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After getting dropped off at our hotel, we headed out to Placa Catalunya for lunch at the El Corte Ingles Department Store 9 th floor food court (house wines from a self-serve tap) with reasonable prices and fantastic views of Barcelona. Our tour guide Mirabel was excellent and we loved the tour and the introduction to Barcelona.
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The ½ day city tour showed us many highlights including a few stops for photos, an inside tour of Gaudi’s Parc Guell, and an outside tour of the unbelievable Sagrada Familia, along with the Olympic sites on Montjuic and a ride down Passeig de Gracia to view the Block of Discord and the Gaudi buildings. Loved that they pick you right up at your hotel in a mini-bus. At our hotel we enjoyed a delicious breakfast buffet spread with many choices including wine for breakfast?! Prebooked a tour with Barcelona Day Tours based on great reviews here and on TA. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed the night lights view from the roof of our hotel, which is lovely and also has a swimming pool and deck chairs. Enjoyed visiting the first of many churches on this trip – the Betlem on the Ramblas. When you are finished, they add up the toothpicks on your plate for your bill. Next we found Irati Tavern where we enjoyed a lite dinner of delicious, affordable pintxos (appetizers on toothpicks that you choose yourself) and wine. Secured our belongings to avoid any issues with possible pickpockets and strolled the Ramblas enjoying the sights including Miro’s pavement mosaic, as far as the lovely Placa Reial, where we stopped for a drink and to listen to some live Spanish Guitar. We headed out to explore on foot and stay awake to battle jet lag. The location is about 2 blocks from Placa Catalunya, so great spot to walk to the area attractions and the Ramblas. We had renovated double rooms with a small balcony facing the street. We loved this hotel for the charm, location, price and breakfast buffet. Took taxi to Hotel Lleo where we spent two nights. Our room steward Cristian, from Romania was excellent with twice daily room refreshers and kept our ice bucket full.įlew nonstop Chicago to Barcelona with American airlines. They had translated announcements and their own Mandarin Patter. We had one large, mostly non-English speaking Asian group booked on our cruise. I prefer a glass door, like the Celebrity Silhouette offers. Bathroom is smallish, but nice, with the exception of the clingy fabric shower curtain. Bedding was extremely comfortable, and cabin was as I remembered with plenty of space for storage and a nice large closet, and large safe. We had inside cabins and used anytime dining with short waits with a pager some nights and no wait others for a table of 4. So thank you to everyone here that offers tips and advice. I tend to over-research, but always find valuable info here on CC. Had looked at many itineraries, but this one seemed perfect to us! And this would be our longest cruise to date at 11 nights. Once we booked, we didn’t keep checking for anything better, as we were too busy researching and booking all the other tour components for the trip with only 6 months to do it. The Princess EZ Air desk said it was just an allocation issue. And even though both couples booked at the same time, we couldn’t get the same price. Anyway, the best for us ended up being ticketed by British Airways, but flying American one way and Aer Lingus coming back. It’s a bit confusing to choose flights, and it’s like playing the slots as different prices would come up. Used Princess EZ Air for the first time and was happy with the prices which were lower than anything we checked directly with the airlines. First time to this dream destination Mediterranean Cruise! We are two couples. This was our 17 th cruise on various cruise lines (NCL, Princess, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean).
#Fancy toothpicks free#
Recently returned from an outstanding cruise on the Crown Princess Grand Mediterranean Cruise 10/23-11/3/18 Barcelona to Romeīooked this cruise about 6 months out with free gratuity sale.