New to Royal - Symphony of the Seas

[dchi72]

We are new to Royal.  Just a couple of Carnival trips.

We are booking the Symphony of the Seas for a Mediterranean cruise departing from Barcelona.  Looking for hotel recommendations, excursion recommendations, insider tips or anything that you think is important enough to tell me.

[matj2000]

Probably want to look on the European threads.

[jp2746]

Symphony is our FAVORITE ship.  I would highly recommend Chops or even the UDP for your cruise.  We really enjoyed it in August.  Do not miss the diving shows.  They are incredible.  They Broadway production of Hairspray was pretty good but Mama Mia is my favorite (on Allure).  There is something about Abba that just makes me happy.  🙂

 

Make sure you go down the Ultimate Abyss at least once.  We are considering a Mediterranean this summer just because we love the ship.  You will have a wonderful time!!!

[sgmn]

5 hours ago, dchi72 said:

We are new to Royal.  Just a couple of Carnival trips.

We are booking the Symphony of the Seas for a Mediterranean cruise departing from Barcelona.  Looking for hotel recommendations, excursion recommendations, insider tips or anything that you think is important enough to tell me.

Check out ports of call, Europe, Med, Spain for lots of info and recommendations on BCN and other ports.

We're also on Symphony next Summer.  

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/forum/465-spain-ports/

Edited November 15, 2022 by sgmn

[dani negreanu]

20 hours ago, dchi72 said:

We are new to Royal.  Just a couple of Carnival trips.

We are booking the Symphony of the Seas for a Mediterranean cruise departing from Barcelona.  Looking for hotel recommendations, excursion recommendations, insider tips or anything that you think is important enough to tell me.

 

Following recommendations from the "spain ports forum", we stayed at Hotel Jazz in Barcelona. It was excellent --

 

https://www.hoteljazz.com/en/

 

For tours in Italy we used Joe Banana's tours and Italy tours.eu when the first one was fully booked --

 

https://www.joebananalimos.net/

 

https://www.italytours.eu/

 

I second @sgmn recommendation to look at the "spain ports forum".

 

 

[George C]

We loved hotel Barcelona Universal, had a suite on 9th floor , one floor below roof top bar and pool . Beautiful city .

[George C]

21 hours ago, dchi72 said:

We are new to Royal.  Just a couple of Carnival trips.

We are booking the Symphony of the Seas for a Mediterranean cruise departing from Barcelona.  Looking for hotel recommendations, excursion recommendations, insider tips or anything that you think is important enough to tell me.

What ports are you visiting?

[Norwich Cruiser]

Hotel Jazz

 

You won’t be disappointed.

 

Pre book Parc Guell allow two to three hours there and Barcelona cathedral Sagrada Familia tickets.

 

Other ideas

 

Montjuic cable car.

Hop on Hop off bus

Nou Camp

Aquarium

Montserrat

A flemenco  show

 

All easy to do on your own by metro or taxi.

 

 

 

 

 

[bonsai3s]

On 11/14/2022 at 5:14 PM, dchi72 said:

We are new to Royal.  Just a couple of Carnival trips.

We are booking the Symphony of the Seas for a Mediterranean cruise departing from Barcelona.  Looking for hotel recommendations, excursion recommendations, insider tips or anything that you think is important enough to tell me.

You will have a nice dilemma...so much to see and do on the Symphony...and so much to see and do in Europe. Not knowing your ports, I can confidently say it will be "port intensive". (You may need another vacation after)

If it's your first time in Barcelona, please plan on arriving a couple of days before the cruise...again, so much to see and do.

[dchi72]

VISITING:

• Barcelona, Spain
• Palma De Mallorca, Spain
• Provence (Marseille), France
• Florence / Pisa (La Spezia), Italy
• Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy
• Naples / Capri, Italy
• Barcelona, Spain