-=*September 10 2011, Westbound Transatlantic from Barcelona to Port Canaveral*=-

[nick262]

Hello All,

My family has just booked this cruise. We could not be more excited. It will be me (Nickole) DH (Dom) and DD (Kirsten). Our DD will be 8 at the time of sailing. We are in a cat 4B and have 2nd seating.

I look forward to getting to know all of you.

 

[nick262]

I asked how much $$ a one bedroom suite would cost. I still don't know if it's worthwhile...

Meliador,

Just curious what the price was for the one bedroom. Did you mind sharing the quote?

TIA

 

[Meliador]

Meliador,

Just curious what the price was for the one bedroom. Did you mind sharing the quote?

TIA

Welcome on board Nikole!! I too have second seating!! No, I don't mind at all sharing it...if I recall I think it was a little over 10k. In the grand scheme of life, it's about the same that it would cost for 2 ppl to do a 6 days Cunard Transat from Southampton-NY in Queens Grill staterooms...but much more fun to spend 15 days on a ship with the Mouse!!

Do you plan to do a pre-cruise in Barcelona?

/Melia

 

[CINGULARONE@YAHOO.CO]

Wow...what an interesting dilemma! The Grand Floridian is of course stunning. I haven't stayed there, but I visited its grounds and had High Tea there (heartily recommend it too!). Barcelona seems to be a vibrant city with top notch architecture and great food. I too would be torn between these great opportunities! I guess it boils down to price and opportunity. What's the price difference between the 2, and how likely you are to go to Barcelona in the future if you decided to instead go to the Grand Floridian, and vice-versa. Isn't it great to have choices though!!

I will definitely check out into the cable car. So far, I have looked at the top history/architecture spots. It seems logical to book a room on La Rambla, to be on the center of everything. I saw that there were excursions for Montserrat, but that seems to be a whole day. Not sure I want to spend pre-cruise days in excursions outside of Barcelona...

Good luck with "solving the dilemma"....either way, it's going to be fantastic I'm sure!!

/Melia

This will be brought up many times, be careful on La Rambla. Thievery is rampant (pick pocketing), slightly higher than that of most other high metropolitan areas. Nothing to be overly concerned about, be aware of your surroundings.

Vibrant city, great, great architecture. The item that surprised me the most about Barcelona was the amount of revitalization that was occurring. It seemed to me that every other block had some building being renovated.....
It might of been just me, there appeared to be quite a bit of this activity going on. it will be interesting returning 21 months later to see if the same still holds true.

Hope all is well-

 

[nick262]

Welcome on board Nikole!! I too have second seating!! No, I don't mind at all sharing it...if I recall I think it was a little over 10k. In the grand scheme of life, it's about the same that it would cost for 2 ppl to do a 6 days Cunard Transat from Southampton-NY in Queens Grill staterooms...but much more fun to spend 15 days on a ship with the Mouse!!

Do you plan to do a pre-cruise in Barcelona?

/Melia

Hi Melia,

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, we will not be able to do a pre-stay. We are taking our daughter out of school and dont want that to be too long. We will arrive in Barcelona on the 9th and say the night before the cruise, so hopefully we will get a bit of a look around.

 

[Meliador]

This will be brought up many times, be careful on La Rambla. Thievery is rampant (pick pocketing), slightly higher than that of most other high metropolitan areas. Nothing to be overly concerned about, be aware of your surroundings.-

thank you so much for this bit of info!! I've done my share of travels, and it seems that whenever an area is "tourists-heavy," sadly there will always be people trying to take advantage of the situation (e.g. near the Louvre or Eiffel Tower in Paris, or Tower Hill in London). I was under the impression that the frenzy of renovation projects would have been completed a long time ago (after all, didn't Barcelona host the 1992 Olympics?)...however I read somewhere that the Sagrada Familia (Church designed by Gaudi) has never been completed and remains a "work-in-progress," hence all the scaffolding that one sees there. I cannot wait to see all of this Gaudi mosaics work. Which hotel did you stay at when you were in Barcelona? Do you plan to stay at the same place?

Best,

/Melia

 

[CINGULARONE@YAHOO.CO]

thank you so much for this bit of info!! I've done my share of travels, and it seems that whenever an area is "tourists-heavy," sadly there will always be people trying to take advantage of the situation (e.g. near the Louvre or Eiffel Tower in Paris, or Tower Hill in London). I was under the impression that the frenzy of renovation projects would have been completed a long time ago (after all, didn't Barcelona host the 1992 Olympics?)...however I read somewhere that the Sagrada Familia (Church designed by Gaudi) has never been completed and remains a "work-in-progress," hence all the scaffolding that one sees there. I cannot wait to see all of this Gaudi mosaics work. Which hotel did you stay at when you were in Barcelona? Do you plan to stay at the same place?

Best,

/Melia

We were only there for 1 day, we were on another Transatlantic cruise.

Hope all is well-

 

[Meliador]

Hi Melia,

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, we will not be able to do a pre-stay. We are taking our daughter out of school and dont want that to be too long. We will arrive in Barcelona on the 9th and say the night before the cruise, so hopefully we will get a bit of a look around.

Of course...perfectly understandable!! Wow...I wished my parents took me to trips when I was that age...what a formative and memorable experience! She'll come back to school with wonderful memories of places she has been to and visited. At any rate, while she may miss a bit of school, she won't miss a beat in her Geography class i'm sure!

I'm still not sure how long of a pre-cruise I'd like to do....or rather "how long I will end up doing"...b/c if I didn't have to hold onto a paying gig...I'd travel all the time!

It will be fun to prepare the trip and converse with all of the folks here as we get closer to our sailing date. One of my goal in joining this board was to know enough people so that hopefully I can be seated at dinnertime with "friends" versus strangers I've never talked to before. I'm just a bit shy in face-to-face encounters with strangers...but then I get better once that person is no longer a stranger. Thus meeting with fellow DISers online will help break the proverbial ice!!

Best,

/Melia

 

[EllaEnchanted]

Of course...perfectly understandable!! Wow...I wished my parents took me to trips when I was that age...what a formative and memorable experience! She'll come back to school with wonderful memories of places she has been to and visited. At any rate, while she may miss a bit of school, she won't miss a beat in her Geography class i'm sure!

I'm still not sure how long of a pre-cruise I'd like to do....or rather "how long I will end up doing"...b/c if I didn't have to hold onto a paying gig...I'd travel all the time!

It will be fun to prepare the trip and converse with all of the folks here as we get closer to our sailing date. One of my goal in joining this board was to know enough people so that hopefully I can be seated at dinnertime with "friends" versus strangers I've never talked to before. I'm just a bit shy in face-to-face encounters with strangers...but then I get better once that person is no longer a stranger. Thus meeting with fellow DISers online will help break the proverbial ice!!

Best,

/Melia

I hear you Melia and completely agree. I cruised in May 08 and that thread is still going....we're all fierce friends to this day. The other friends that we're sitting with for dinner....we met on our first cruise at dinner in Sept 01 and we're cruising with them again on here. In fact they picked this cruise to do. It's going to be a fun table with a lot of good laughs.

Me and DH John are thinking about flying directly into London and doing a DISmeet with some friends there before moving onto Barcelona. We're thinking about 2-3 nights in London then 1-2 nights in Barcelona. It depends on how much time off John can get from his job. I don't work so that's not an issue for me. John has been to London before, but not me. Neither one of us has been to Barcelona.

What is your DH's name? Do you have any kids? Will they be travelling with you? How old are they?

John and I are travelling alone. We don't have any kids together, but he has kids from a previous marriage. His daughter is 36 and his son is 35. He has two grandsons by his daughter. They are 17 and 18. John's daughter lived with us after her marriage failed and the boys were only 2 and 3 years old. So we had kids in the house for many years. John's son still lives with us....in a detached apartment on property.

 

[Meliador]

Me and DH John are thinking about flying directly into London and doing a DISmeet with some friends there before moving onto Barcelona. We're thinking about 2-3 nights in London then 1-2 nights in Barcelona. It depends on how much time off John can get from his job. I don't work so that's not an issue for me. John has been to London before, but not me. Neither one of us has been to Barcelona.

Wow!! I so wished i could do that too!! I lived in England for about a year...just loved the vibe of the place! It occurred to me that the week leading up to the WBTA is Labor Day Weekend (5 september). Considering that Monday is a holiday, and that I was planning on flying from the US into BCN on Wednesday night for a 2 day pre-cruise, I'm wondering if I shouldn't bite the bullet and take the whole week off, which would mean to add Tue to the days I had already planned to take off (Weds-Thur-Fri). However, that would mean taking 3 weeks off from work... Really don't know if I can swing that...Ohwell, maybe by then I will have won the lottery and I won't need to bother with a paying gig...

London is a great place to visit Ella!! Whenever I go, I never seem to do half of what I want to do. I'll see a quaint little pub, and will sit by its fireplace, sipping a local Ale and read a good book. Of course, I could probably do that any place (and even at home!), but I still believe there is something special about hanging out in a 500 year old pub!

Because I've been to London before (and so has DH), we have instead opted to spend the whole pre-cruise (whatever days we can squeeze) in BCN. I've started gathering info...and with all the great tips on this board, I'm confident that we can make this a memorable trip!! Happy to exchange/share info! (speaking of info Ella, please check your inbox! )

Best,

 

[Carys]

Welcome to the new cruisers since I last dropped in! (I have updated the passenger list on the first page of this thread). It still seems such a long way away, but then again it's already been about 5 months since I booked so I'm sure the time will continue to fly! If I were in my early 20s instead of late 20s I'd be suggesting a pre-cruise tapas/sangria crawl in Barcelona before the cruise, but I'm not sure I have what it takes anymore

 

[Meliador]

If I were in my early 20s instead of late 20s I'd be suggesting a pre-cruise tapas/sangria crawl in Barcelona before the cruise, but I'm not sure I have what it takes anymore

Hehehe....I'm all for at least trying to "crawl"!! I used to do it when I was in my 0s...I'm sure I could muster the effort again!

We plan to spend at least 2 day pre-cruise. We're looking at hotels on La Rambla (like Hotel 1898...). I don't think I'll book through DCL. It's pretty straightforward to review hotels through TripAdvisor.

In terms of flight, it seems they don't open up until 10-12 months in advance...so won't be able to look at this until later this year. But, looking at similar flight at that time of the year, it seems that there are no direct flights to BCN from O'Hare. Have to either stop-over in Madrid, or fly through JFK to go then direct to BCN. I'll probably opt for the latter. I'd rather do my stop-over in the US, rather than Europe. Isn't it great that we will only have a shorter continental flight on the way back (through MCO). Yay!!!

At any rate, count us in for a pre-boarding celebration night!!

Best,

 

[BigHugsForEeyore]

.

 

[scothen]

Hi everyone,

Just booked this cruise 2 days ago. I am looking forward to meeting all of you.

 

[CastMember 02]

So It seems that most of our cruisers are doing a 2 day minimum PCS, Do you think it is posssible to Fly to Paris, and see Eiffel Tower and Louve, then take train to Disneyland Paris that evening?

We would then spend the night at Disney Paris and do the park the next day. Leave about 7pm or 8 and take train again to Barcelona

Is it Do-Able?

 

[CINGULARONE@YAHOO.CO]

So It seems that most of our cruisers are doing a 2 day minimum PCS, Do you think it is posssible to Fly to Paris, and see Eiffel Tower and Louve, then take train to Disneyland Paris that evening?

We would then spend the night at Disney Paris and do the park the next day. Leave about 7pm or 8 and take train again to Barcelona

Is it Do-Able?

You might be able to 'see' the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but in 1 days time there is no way to really experience both. I have been to Paris numerous times, have yet to fully 'experience' the museum. The Louvre is incredible. If you were really to race through the museum and see the big highlights, then bee-line to the Eiffel tower and visit all the floors, you could say you saw both, but not sure that you will be happy with either.

Hope all is well-

 

[mousemansion]

hi , its so exciting !! this will be our 6th cruise , its just keeps getting better

 

[Meliador]

Great to hear you're joining the fun, Scothen & Mousemansion!!!

As for Pre Cruise Stay....I am with Cingularone on this...for having seen Paris many times, you'd have to rush like crazy to spend a day zipping through the city, then take the RER to Euro-Disney. I'm not sure about the train schedule between France/Spain, but here's something to consider: it's likely that you'll get into Paris early in the morning, after spending a loonngg time on the plane (I'm assuming you'd be leaving out of CA). You may not necessarily be in the mood for rushing around and see in 2 days what can take a much longer time to visit. Plus add the stress of making sure you don't miss your train to Barcelone (and any connections, in case it's not direct)...and boy you might probably *need* the whole cruise time to rest!

But hey...if you manage to do this, I would love to hear the Trip Report! Especially the Euro-Disney part!

Best,

 

[nick262]

So It seems that most of our cruisers are doing a 2 day minimum PCS, Do you think it is posssible to Fly to Paris, and see Eiffel Tower and Louve, then take train to Disneyland Paris that evening?

We would then spend the night at Disney Paris and do the park the next day. Leave about 7pm or 8 and take train again to Barcelona

Is it Do-Able?

Ok your question got me thinking. I am now trying to convince DH to take DD out for 2 more school days and then leave on the 4th to fly over to Paris and stay at DL Paris for 3 days and then fly down to Barcelona on Friday. We can stay on points and by 3 day PH's for not much money. After all, when will we be this close to DL Paris again. This has made me a bit more excited. LOL

 

[junesgoofy]

We will be celebrating our 21st together on this cruise.

We're travelling with friends, another anniversary couple, that we met on our first cruise in 2001. This will be our 3rd cruise with them.

We would like to sit together at dinner and have another couple or two join us. Are there any other couples celebrating an anniversary....why don't you join us. We do the late seating. PM me if you're interested.

We will be celebrating our 21st anniversary also! How cool. My better half is KSDisneyDad!

I am looking forward to meeting all the wonderful people on the cruise. We still keep in contact with fellow cruisers from our 2008 cruise. It's so much fun to talk Disney to other Disney followers.