Med Cruise on the Brilliance~ June 7, 2016 ~ My Diary

Hi Everyone!

I finally have a little time that I can get this together! Lots of pictures and lots to tell! We did a few cruises in the Spring, but there just wasn't enough time to report on those.

We started planning this trip over a year ago with our good cruise buddies, Andrea and Michael, whom we met on a cruise 9 years ago.....and guess what? It was on the Brilliance. We've cruised a few times since, and we were really looking forward to this one. We all did a lot of planning for it.

Here we are getting on board the Brilliance:

Jane and John.......Andrea and Michael.

It all started when Andrea and Michael flew to North Carolina from California a couple of days before we were to fly to Barcelona from Charlotte. They had never been to the Carolinas before, so we were excited to have them here. We picked them up at the airport in Raleigh when they flew in on June 2. I had a sign for them using their cruise nicknames. (Long story about the nicknames.) Anyway it was great seeing them again!

Here they come!!

We collected their luggage and were on the way to our house.

We had a great time visiting at our house for two days. We enjoyed showing them around. One afternoon it started raining and I saw them just staring out of the front door. I asked them what they were doing and they said they were just looking at the rain. They had not seen rain in California for 5 years and it was fascinating to them. Wow!!

When they got here......we still were not packed. We had a lot going on before the cruise and just couldn't get it together. Andrea got our rears in gear and actually packed for both of us!! She is a master packer and really did a good job of getting everything in beautifully!

On the afternoon of the 4th.....we packed up the car and drove over to the Charlotte airport.....about an hour and a half away. We were lucky and snagged some non stop Business Class seats at a good price a year ago on American Airlines. We barely got all our stuff in the car!!

Yes! Love your reviews.

Planning to do this cruise in 2018, so looking forward to the rest!

I love your reviews! I'm really looking forward to this one since cruising on Brilliance in the Med was my first cruise. We still see and vacation with two other couples that we met on that cruise too. There must be something about a Mediterranean cruise that inspires friendships.:)

We enjoyed the Business Class Lounge at the airport.

Our plane was wonderful. It had these pods that were so comfortable. Even though we left an hour late.....we didn't leave until 10 PM.....the service was incredible. We were happy campers and had a very comfortable flight over to Barcelona. I curled up in my bed after dinner and slept like a log. I think we all did.

When we reached Barcelona, we easily got through immigration.....quick and painless......collected our luggage and easily got a taxi to our hotel. Our hotel.....The Hotel Catalonia Port.......was almost all the way to the port and the charge was something like 44 euros. I think the taxi driver took us on an unasked for tour and ran the bill up a little bit.......but we finally got to our hotel. By this time it was around noon.

We were able to check right in to our hotel......a great little Boutique Hotel that we have stayed in before. Very convenient to everything. It is just a couple of blocks off La Rambla down near the Columbus Monument......very near the port. We settled in and rested for just a bit. Then Andrea, Michael and I took a stroll on La Rambla to see the sites.

Here's the front of our hotel:

So much to see on La Rambla. Of course you have to be very aware of your surroundings, but we had no problems and enjoyed our stroll.

Lots and lots of people out strolling today:

We decided to stop at one of the cafes and get something to drink and just people watch for a while. Turns out our diet cokes were over 7 euros each!!! So we sat there for a while and enjoyed the hell out of them and did a lot of people watching!

One of the nice little perks of our hotel was they had some tapas in the afternoon, so when we returned to the hotel, we got a little snack to hold us until time for dinner:

Hello Jane,

Looking forward to this review!

I'm currently onboard Anthem- I actually think that you would quite like this ship, it's similar to the Radiance Class in quite a few ways.

Joe

Hello Jane,

Looking forward to this review!

I'm currently onboard Anthem- I actually think that you would quite like this ship, it's similar to the Radiance Class in quite a few ways.

Joe

Hi Joe! And everyone! Glad to have you all checking in. Yes.....one of these days we'll try out Anthem. We just love the older smaller ships.....but eventually we'll have to move forward, I guess!!

At about 8 o'clock.....we walked down a little alley next to the hotel....not too far.....to the Plaza Reial. Some friends had taken us here before, so that's how we knew about it.

We ate at a restaurant that we had also eaten in before......right on the corner there, called Rossini. Excellent food.....I had grilled salmon that was very tasty. And also a local beer. We finished that off with some cappuccino and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We looked around at all the other restaurants there and found one that we thought we would like to try the next night. We had a leisurely stroll back to the hotel and called it a night. We were pooped. The shower and the bed felt mighty good and, again, I slept like a log!!

Monday ~ June 6, 2016 ~ Barcelona

We got up early and walked down to the end of La Rambla ( a couple of blocks) and found a café that was serving breakfast. This was a much cheaper option than the hotel. We had a nice breakfast there and then went right over to the HOHO (hop on hop off) bus and bought senior tickets for a morning tour.

The tour we chose started at the port and took in some of the sights of the city.......it went by the Segrada Familia and Park Gruell. It took a couple of hours. It started and ended near a mall just over a bridge. We had to walk a bit to get there. Neat bridge and marina.

We found our bus!!

If you are going to do the HOHO bus......I would suggest going early like we did. We just stayed on the bus for the entire route and saw a lot of stuff.

Very nice sights:

More sights from our HOHO ride:

When we ended our tour, we were back at the nice mall, so we went in there and found a bit of lunch. Andrea and Michael stayed there to do some shopping, but we went back to the hotel to get some rest. John stayed in the room and I went out by the pool area. Very nice day! Very relaxing by the pool! I was the only one there!

That evening we arranged to meet up with a family from our roll call. They were from the Raleigh area. I knew we would hit it off because the daughter, Chelsea, went to UNC (and we are Tar Heel fans) and the son, Hayden, graduated from Clemson (my alma mater). We did a lot of e-mailing before the trip, so we felt like we already knew each other! We would be sharing a tour to Rome later in the cruise. We told them to meet us at the fountain in the Plaza Reial at 7 o'clock.

We had a leisurely stroll there again:

Elevator shot before we went out:

The meeting place:

Chelsea and family were right there waiting for us! We had no trouble recognizing each other.

We chatted a bit before heading over to the restaurant.

We picked out (the night before) another restaurant in the Plaza for tonight. It was a restaurant that I had read something about on line and it looked good. The name of it is Les Quinze Nits. The food was good and prices very reasonable.

We got a table for 8. You can't be in any hurry when you are here, though! That was OK, though, because we had a great time talking, so it was not a problem. We had a very nice dinner. Everyone ordered things from paella to pasta to swordfish......all was very good. We had drinks and shared two desserts....all for 114 euros. Not bad for 8 people. We decided we would come back here in the future.

More beer was consumed!

My dinner.....swordfish.....I think!

Thanks for sharing your photos of Barcelona and your meeting with Cruise

Critic friends.

We stayed there for two nights on the end of the cruise and enjoyed every

moment.

Wish we could be back there. Wonderful cruise ports also! Great trip!

The Murphy's

Stow, MA.

We picked out (the night before) another restaurant in the Plaza for tonight. It was a restaurant that I had read something about on line and it looked good. The name of it is Les Quinze Nits. The food was good and prices very reasonable.

 

]

Thanks for posting Jane - that place did look familiar in your photos (I went to your Photobucket Account first before reaing this post) and that is where we ate on our 2nd (and last night) after the cruise! A great find.

I hope I'm not out of line here :o But I wanted to offer a suggestion re: your blog. There are obviously many photos you have to share and you haven't even gotten on the boat. If you are posting three or four group postings for every day you'll be up to over 50 posts (which might scare some folks away). You may want to think about creating your daily summary in something like word with all the photo hyperlinks) in them and then posting it as one long =post for each port. this will also serve another purpose, you can then email the document to all your friends and relatives (who are obviously not on CC). As you have seen I like Movie Maker to create a short slide show that just plays through (and has explanations when needed), But Photobucket works too. And I've tried to edit out too many "personal photos) as that more for me to see and many are dups. I learned the hard way :cool: that most folks only have so much time to look.

If you are writing a "narrative" review for Cruise CRitic (under the Brilliance Cruise Reviews), please let us know and share the link.

Please do continue to share though. (I for one like to see what others did on tours etc).

I'm just finishing up a video of the stills from the 2 days in venice. It'll be under 8 minutes. i just need to add music and will post here.

Steve

Yeah! Can't wait to read it all. I love your reviews.

Off topic a bit - I swear in someone else's reviews they said they bumped into you on Allure of Oasis. Did you cruise on that this spring and if so what did you think of the big ship?! I've been keeping an eye open for your reviews to see if one was on the big ship!

Can't wait to read about all your European adventures.

Thanks for the suggestion, Steve. My husband tries to get me to do it that way, but this way is just easier for me......less frustrating and I'm just so used to it. (Don't like change!) Ha!

I have enjoyed looking at your beautiful photos. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for doing your diary, I am loving the format you are using. I am looking forward to the ship and port of calls reviews. We are on the Sept 11th sailing from Barcelona.

Norma

Yeah! Can't wait to read it all. I love your reviews.

 

Off topic a bit - I swear in someone else's reviews they said they bumped into you on Allure of Oasis. Did you cruise on that this spring and if so what did you think of the big ship?! I've been keeping an eye open for your reviews to see if one was on the big ship!

 

Can't wait to read about all your European adventures.

Hey!! Yes.....we cruised on Oasis this Spring. I was not looking forward to it, but some other friends were going and wanted us to go. I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed it. You know I like the smaller more intimate ships, but there were a lot of aspects about the Oasis that I liked. We had previously cruised on Allure and it was OK, too. Now I don't want to cruise on these big ships all the time......but once in a while is OK. We are back on for a back to back in October, so maybe I will have time to write about that experience.

Thanks for posting Jane - that place did look familiar in your photos (I went to your Photobucket Account first before reaing this post) and that is where we ate on our 2nd (and last night) after the cruise! A great find.

 

I hope I'm not out of line here :o But I wanted to offer a suggestion re: your blog. There are obviously many photos you have to share and you haven't even gotten on the boat. If you are posting three or four group postings for every day you'll be up to over 50 posts (which might scare some folks away). You may want to think about creating your daily summary in something like word with all the photo hyperlinks) in them and then posting it as one long =post for each port. this will also serve another purpose, you can then email the document to all your friends and relatives (who are obviously not on CC). As you have seen I like Movie Maker to create a short slide show that just plays through (and has explanations when needed), But Photobucket works too. And I've tried to edit out too many "personal photos) as that more for me to see and many are dups. I learned the hard way :cool: that most folks only have so much time to look.

 

If you are writing a "narrative" review for Cruise CRitic (under the Brilliance Cruise Reviews), please let us know and share the link.

 

 

Please do continue to share though. (I for one like to see what others did on tours etc).

 

I'm just finishing up a video of the stills from the 2 days in venice. It'll be under 8 minutes. i just need to add music and will post here.

 

Steve

I personally like the way that you are posting. Keep up the good work.

I'm a Princess cruiser but discovered your trip reports several years ago...love your writing style.

So now I do a periodic search to make sure that I don't miss any of your reviews.

Judy

Sent from my HUAWEI SCL-L04 using Tapatalk

OK......so after dinner....we said our good-byes and strolled back to the hotel.

On the way....we passed this outside grill from a restaurant.

When we got back to the hotel we went out on the terrace/pool area and checked all our e-mail, etc, and just enjoyed the evening. It was so nice.