planned to be picked up at the airport by Barcelona City Tours to enjoy a 4-hour tour of the Barcelona Highlights. We hoped that this would help us to stay awake and begin to acclimate to the time change.

 

 

A couple of random thoughts on flying into Barcelona. Once you land at the airport, it is a LONG walk to baggage claims. The signs do have English on them and there are enough arrows to point you the right way. Customs and Immigration were very simple. The officer hardly inspected our passports and then actually stamped them. Most cruisers don't get to have stamps in their passports, and if you're into stamps, you can collect one there. We never actually went through a customs inspection. Just a guy with a stamp. When we finally got our bags we had spent about an hour at the airport. We left baggage claims and followed the arrows into the customs inspection area (just two lines, one for those with nothing to declare, one for those with things to declare but there seemed to be no one doing any inspecting) which opened immediately into the unsecured part of the airport. A very long line of tour guides stood with white pieces of paper with people's names on them.

 

We found Jordi near the end of the line, and he greeted us with a smile. It was a good start!

 

Once we initiated our tour, Jordi asked when we were going to board the ship, and Sarah responded "Thursday", to which he said, "Oh, tomorrow." We said, "No, not tomorrow, Thursday." He looked at us queerly and said, "That is tomorrow." Somehow we lost an entire day on our journey, and failed to recognize that we lost an entire half day due to the time changes. In our minds, we had an entire day in Barcelona on the day we flew in. In reality, we landed around 10 AM and by the time we went through customs, which, by the way, was as easy as buying tickets to see a movie, and retrieved our luggage, it was already 11.

 

Our guide, Jordi, took us from the airport and went straight to the Olympic complex, which was built in order to accommodate the 1992 games. Barcelona should be, and is, proud of what they built. It is awe inspiring. The sculptures are nothing short of art, and the entire complex was charming. Do you remember in 1992 when the archer shot a flaming arrow into the Olympic torch and ignited the flame? It was a magnificent moment in sporting history, but when you stand in the stadium and see what that archer actually accomplished, you have to stand it awe of his skill and audacity to think he could pull that off! Brilliant! We were sufficiently impressed!

 

020 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Our first Barcelona fountain! And the old bull fighting ring in the background.

 

043 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

The torch from the 1992 Olympics.

 

042 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Our first family photo in Europe, we look tired!

 

038 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

Part of the Olympic Stadium.

I am loving your review so far. I'm sorry you suffered the Government Shutdown and your accident.

My Father and I started cruising on the Serenade Trans Atlantic from San Juan to Barcelona. Then this past April we took The Navigator from New Orleans to Rome. This April we are on The Splendour Of the Seas from Santos(Sao Paulo) Brazil to Barcelona with 5 nights in Barcelona. I found a 4 star Hotel(Hotel Amister Art in the L'Example Passig Gracia area for $88 a night+$55 in taxes.

I look forward to our stay in Sao Paulo and Santos as well.

As for long flights luckily I am able to sleep for most of the flight and I rarely get jetlag. We are going to use the Air Bus to get back to Barcelona Airport when we depart. On Arrival we plan to take Royal Caribbean's tour to Monteserrat with City Transfer. Then one day in Girona/Fuigerras(sp) and the rest in Barcelona.

Great review; I'm looking forward to more!

Thank you for revisiting you trip for us. Love it so far......keep up the great review.

Thanks for checking out the review. I've got a long way to go yet, but it was a fantastic trip. This is a great way to relive it!

I am loving your review so far. I'm sorry you suffered the Government Shutdown and your accident.

 

My Father and I started cruising on the Serenade Trans Atlantic from San Juan to Barcelona. Then this past April we took The Navigator from New Orleans to Rome. This April we are on The Splendour Of the Seas from Santos(Sao Paulo) Brazil to Barcelona with 5 nights in Barcelona. I found a 4 star Hotel(Hotel Amister Art in the L'Example Passig Gracia area for $88 a night+$55 in taxes.

 

I look forward to our stay in Sao Paulo and Santos as well.

 

As for long flights luckily I am able to sleep for most of the flight and I rarely get jetlag. We are going to use the Air Bus to get back to Barcelona Airport when we depart. On Arrival we plan to take Royal Caribbean's tour to Monteserrat with City Transfer. Then one day in Girona/Fuigerras(sp) and the rest in Barcelona.

Looks like you've got a great trip ahead of you! We really wanted to visit Montserrat but could not work it in. We have so many place marked on the maps that we want to visit on our NEXT trip to the Mediterranean!

Great review; I'm looking forward to more!

Thank you! I am working on uploading pictures now so should have some more posted soon! I love revisiting all the things we loved!

We continued our walk down to the Columbus statue, then back up Las Ramblas and off through the Barri Gotic. We ended up at the Barcelona Cathedral. It is a magnificent structure. There was no charge to enter the Cathedral but proper dress was required. Luckily we were properly covered and allowed to enter.

152 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

At the Columbus Monument

156 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

On the streets of the gothic district (one of the oldest parts of Barcelona)

158 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

164 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

168 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr

The beautiful Barcelona Cathedral.

173 by inmanfamily4, on Flickr