Traveler

Day 1 Barcelona ,
As always on a cruise day I got up  around 6 am just to realize that I am going to loose this time the endless battle of “should we go to the port early as possible or not”. My spouse was so tired , the fact she just came back from a business trip to  the US did not helped. Know  to recognize a lost battle I also went back to sleep (hey if you can not beat then join them and if you can not join them then run but I do not have this option anymore ? ) @Matt any good advice how to handle it ? . Around 9:30 PM we went down to eat breakfast , took our time there  and checked out around 10:45.
15 minutes after and 23 Euros we arrived the port , no traffic at all even inside the port. There were some lines to drop the luggage as many people missed to add the tags , but it was not more than 5 minutes. Only two lines for security were established , Diamond and above and all the rest , but no queues at all. Check in was separated to regular , gold , Platinum and above + the key . Check in took 5 minutes , 4 of them as I wanted to switch my CC  I used for online check in with another. All in all it took us around 10 minutes to complete all the process and get onto the ship , Love Barcelona port , everything simple. They offer some “champagne” on deck 5, we took our internet password and went to seat at park café for a light snack,

the next station was the WJ as no boarding day can complete without visit to the WJ, interesting , it was quite empty for 12:30 PM ,  maybe since many people are coming from Europe they were flying the same day (very bad advice) the WJ food was the same old lunch food.


We went to visit the diamond club , first time for us as we just got our diamond status, we tried the coffee and took some pictures which I shared yesterday , but that time the rooms were ready so we could drop our carryon. Our luggage arrive 5 minutes after, guess the tip helped (or at least I want to think like that so I can tell some people “told you so” ? ). It took me some time searching for the walking in closet to drop the suitcase just to realize I am not in a JS this time ☹ we are in a boardwalk balcony room  ,very near the back of the ship with wonderful view of the aqua theater , the plus is the Soda package that comes with the room (yes also free meal at JR but have not decided yet if it is a plus or not)

After we finish unpacking we went to do the usual tour at the different neighborhoods , although the ship  is few month before its refurb it really good maintained and not showing her age (well I am sure if I will look very hard I will find something to complain about but hey , its not that site ?)
It already 5 PM so we said we will go and check the diamond club happy hour , the club was not full at all , the second floor was empty and there were many available tables including the ones adjusting to the big window. We took some drinks and tip whenever we got them which made the drink stronger after the second time , or at least that’s what we felt. The club continued to be empty , that’s the advantage in a  non US cruises (yap , the biggest one , not the ports right ?) here is the list of the drinks , not sure it changed or not but I will put it here anyway.



The next station was the casino were I went to get my sticker for the free drinks , for some reason its not printed on the card automatically , well it was expensive sticker . Between the diamond drinks, the casino “free” drinks and the port intensive itinerary we thought we done good not to take the drinking package.
As we booked the cruise only few weeks ago the only available seating was 8:30 PM which mean we can not use the diamond drinks there (by the way in the letter we got it says you can use them in the MDR during happy hour) so we went to one of the bars at 8:25 took glasses of wine and went to eat. The food was Ok , some better some less , we took the onion tart (too eggy for me), the BBQ ribs (very good) and the Salmon, oh we took also the Waldorf salad which was mehhh (there was one tiny piece of apple in it) , I guess first day MDR stuff. I am missing the CK , maybe if I will go up and tell them I am a follower of @Lovetocruise2002blogs they will give us to enter for one night ?

As the dinner was late we missed cats , although I am a cat person (ask my neighbors  they will tell you ) I was not that sad for missing it. We went up to rest for a while and continued to the balloon drop party which was as always nice ,
Tomorrow early day at Mallorca .
 
 
 
 

Day Seven - St. Petersburg  (2) 
 
We could have a slightly later start for our second day in St. Petersburg and so I ran up to the Park Cafe to bring back breakfast to the room. It’s quite an impressive selection and made a change from the windjammer and MDR. See pictures! Immigration was much swifter this morning and we were through in about 5 minutes, giving us chance to look at the souvenirs etc. at the port and for Henry to have a little longer to charm the socks off of the scary immigration officials. 
 
Julia and Alec arrived and informed us that, due to the World Economic Forum taking place our schedule had to change order slightly. This event made the traffic super crazy in SPB but they did their best to mitigate it and we still got to complete the whole itinerary. We started off with a 60min drive out to Peterhof, the Summer Palace with magnificent gardens and fountains. The fountains are an engineering marvel, and the main cascade comes on at 11am to the sounds of the Russian national anthem. The real highlight, however, was the series of “trick fountains”, controlled by an operator in a booth, that children can play in. Given that today made it up to 32 degrees these were an absolute hit with an overheated toddler! We then took a Hydrofoil ride (I’d never heard of them before, they look like a boat which is kind of out of the future or the USSR) back along the river into the city and disembarked right by the hermitage. 
 
After some Russian fast-food for lunch we had a guided boat trip around the canals and rivers. It was wonderful to see the city from this viewpoint - St. Petersburg is really charming. We then had a tour inside the iconic Church on the Spilled Blood before having a tour of the Metro. This sounds like a bizzare tour...but it was really interesting. Not only was it a glimpse into life for ordinary residents if he city, but St. Petersburg contains the deepest metro station in the world and some of the other stations are decorated with beautiful mosaics. 
 
I’d heartily recommend this kind of private or small group tour. If you can splurge and go private (which happened accidentally to us, thankfully without the splurge!) I’d go for it. Being able to go at our own pace, and see things that interested us was really quite super and this was especially good with a toddler- who wouldn’t have coped with the large ship’s group tours. That said, the outlaws took two ships excursions and, the disembarkation chaos on the first day aside, were very impressed with the quality of the tour. Their second tour was also nearly an hour late back to the ship and the ship waited without question because it was a ship’s excursion. To be fair, it didn’t leave until 1:45 in the afternoon, which was certainly cutting it fine. 
 
Back aboard, We cooled off in the pool. I’d heard that the ship is pretty much full but the pool area, even in today’s scorching weather, has never had more than a dozen people around it, and we’ve never shared the pool with more than a couple of people at a time. I’m so glad Henry is potty trained in time, else it would have been really hard for him not to be able to go in the pool.
 
Dinner tonight was the MDR with the outlaws. We’ve had the same waiters all week and I think they are the biggest pro of the MDR. We went from start to finish in about an hour and 20 tonight. The food was “fine”. I think last night’s WindJammer was better on balance. I took a pepper soup and a crab cake for starters which were good, a lasagne for main which was pretty average at best and apple pie for dessert which was pretty good. The menu in the MDR is pretty big, but it doesn’t change so much each evening. I reckon there are usually about 4/5 starters that are different and 5/6 mains which is plenty of change I guess but dessert so far has been one hot dessert that changes and one sugar free dessert (and every time we’ve been the hot dessert has been chocolate brownie, cookie or cake...although that would be a hit for many!). Not so much a criticism, but an observation. 
 
In other stray news, today they brought out the 10 drinks for $75 cards. As we’ve a refreshment package it doesn’t effect us, but lots of people were getting excited about this and the pool bartenders were walking round trying to sell them. There was also a 10 Beers for I think $50ish package. A laundry offer of “stuff what you can except for trousers and shirts into this bag for $35” also appeared in the stateroom (I guess appeared makes it sound like magic... Franklin our stateroom attendant probably put it there in case you were worried the ship is haunted or something!). We keenly took up this offer because we’ve basically ran out of shorts and t-shirts...expecting the weather to be Baltic we only packed a couple of pairs and then mostly jumpers, trousers and arctic exploration gear! 
 
Most of the guests onboard seemed tired following two heavy days in St. Petersburg. I think this was reflected in the entertainment in the theatre tonight- movie night! We decided to skip it and go to bed early. I should also say that last night’s entertainment was a Russian Folkloric Show. We didn’t see it, as the only showing was 10pm but the outlaws did and said it was absolutely incredible- MiL said it was that good, that it was the highlight of the cruise thus far...and there was me thinking it would have been the dinner company and witty humour of her favourite (only) Son in Law. 
 
Tomorrow marks the fifth consecutive port day- Helsinki. I’m looking forward to Saturday’s Sea Day for a rest!

Day Six - St. Petersburg  (1) 
 
Today was really the main reason we came on the cruise- to visit St. Petersburg! The reason we chose a cruise to see St. Petersburg is that there is a kind of visa exemption scheme for cruise ship passengers. There’s a lot of myth out there (some of this has come from cruise lines!) surrounding this, but this is what we found to be true. 
 
Russian tourist visas are bureaucratic and expensive. To encourage tourism, guests booked on a tour package are eligible for a “blanket visa”, provided they return to their ship overnight and they use a registered tour guide who can issue them with this visa in advance. Ships seem to perpetuate a story that only their tours or a full on tourist visa are the only viable options- indeed, our ticket brochure from Royal Caribbean said as much. This just isn’t true. There are lots of reputable companies out there- Alla and TJ Travel are the two that seem to come up the most- who offer a huge range of tours, often cheaper than the ship. 
 
We made contact with Alla at the end of last year, they didn’t have any private tours left, and under 5s can’t go on regular tours with them, so they recommended TJ Travel. The communication in advance was super, and they offered a family friendly 2 day group tour at $199pp (Henry goes free) with a max group size of 12. We took it! It included all of the main sites, at a slower pace than a one day tour, with some child friendly stops included too. This far rivalled anything the ship was offering. One of the slight peculiarities of the visa waiver thingy is that you have to stay with your Guide. This also means that if they don’t get you back to the ship in time they are responsible, by Russian law, to get you to the next stop...so you’re gonna get back on time! 
 
It was an early start today. The ship was due to be cleared at 7am, ships tour excursions to leave at 7.30 and private guests from 8. This is simply to ease congestion at immigration, and this was confirmed to us by our guide. We ordered room service breakfast to save time, and everything ran like clockwork. It took us about 20 minutes to clear immigration and, ironically, we walked into the customs hall at exactly the same time as the Outlaws, who’d been in the theatre since 7am, scrambling over hundreds of others for the ship’s tours. 
 
The signs for TJ Travel were very prominent. Upon meeting our guide Julia and our driver Alec, we were delighted to learn that we were the only people booked onto our tour, which meant it was essentially a private tour! After a brief tour of the city with photo stops We headed to the Hermitage. It was packed with large groups, but we were so fortunate to have Julia and just us- it meant we could navigate around with ease. Having a guide made this so much more informative than it otherwise might have been. 
 
We then took a delicious lunch in a local restaurant, before making our way to two Family Friendly activities for the afternoon. The first was the “Shaddow Museum” which told the history of St. Petersburg using Shaddow art and was very interactive. After this we took a trip to the “Grand Maket”- an 800 square meter scaled down model of Russia! It was incredible... the detail was terrific. What was interesting is that I’d say 90% of the visitors here were Russian and it really felt like we were away from the usual tourist trail. Julia was also able to accommodate our request to visit the Russian classic, “Starbucksikov” to pick up a mug for our collection. 
 
We returned to the ship at around 5pm. The immigration at the Port can be quite intimidating and the officers at passport control are very deadpan. They were, of course, no match for little Henry who had them eating out of the palm of his hand in no time...that Kid. Clearly, they need to work on their scary ness training if a two year old can have them cooing! 
 
After a scorcher of a day (High 20s) we hit the pool for a cool off before grabbing a quick dinner from the WindJammer. I’m sorry that I didn’t get any food related photos today...it felt like we were hardly on the ship! It was French themed night and the food was excellent. Today was the closest day so far to losing out on the drinks package but with a bottle of water (2$) two sodas (7) a Mocktail (6) and a coffee before bed (4) we just made it!

7 day cruise life cycle
Day 1 

Day 8

The Aqua theater looks fine , no real signs for the incident

The diamond lounge , before it will move to the 4th floor 

And here we start another cruise

It look as we have a religious group on the ship this cruise, there is some blockchain convention ? , the group will be here until we get to Rome

9:48 am we still just eating breakfast , it's so wrong ?
I guess this time my spouse idea of getting to the port near noon time is winning. The idea is not to carry the bags with us for too long. I start to be nervous.
Oh and it's our first cruise as diamonds. 

So , how can I describe this day, easy going I guess, 
We started the day very early around 2:30 AM catching a taxi to the airport for our 4:30 am flight, I hate the early morning fights as they kill the night before and most of the day but again that was half price of taken the direct flight the day before. lucky for us the flight was not that full and we had enough space to catch some sleep (although it is flight sleep which is never enough). We arrive around 8:30 AM to Brussels which left us 9:30 hour until the flight to Barcelona . after a quick check we found out it will be too expensive to catch the earlier flight. The weather was quite cold and very windy so we decided no to catch a train  to downtown and spend the rest of the time at the lounge. So we went to sleep in one of the  private rooms they offered after eaten a quick breakfast .  the lounge is very impressive I might say  , many places to reset, many wireless charging points and decent food.
 
And yes this car is from chocolate
 
We also found the massage chairs , my spouse kept re starting the massage session (the lounge was empty so no queues to use the chairs) I think she mostly  loved  the fact it never tried to sell her any products at  the end of the massage session nor try to convince her she must sign for another treatment ? 
.
The down side is  that now I need to find out how much the chair cost and if it will fit our apartment. Time went by and we went to catch the next flight (not before we bought some chocolates , hey after all we are in Brussels)  . Two hour later we landed and went to the hotel (the Hilton this time ) , taxi cost around 30 Euros ,  the hotel is nice and the rooms are just big enough.

To make sure  I will have something to report on and to do something else in Barcelona beside sleeping we decide to go to a restaurant , quick check in the app (The fork)  ,we found a near by resto bar which looked nice.
The restaurant was very good , perfect ambient and just good food (which was also cheap with the app 40%) Two first course  (carpaccio and a warm cheese salad) and two main course (Tuna stake and risotto) + two glass of the house wine was around 33 $.

Now its time to catch some sleep for the big embarkation day tomorrow   

Dinner at Jamie's 

Here's the rest of the crew. 
We have Carrie, Brielle and Jake.  All tagging along. 

Raphsody is a nice ship although it's not a big one , the service on this ship is o e of the best we ever experience. We actually plan another cruise with Rhapsody at August.
The Casino is OK yo have enough tables and machines (some are new) and it usually was not too crowded.
Enjoy the cruise

You should do it - so many great historical and cultural sites to see. Some fantastic scenery too. 

Slow start today.  The shower is great, hot water and plenty of room. The drainage system works quite well.  
Didn't pay attention to the room service times so missed breakfast. Nothing sounded good on room service menu so we got ourselves together and headed down to deck 5 to see what's what. Amazing how dead the ship is while everyone is in port.  Ended up at Cafe promenade. 
Tons of stuff. Dave got cheese pizza and a chocolate dessert. I got
A ham and cheese croissant with some kind of dressing on it
A vegetarian sandwich with eggplant, tomato, lettuce, cheese, and some dressing
Cheese and tomato salad
Fried artichokes
I didn't get the muffalata sandwich or the king Arthur or the shrimp roll, or the pepper salad, marinated spicy cheese, marinated olives, or stuffed potatoes
There are also 4 kinds of cookies, 6 kinds of desserts, cheese, vegetarian, and pepperoni pizza. 
Am I making everyone hungry? 
After all that Dave got Ben and Jerry's chocolate ice cream while I let stuff digest.  I think we will head up to deck 11 in a few. 

Day 2- Mallorca 
It is the fourth time we visit this Island but the first time we planned a shore excursion using RCL , during all the pervious visits we just took the shuttle to the city and roam by ourselves. The excursion meeting time was 8:20 am so yes another night excursion. Around 7:30 we woke up, quick treatment in the sarcophage ( or the tardis, although the last should be much bigger in the inside) which RCL refer as the shower and of we went to the first breakfast. We choose the park cafe as it is much less crowded than the WJ and we like the bagels option. We went to the meeting point and after around 5 minutes we did our way to the bus . The excursion took us to the north part of the island, the guide was from the school of thoughts of I "I must say something until we reach the first point even if I run out of what to say so I will just repeat what I said before" lucky for me she was also monotonic so I felt a sleep for a while. The first point of the tour was some old house which had a small museum and very nice landscape , we roam it for a while and went to the nice backyard to take some pictures.





Next we went to a local winery for a tour and wine tasting , I must say I have been to many wine tours around the world but this one was quite impressive as the tour was done inside the real winery and some visitors center that just demonstrate how to create wine. The winery guide was very good with excellent English.





After the tour we went for some wine and food tasting , wine was good and the food that came with it was interesting. In the excursion description it said we will have three wine to taste but we finish up with four , do you  think I should complain ? Something like " dear RCL I planned to have only three wines consumed for today and yet you have tricked me in drinking four, this really hurt my feeling and made me lost trust in your company and maybe even in humanity , shame on you , please some OBC " ? . Anyway we both liked this tour although I had to take another conference call, so bought some spices and nice strawberry vinigar . We went back to the ship to catch late lunch in WJ and get some needed rest. The daily visit to the Casino followed slice of pizza in Sorento , must say the pizza taste much better than on my last few cruises. We took a frozen mojito from the Casino bar and went to see what there is in the WJ as we knew we will miss the MDR to the aqua nation show. Food was interesting and contained all of the MDR menue for today (the first official night) including the duck orange and the lobster bisque. As I was full from the pizza I just took some berries they offered





 
We grabbed another diamond drink from the Sabor bar and went to watch the aqua show , they had a towel station near the entrance as it was quite cold and people used them to cover themselves , nice touch. The show was a limited show due to the technical issue the theater still have due to the incident but it was very energetic and impressive



Post the show we roam around ending in the Latin dance party , we even dance for a while , well my spouse danced and I did some movements while need to explain people I am not suffering from a stroke. 
After all tommorow is another day 
*Sorry for any errors , I am writing this directly on my phone while waiting for someone to finish shopping
 

Day 2- Mallorca 
It is the fourth time we visit this Island but the first time we planned a shore excursion using RCL , during all the pervious visits we just took the shuttle to the city and roam by ourselves. The excursion meeting time was 8:20 am so yes another night excursion. Around 7:30 we woke up, quick treatment in the sarcophage ( or the tardis, although the last should be much bigger in the inside) which RCL refer as the shower and of we went to the first breakfast. We choose the park cafe as it is much less crowded than the WJ and we like the bagels option. We went to the meeting point and after around 5 minutes we did our way to the bus . The excursion took us to the north part of the island, the guide was from the school of thoughts of I "I must say something until we reach the first point even if I run out of what to say so I will just repeat what I said before" lucky for me she was also monotonic so I felt a sleep for a while. The first point of the tour was some old house which had a small museum and very nice landscape , we roam it for a while and went to the nice backyard to take some pictures.





Next we went to a local winery for a tour and wine tasting , I must say I have been to many wine tours around the world but this one was quite impressive as the tour was done inside the real winery and some visitors center that just demonstrate how to create wine. The winery guide was very good with excellent English.





After the tour we went for some wine and food tasting , wine was good and the food that came with it was interesting. In the excursion description it said we will have three wine to taste but we finish up with four , do you  think I should complain ? Something like " dear RCL I planned to have only three wines consumed for today and yet you have tricked me in drinking four, this really hurt my feeling and made me lost trust in your company and maybe even in humanity , shame on you , please some OBC " ? . Anyway we both liked this tour although I had to take another conference call, so bought some spices and nice strawberry vinigar . We went back to the ship to catch late lunch in WJ and get some needed rest. The daily visit to the Casino followed slice of pizza in Sorento , must say the pizza taste much better than on my last few cruises. We took a frozen mojito from the Casino bar and went to see what there is in the WJ as we knew we will miss the MDR to the aqua nation show. Food was interesting and contained all of the MDR menue for today (the first official night) including the duck orange and the lobster bisque. As I was full from the pizza I just took some berries they offered





 
We grabbed another diamond drink from the Sabor bar and went to watch the aqua show , they had a towel station near the entrance as it was quite cold and people used them to cover themselves , nice touch. The show was a limited show due to the technical issue the theater still have due to the incident but it was very energetic and impressive



Post the show we roam around ending in the Latin dance party , we even dance for a while , well my spouse danced and I did some movements while need to explain people I am not suffering from a stroke. 
After all tommorow is another day 
*Sorry for any errors , I am writing this directly on my phone while waiting for someone to finish shopping
 

I learn a lot from your blogs. Retirement years cruises are being planned as we speak. four more years. I am going on my own world cruises made up from blogs.

Day 2- Mallorca 
It is the fourth time we visit this Island but the first time we planned a shore excursion using RCL , during all the pervious visits we just took the shuttle to the city and roam by ourselves. The excursion meeting time was 8:20 am so yes another night excursion. Around 7:30 we woke up, quick treatment in the sarcophage ( or the tardis, although the last should be much bigger in the inside) which RCL refer as the shower and of we went to the first breakfast. We choose the park cafe as it is much less crowded than the WJ and we like the bagels option. We went to the meeting point and after around 5 minutes we did our way to the bus . The excursion took us to the north part of the island, the guide was from the school of thoughts of I "I must say something until we reach the first point even if I run out of what to say so I will just repeat what I said before" lucky for me she was also monotonic so I felt a sleep for a while. The first point of the tour was some old house which had a small museum and very nice landscape , we roam it for a while and went to the nice backyard to take some pictures.





Next we went to a local winery for a tour and wine tasting , I must say I have been to many wine tours around the world but this one was quite impressive as the tour was done inside the real winery and some visitors center that just demonstrate how to create wine. The winery guide was very good with excellent English.





After the tour we went for some wine and food tasting , wine was good and the food that came with it was interesting. In the excursion description it said we will have three wine to taste but we finish up with four , do you  think I should complain ? Something like " dear RCL I planned to have only three wines consumed for today and yet you have tricked me in drinking four, this really hurt my feeling and made me lost trust in your company and maybe even in humanity , shame on you , please some OBC " ? . Anyway we both liked this tour although I had to take another conference call, so bought some spices and nice strawberry vinigar . We went back to the ship to catch late lunch in WJ and get some needed rest. The daily visit to the Casino followed slice of pizza in Sorento , must say the pizza taste much better than on my last few cruises. We took a frozen mojito from the Casino bar and went to see what there is in the WJ as we knew we will miss the MDR to the aqua nation show. Food was interesting and contained all of the MDR menue for today (the first official night) including the duck orange and the lobster bisque. As I was full from the pizza I just took some berries they offered





 
We grabbed another diamond drink from the Sabor bar and went to watch the aqua show , they had a towel station near the entrance as it was quite cold and people used them to cover themselves , nice touch. The show was a limited show due to the technical issue the theater still have due to the incident but it was very energetic and impressive



Post the show we roam around ending in the Latin dance party , we even dance for a while , well my spouse danced and I did some movements while need to explain people I am not suffering from a stroke. 
After all tommorow is another day 
*Sorry for any errors , I am writing this directly on my phone while waiting for someone to finish shopping
 

7 day cruise life cycle
Day 1 

Day 8

Day 2- Mallorca 
It is the fourth time we visit this Island but the first time we planned a shore excursion using RCL , during all the pervious visits we just took the shuttle to the city and roam by ourselves. The excursion meeting time was 8:20 am so yes another night excursion. Around 7:30 we woke up, quick treatment in the sarcophage ( or the tardis, although the last should be much bigger in the inside) which RCL refer as the shower and of we went to the first breakfast. We choose the park cafe as it is much less crowded than the WJ and we like the bagels option. We went to the meeting point and after around 5 minutes we did our way to the bus . The excursion took us to the north part of the island, the guide was from the school of thoughts of I "I must say something until we reach the first point even if I run out of what to say so I will just repeat what I said before" lucky for me she was also monotonic so I felt a sleep for a while. The first point of the tour was some old house which had a small museum and very nice landscape , we roam it for a while and went to the nice backyard to take some pictures.





Next we went to a local winery for a tour and wine tasting , I must say I have been to many wine tours around the world but this one was quite impressive as the tour was done inside the real winery and some visitors center that just demonstrate how to create wine. The winery guide was very good with excellent English.





After the tour we went for some wine and food tasting , wine was good and the food that came with it was interesting. In the excursion description it said we will have three wine to taste but we finish up with four , do you  think I should complain ? Something like " dear RCL I planned to have only three wines consumed for today and yet you have tricked me in drinking four, this really hurt my feeling and made me lost trust in your company and maybe even in humanity , shame on you , please some OBC " ? . Anyway we both liked this tour although I had to take another conference call, so bought some spices and nice strawberry vinigar . We went back to the ship to catch late lunch in WJ and get some needed rest. The daily visit to the Casino followed slice of pizza in Sorento , must say the pizza taste much better than on my last few cruises. We took a frozen mojito from the Casino bar and went to see what there is in the WJ as we knew we will miss the MDR to the aqua nation show. Food was interesting and contained all of the MDR menue for today (the first official night) including the duck orange and the lobster bisque. As I was full from the pizza I just took some berries they offered





 
We grabbed another diamond drink from the Sabor bar and went to watch the aqua show , they had a towel station near the entrance as it was quite cold and people used them to cover themselves , nice touch. The show was a limited show due to the technical issue the theater still have due to the incident but it was very energetic and impressive



Post the show we roam around ending in the Latin dance party , we even dance for a while , well my spouse danced and I did some movements while need to explain people I am not suffering from a stroke. 
After all tommorow is another day 
*Sorry for any errors , I am writing this directly on my phone while waiting for someone to finish shopping
 

As always I am following.

Day 2- Mallorca 
It is the fourth time we visit this Island but the first time we planned a shore excursion using RCL , during all the pervious visits we just took the shuttle to the city and roam by ourselves. The excursion meeting time was 8:20 am so yes another night excursion. Around 7:30 we woke up, quick treatment in the sarcophage ( or the tardis, although the last should be much bigger in the inside) which RCL refer as the shower and of we went to the first breakfast. We choose the park cafe as it is much less crowded than the WJ and we like the bagels option. We went to the meeting point and after around 5 minutes we did our way to the bus . The excursion took us to the north part of the island, the guide was from the school of thoughts of I "I must say something until we reach the first point even if I run out of what to say so I will just repeat what I said before" lucky for me she was also monotonic so I felt a sleep for a while. The first point of the tour was some old house which had a small museum and very nice landscape , we roam it for a while and went to the nice backyard to take some pictures.





Next we went to a local winery for a tour and wine tasting , I must say I have been to many wine tours around the world but this one was quite impressive as the tour was done inside the real winery and some visitors center that just demonstrate how to create wine. The winery guide was very good with excellent English.





After the tour we went for some wine and food tasting , wine was good and the food that came with it was interesting. In the excursion description it said we will have three wine to taste but we finish up with four , do you  think I should complain ? Something like " dear RCL I planned to have only three wines consumed for today and yet you have tricked me in drinking four, this really hurt my feeling and made me lost trust in your company and maybe even in humanity , shame on you , please some OBC " ? . Anyway we both liked this tour although I had to take another conference call, so bought some spices and nice strawberry vinigar . We went back to the ship to catch late lunch in WJ and get some needed rest. The daily visit to the Casino followed slice of pizza in Sorento , must say the pizza taste much better than on my last few cruises. We took a frozen mojito from the Casino bar and went to see what there is in the WJ as we knew we will miss the MDR to the aqua nation show. Food was interesting and contained all of the MDR menue for today (the first official night) including the duck orange and the lobster bisque. As I was full from the pizza I just took some berries they offered





 
We grabbed another diamond drink from the Sabor bar and went to watch the aqua show , they had a towel station near the entrance as it was quite cold and people used them to cover themselves , nice touch. The show was a limited show due to the technical issue the theater still have due to the incident but it was very energetic and impressive



Post the show we roam around ending in the Latin dance party , we even dance for a while , well my spouse danced and I did some movements while need to explain people I am not suffering from a stroke. 
After all tommorow is another day 
*Sorry for any errors , I am writing this directly on my phone while waiting for someone to finish shopping
 

We just came back from the show , it is different , the stage is always down during the show which mean zero dancing sequence and more acrobatics and high jump acts. The show was around 35 minutes , I think it still a very nice show.

 

Day 1 Barcelona ,
As always on a cruise day I got up  around 6 am just to realize that I am going to loose this time the endless battle of “should we go to the port early as possible or not”. My spouse was so tired , the fact she just came back from a business trip to  the US did not helped. Know  to recognize a lost battle I also went back to sleep (hey if you can not beat then join them and if you can not join them then run but I do not have this option anymore ? ) @Matt any good advice how to handle it ? . Around 9:30 PM we went down to eat breakfast , took our time there  and checked out around 10:45.
15 minutes after and 23 Euros we arrived the port , no traffic at all even inside the port. There were some lines to drop the luggage as many people missed to add the tags , but it was not more than 5 minutes. Only two lines for security were established , Diamond and above and all the rest , but no queues at all. Check in was separated to regular , gold , Platinum and above + the key . Check in took 5 minutes , 4 of them as I wanted to switch my CC  I used for online check in with another. All in all it took us around 10 minutes to complete all the process and get onto the ship , Love Barcelona port , everything simple. They offer some “champagne” on deck 5, we took our internet password and went to seat at park café for a light snack,

the next station was the WJ as no boarding day can complete without visit to the WJ, interesting , it was quite empty for 12:30 PM ,  maybe since many people are coming from Europe they were flying the same day (very bad advice) the WJ food was the same old lunch food.


We went to visit the diamond club , first time for us as we just got our diamond status, we tried the coffee and took some pictures which I shared yesterday , but that time the rooms were ready so we could drop our carryon. Our luggage arrive 5 minutes after, guess the tip helped (or at least I want to think like that so I can tell some people “told you so” ? ). It took me some time searching for the walking in closet to drop the suitcase just to realize I am not in a JS this time ☹ we are in a boardwalk balcony room  ,very near the back of the ship with wonderful view of the aqua theater , the plus is the Soda package that comes with the room (yes also free meal at JR but have not decided yet if it is a plus or not)

After we finish unpacking we went to do the usual tour at the different neighborhoods , although the ship  is few month before its refurb it really good maintained and not showing her age (well I am sure if I will look very hard I will find something to complain about but hey , its not that site ?)
It already 5 PM so we said we will go and check the diamond club happy hour , the club was not full at all , the second floor was empty and there were many available tables including the ones adjusting to the big window. We took some drinks and tip whenever we got them which made the drink stronger after the second time , or at least that’s what we felt. The club continued to be empty , that’s the advantage in a  non US cruises (yap , the biggest one , not the ports right ?) here is the list of the drinks , not sure it changed or not but I will put it here anyway.



The next station was the casino were I went to get my sticker for the free drinks , for some reason its not printed on the card automatically , well it was expensive sticker . Between the diamond drinks, the casino “free” drinks and the port intensive itinerary we thought we done good not to take the drinking package.
As we booked the cruise only few weeks ago the only available seating was 8:30 PM which mean we can not use the diamond drinks there (by the way in the letter we got it says you can use them in the MDR during happy hour) so we went to one of the bars at 8:25 took glasses of wine and went to eat. The food was Ok , some better some less , we took the onion tart (too eggy for me), the BBQ ribs (very good) and the Salmon, oh we took also the Waldorf salad which was mehhh (there was one tiny piece of apple in it) , I guess first day MDR stuff. I am missing the CK , maybe if I will go up and tell them I am a follower of @Lovetocruise2002blogs they will give us to enter for one night ?

As the dinner was late we missed cats , although I am a cat person (ask my neighbors  they will tell you ) I was not that sad for missing it. We went up to rest for a while and continued to the balloon drop party which was as always nice ,
Tomorrow early day at Mallorca .
 
 
 
 

Thanks , yes we are going on the Spectrum of the seas at October , it's should be a very different experience but I believe a nice one.