Finally … We made it!
After landing at Barcelona’s airport, having to load up like sardines into a giant bus to be transported from the plane to the terminal (no fancy sky bridges through which to deplane directly into the terminal, no-sir-ee, not for the American airline company!), and surviving the crush of people in the baggage claim area, we were met by travel staff and whisked off to the Hotel Palace Barcelona for a yummy brunch of mini foods (if you don’t believe me, I took a picture). I suppose we should call them finger foods, but they were just so darn cute that I have to call them mini foods.
Anyway, after eating a few bits, we had about an hour to wander through the streets of Barcelona near the hotel. Barcelona is a beautiful city, and we were disappointed not to have more time here. It’s definitely a place we’ll have to come back to. The streetscapes were so different than what were used to here in Texas. Apparently, it’s much more like what you’d find in New York City where the shops are on the ground floor with lofts and apartments above.
We did have one goal during our stroll … to find toothpaste (since ours had been confiscated by security at DFW). Chris has a good working knowledge of Spanish, and I’m not sure what we would have done without that! We found a farmacia (pharmacy) around the corner from the hotel. As was to be expected, it wasn’t exactly what we were used to. No CVSesque stores here. But fortunately, we were able to pick up a tube of their version of Crest in a mostly-mint flavor. Not too bad. And, I might mention that it was a good thing that we didn’t want to get on the ship and assume that the sundry shop on board would have toothpaste - because they didn’t!
After our stroll, we loaded back onto the bus to be taken to the ship terminal to board the Voyager of the Seas and commence with our cruise. The process of “checking in” wasn’t too bad and very soon we were scoping out our stateroom and wondering when our bags would show up.
(For anyone who hasn’t cruised before, during the check in process you leave your bags in the terminal with airline-like tags on them indicating your stateroom number. Over the next several hours, bags are delivered to their respective rooms. There just isn’t enough public elevator capacity to have everyone dragging their 150-200 lbs of luggage onboard themselves.)
While we were waiting for our bags, we took care of one significant piece of business - purchasing our Coke pass. This pass entitles the holder to unlimited soft drinks for the duration of the cruise. And compared to paying $1.50/each, the ~$50/person charge for the pass is a steal when you have a Diet Coke habit like mine.
After having checked out the ship, gotten re-caffeinated (which was vital considering we were clocking in at almost 30 hours without sleep), and found our way back to our stateroom, we were delighted to see that 3 of our 4 bags had arrived. Chris and I both needed to shower (badly) before the Welcome Reception and dinner - all scheduled to begin at 7pm. Unfortunately, the missing bag contained all of my girly stuff - shampoo/conditioner, hairdryer, makeup, etc - all the stuff necessary for me to freshen up for the reception and dinner. At 6:00 and as the ship was setting sail from Barcelona, I was beginning to panic that for some reason my bag hadn’t made it onboard. By this time, I was tired, cranky, and feeling nasty. I NEEDED my bag.
At 6:15, there was a knock on the door and our stateroom attended (who knew I was desperately waiting for my bag) stood there smiling, holding my bag. Hallelujah!
That was one of the best showers I’ve ever taken in my life!
After a dash to get dress, we headed down to the reception, got to have a few drinks and meet all of the other people on the trip with us. After that, it was off to dinner. Even being as tired as we were, we seemed to have caught a second wind and were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. But, by the time we finished with dinner, it was 11pm and we were past the 36 hour mark of no sleep, and it all caught up to me. It was all I could do not to take a snooze in the dessert. We headed back to our stateroom to let the sound of motion of the ocean put us to sleep. It was an incredible day … Zzzz …
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