And so it begins Mariner April 2 Barcelona to Istanbul

Thought I would get this started. DH and I are sitting in the Star Alliance Lounge waiting for our flight on Lufhansia to Frankfurt and connecting to Barcelona. This lounge is certainly better than the airport but boy this is not the "Red Carpet" club of San Francisco or the many Alaska Boardrooms we love. No outside windows, that is reserved for the First Class folks....we are lowly Business....nice employees but the furnishings have seen better days...food and drinks are fine.

We stayed last nite at the Sheraton Hotel at LAX very nice property...free shuttle back and forth to the airport.

This moring at the airport I had my interview to get a Globel Entry card....that was weird and interesting! i guess I can be trusted as I was approved :)

Two hours from boarding....hoping other CC members on our cruise will drop by and keep this going...as I don't know I can be interesting enough to do it myself...besides I'll likely upset someone by putting my fingers in the cookie tray, share my desert with DH at dinner in the CR or hog a chair by the pool :0

Promise not to put my bare feet on any tables!

Safe travels to you all and see you in Barcelona....we are staying at Hotel 1898

Look for us David and Kathleen Thompson aka Nana, Cabin 781 ;)

How exciting that your journey has begun. Have to agree with you about the Lufthansa lounge. They have more than one and some are better than others.

You'll enjoy having Global Entry -- it makes returning to the U.S. so much easier. Did they do an iris scan on you or only the fingerprints? We were just discussing Global Entry on another thread this morning.

Looking forward to hearing all about your journey.

How exciting that your journey has begun. Have to agree with you about the Lufthansa lounge. They have more than one and some are better than others.

 

You'll enjoy having Global Entry -- it makes returning to the U.S. so much easier. Did they do an iris scan on you or only the fingerprints? We were just discussing Global Entry on another thread this morning.

 

Looking forward to hearing all about your journey.

They only did fingerprints.....yes I saw that discussion on the other thread, and I

Was surprised but forgot to ask why I did not have the iris scan. Oh well!

And yes TC2 this lounge is more like a grayhound bus terminal :0

Weird that you did not have an iris scan, esp since all the machines I have been through (MIA, JFK, DFW, ORD) have the iris scanner. They do your fingerprint, then the machine tells you to look in it and it scans your iris.

Have a great trip! Look forward to your updates.

Good on you for starting this thread. Port-intensive as the cruise will be, I hope to chime in with post or three. Also look forward to meeting you and David.

By the way, Jamie and Dana Logan will be our cruise directors. Ray's contract is up and he is heading back to his home in the Lake District of England for some R&R.

Rich

Our dream is coming true....

Aubree and I are packed and now just counting the minutes. With one last kiss to my dear sister and a sleepless night pretending to sleep, we will be on our way to LAX.

I will also be planting a big kiss on my dear husband for sending Aubree and I on this amazing adventure!

:D

See you all in Barcelona!

Charlene

Rich -

Great news about Jamie and Dana. I need to pack early morning as I am too tired having just returned home from a business trip. Look forward to meeting everyone soon.

Sitting in the KLM lounge in Amsterdam, waiting for our connecting flight to Barcelona. Flight was late leaving Chicago, so we missed the connection. This lounge is lovely, so the time is spent surfing the net and having lovely snacks.

Schipol is a wonderful airport, lots of shopping, not that I am interested in that right now, I am pretty tired having only had a few minutes of shut eye.

The advantage coming in later in the afternoon will hopefully be to get the room right away.

We are staying at the "w" in Barcelona, and have lots of planned activities both tomorrow Sunday and Monday morning.

See you all on Monday!

Sitting in Frankfurt waiting for our connecting flight to Barcelona. Yuk!!! Is all I can say about Frankfurt airport, everytime I come thru here I remember how bad it is....makes LAX look like the Fpur Seasons. We won't even talk about the Lufhansia Lounge here :( Lufhansia flight over was fast, Business seats strange but not bad, crew great, food not so much!

Can't wait to see you all and please keep this going....this trip is to busy for just one person to try and blog..

See you all soon...

Have a great time Kathleen and David (Nana), and Tina (tallship) and whomever you're travelling with this time!

Wishing you all a wonderful cruise!

As to the Frankfurt Airport: The first time I was in that place-- summer after college, when friends and I were back-packing around Europe-- I was amazed to find the store called "Dr Mueller's Sex Shop." I'd never seen anything like it before-- they certainly weren't in U.S. airports. Spent a wide-eyed 45 min or so in the shop and even bought a couple of souvenirs: "My daughter went to Europe for the summer, and all she brought me back was this lousy...."

Mom and I are in the British Airways lounge at JFK waiting to board Iberia. So happy we are not going through Frankfurt. Agree with Nana that both the airport and the Lufthansa Business Lounges are the pits.

The BA lounge here is very nice. We booked on AA using points so our routing is a bit circuitous but a highlight is really how nice this lounge is....

Adventure begins well.... Good morning Barcelona its a beauiful day... Church bells ringing, sun is out skies seem to be clear! Hotel 1898 is lovely and this mornings included breakfast buffet was delghtful...

Walked Las Rambles last nite about 8:30pm after a nice nap and had Tapas along the way and a very nice and well deserved glass of wine!

We are off for the day :)

Good luck Tina, Nana and all of you for a wonderful cruise on a wonderful ship. Am looking forward to your reports. Sadly it is also disembarkation day for Hambagahle and all those on the TA. It has gone by so quickly.

Flawless check-in at 1898 a few minutes ago. After a shower we will head poolside on the roof for a glass of Sangria. No big plans tonight. Having dinner in the hotel and hoping for drinks with jhp

Hi Nana, Kelleykrazy, tallship, jhp and the other CCers who will be embarking tomorrow. On the pier in Cartagena I asked one of the painters to do his best work in painting over the scuff marks in preparation for your arrival.

Arrived at the port around noon. They had a teeny glitch with their computer system at check in but it was handled so smoothly I don't think it was an issue for anyone. Have already run into jhp and Nana. Muster was much more detailed and they took great care in providing reassurances about the training of the staff. As we had just sailed in December, it was fun to see so many familiar staff. We are headed to dinner. More later.

Speaking of dinner, I enjoyed our best one yet in our 16 days aboard the Mariner. At Signatures, I started with scallops marinated in herb oil, followed by the much-acclaimed creamy mushroom soup with candied garlic (it's back on the new menu, at least for this cruise), followed by the open ravioli of lobster with olive oil dressing and topped off by the harlequin basket of tiramasu, which looked like a dessert that Gaudi might have designed (I have Gaudi on the brain after a terrific Gaudi-themed tour for in-transit passengers today). Everything was superb!

This cruise promises to have a different onboard feeling than the TA due to the presence of 40 children. We sat next to a wonderful family spanning two tables and three generations, including a couple of younguns.

Rich

We had a wonderful dinner in CR this evening. Great service and great food. Had scallops and my staple fare, spaghetti bolognese. We are going to bed but happy that our excursion is not till 1 pm tomorrow. Many children onboard, esp. teens.

The food is sounding really good. Spaghetti Bolognese is also my staple:-) It sounds as if we will be happy that we made reservations at Signatures for our first night (April 23rd). The new "new menu" sounds much better than the last "new" one. Definately want the mushroom soup and scallops!

There was something on the news about demonstrations in Barcelona. Did any of you happen to notice anything?

Looking forward to continuing posts.

TC2-

Did not see anything in Barcelona. I know they had a strike on Thu or Fri. I hear that the economy s doing really poorly.

TC2-

Did not see anything in Barcelona. I know they had a strike on Thu or Fri. I hear that the economy is doing really poorly.

But our guide for our bIke tour said that the police shot rubber pellets and hit a kid in the eye.

Had a wonderful evening on the ship. We ate at prime 7, there was a spot for the two of us.

No show tonight, so just listening and dancing in horizon lounge.

It was the coldest sail away I have experienced. The life boat drill was very thorough, we did everything except get into the life boats.:)

40 kids aboard, 110 transatlantic stay overs. Mix of nationalities.

Glad to be on board.

(I have Gaudi on the brain after a terrific Gaudi-themed tour for in-transit passengers today).

Rich,

I'm curious how your in-transit tour was arranged? In November, I'm on a b2b from Monte Carlo to Rio to Buenos Aires and several of the in-transit passengers have wondered about the availability of a tour for us in Rio. Any information you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

40 kids is a LOT. More than on any regent cruise I have been on, and that includes summer.