FionaMG

For transfers in Barcelona, I used Suntransfers.com. Their prices were similar to taxi prices so not stupidly expensive and all 3 bookings went smoothly (airport-hotel, hotel-port and port to airport). They were very responsive when I had to change the pick-up time of the hotel-port transfer at short notice due to the delay in our embarkation. If you contact them before booking I'd guess they can probably advise re the impact of the 10k race because they are actually based in Barcelona. The only slight negative was the slightly older/tatty vans but that was a very minor thing for transfers that only took around 30 minutes each.

^^^+2 I usually make and freeze some spaghetti bolognese and/or soup before we go and freeze it so all I have to when we get home is nuke it in the microwave.

Me!

It does. It somehow survived amplification.

Mine is doing that too.

If you're on Facebook, try sending them a message through their page there. I've used this method several times and they have always responded and resolved promptly.

Not sure if you know, but the casino gives you a freeplay too if you go on one of the first two nights. It's usually only $2 but I've had as much as $4 and even $10 on one occasion. You never know, one of those extra 3 or 4 spins could be the lucky one!

Fabulous pics. Well worth the effort.

Have a great cruise @Traveler!

You're doing way better than DH and I did last week. 4-night cruise = 40 vouchers... We used a total of 10!

Ports of call I mostly covered the ports in the live part of this blog but I just wanted to add a few pieces of extra information. Marseille If you want to do this as a DIY port, like we did, it's very easy. There are plenty of taxis; simply follow the signs out of the terminal. Taxis will take you into the city centre by the old port for under €30. We paid slightly more partly because of the Sunday surcharge and partly because of the 5th passenger surcharge. The drivers will also do tours for you, if you wish. Ours offered us a 2-hour tour to the main tourist sites for €150 or a 3-hour tour that goes to some places just outside the city as well. I can't remember what price he quoted us for that; it might have been €180. Considering our total cost just for taxis plus the tourist train up to the Basilica came to €113, the tour actually doesn't seem to be overly expensive, especially if there are 3 or 4 of you. The question is whether or not you speak French and/or your driver speaks English. We declined the offer since our friends' son had been looking forward to the little train and the driver was absolutely fine with this. There are plenty of taxis available at the old port to take you back to the ship when you're ready. There is also a shuttle bus that runs from the cruise port into town and back for a cost of €20 per person, so for only two it would actually be slightly cheaper than a taxi. Tickets are available in the app, from the shore excursions desk or in the terminal itself. The Compass recommended buying them in advance (of course) but if you're want to see what the weather is up to before you decide what to do, then there's no harm in waiting. Whatever you do, though, if you decide you want to do the little train up to the Basilica, DO NOT, under any circumstances, book it as an excursion through the cruise planner. They were charging €54 per person for it, which is a right royal rip-off! Now, admittedly that includes transport from the port but do the sums... a shuttle ticket at €20 plus a little train ticket at €10 = €30. BIG difference! The mirrored canopy in Marseille old port, by the fish market. https://www.miesarch.com/work/2792 Palma de Mallorca As I mentioned in the live section, we did a walking and tasting tour here. It was supplied by a company called No Frills Excursions: https://www.nofrills-excursions.com/excursions/foodie-tour-in-palma-de-mallorca/ We were very unlucky here in that the weather decided to be supremely uncooperative which certainly impacted our enjoyment of the tour. Obviously that's not the company's fault so I won't hold them to account for it. Luckily there were vendors selling umbrellas and rain capes for €5 each! The booking process on the website was easy and the meeting point and time were clearly detailed on the documents we received after booking. The two guides arrived at the meeting point promptly and split the group into two, one for German speakers and the other for English speakers. Our guide Juan was a native of the island and he was very nice but unfortunately his English skills left a lot to be desired. Even I, as a language professional used to working with people with limited English skills, had difficulty understanding him at times, to the extent that I spoke to him in Spanish when I had any questions. Before we set off, we were each given a bottle of water and a map showing the route. We had several stops and all the food was good. Some of it was acquired and eaten on the go and then there was a sit-down space reserved for us at the Oliva fresh produce market where we had a pre-plated selection of local tapas called a "variat mallorquín" which translates to "Mallorcan selection". There were toilets available at this stop. For the price we paid, the tour was fine. We were certainly not hungry at the end of it but I would hesitate to recommend it precisely because of the language issue. If you think you might be interested in doing it, please bear that point in mind. View from the steps of Palma Cathedral with Allure in the distance. Taxis We had a bit of a nightmare with the taxis at this port. When we went ashore they were coming pretty regularly to the stand just outside the terminal but none of them were licensed to take 5 passengers so after letting several other parties move ahead of us we ultimately decided to take two. The cost was about €18 per taxi from the cruise port to the tour meeting point at the tourist information office by the cathedral. The route takes you along the seafront which is a complete building site. It is undergoing massive work that has apparently been ongoing for about two years now. It took us twice as long as it should have to get into town because it was jammed solid with traffic. Bear this in mind if you are meeting any activity in Palma city centre and allow extra time to get there. The worst was yet to come, though. Having finished the tour at 3 pm and with an all-aboard time of 5.30 pm we reckoned we were in plenty of time for getting a taxi back. Wrong. The taxi queue by the cathedral was long and no taxis were stopping. In the half hour we were there only two stopped and there were at least 20-30 people ahead of us. Some of them were cruisers too and everyone was starting to get anxious. Ricardo, our friend, went to the tourist information kiosk (which had been the meeting point for the tour) to ask for assistance but although the lady was lovely (she even phoned her husband to see if he was around and able to take us to the port!), ultimately she was unable to help. We did find out from her that there was actually another taxi rank just around the corner and that was where the taxis were all picking up from, so we could have spared ourselves some anxiety had we known about it sooner. In the meantime, I had finally managed to secure us an uber van and, even though we had to wait about 15 minutes for it to arrive, we were hugely relieved to pile in and be on our way back to the port. Cost €56 so well over what we would have paid for two taxis. Beggars can't be choosers, right? The uber driver told us that there are very few ubers in Palma and even fewer with seats for five and nobody will take any more passengers than they are licensed for as the penalties are very steep. So, with all of this in mind, I would actually recommend taking the port shuttle bus if you are planning on heading into Palma city centre. It only costs €15 per person round trip and you buy the tickets in the terminal (I think it said in the app that it's cash only for these). It would have saved us a very anxious last couple of hours in Palma but because we hadn't used it on the way into town we didn't even know where the pick-up point was to try and talk ourselves on to it on the way back! This is the second time we've had issues with taxis in Palma so if there's a next time we will make alternative arrangements or turn it into a "sea" day! Final thoughts We really enjoyed our short cruise on Allure despite the couple of hiccups and the weather doing its very best to put a damper on things. Normally we would not have chosen such a short cruise for ourselves, either that, or we would have added on the 5-night cruise that followed it for a 9-night b2b, but it was the perfect introduction for our friends who now have their sights set on cruising from Miami. We certainly did not make full use of everything that Allure has to offer as there was not nearly enough time and our main regret was that we didn't get to see the aqua show, which was still being finalised. Although the rehearsals were open for viewing, it was too cold and windy to sit out and watch. My absolute favourite moment (if you can call two and a half hours a moment) was Mamma Mia. And although I didn't expect any of the others to last through the full length of the show, they all did even our friends' 9-year-old. The next cruise for me is likely to be with DD on MSC to either Iceland or Norway. MSC mainly because she works for them, so we're hoping for a decent discount, and partly because Royal appear to have pulled out of that area. Glad we went with them on Anthem when we did. DH won't be going because he can't get away in the summer months and doesn't want to do a cold weather cruise anyway so I guess I will have to take him away somewhere warm later on in the year. Such a sacrifice, I know. I need to be careful about what I book though because we are just 10 points short of our second crystal block and I'm trying to ensure that we get that on Legend, which is booked for September next year. Talking about points, interestingly I received a notification from the app this morning that my points had posted for this cruise. I have not seen that before; in the past, I've always just had to keep checking (two or three times a day ). So, for now, that's it. As usual many many thanks to everyone who has indulged me by following along and for those who are soon due to sail on Allure, I wish you as amazing a cruise on her as we had. Until next time, happy cruising!

I found with Airalo that I had to fully reboot my phone to get it to work.

Correct!

The trick is to wave them away when they come round with the sausages, chicken and pork and wait for the really good stuff like maminha and picanha. Which is not easy when everyone else around you is getting stuff in.

Yes, it's still there.

Not gonna lie, I started reading at page 18. I will catch up on pages 1-17 (!) soon as I really want to try celebrity. In the meantime, safe travels and smooth sailing. Have an amazing time.

Just caught up. Wishing you safe travels, smooth boarding and an amazing food-and-fun-filled cruise @OCSC Mike!

Sorry to hear about the loss of your beloved pup @JohnK6404. I know the feeling only too well. It's just coming up to 2 years now that we had to say goodbye to our Kitty. I still can't think about her without tearing up. On a much happier note, I'm thrilled to have been able to help with your cruise planning and will enjoy following along with your blog.

Pre-cruise stay in Barcelona, part 2 So, now that we had a roof over our heads and full tummies it was time to set off for our first afternoon of explorations in Barcelona. As I mentioned before, this was our newbies' first time in the city so in order to give them a handy introduction I booked us on a free walking tour of the Gothic Quarter with Runner Bean Tours. https://runnerbeantours.com/tours/free-tours-barcelona-gothic-quarter/ DH and I had previously done and enjoyed this tour away back in September 2016 with SIL and BIL so I wasn't even sure if the company would still be operating and I was very pleased when I looked them up and found that they were. In order to book their free tours you do need to pay an upfront booking fee of €2.50 and then at the end of the tour you tip however much you want. This particular tour runs twice a day, at 11 am and at 4.30 pm. The company has one other free tour and a number of paid tours. Our meeting point was in the Plaza Real, just off the Rambla, so about a 15-minute walk from our hotel. We made a quick stop at the Boqueria Market on the way. Plaza Real. You can just see a bit of green umbrella in the picture. This is how you identify your Runner Bean guide. It turned out we had just a small group of a dozen, which was great as it made for a very personalised experience. I cannot say enough good things about our guide Noah. What a delightful and very knowledgeable young man. A dual US/Polish citizen, he has been in Barcelona for 14 years and he really knows his stuff. He fully engaged the whole group, even our friends' 9-year-old, who speaks no English. A few pics from the walk. I have to admit to already having forgotten what the different places were (I should have taken notes), except the first one, which is the oldest restaurant operating in the city. Yes, the date of 1786 is when it first opened for business! We were pretty tired by the end as the tour takes about two and half hours and we had been up since the crack of dawn, so we just headed back to the hotel for dinner and bed, in readiness for the next day, which would be dedicated to Gaudi. The next day Having fuelled up on the hotel's lovely breakfast, our first stop today was the Sagrada Familia. This is the must-do attraction in Barcelona. Again, DH and I had previously visited but there was no way were going to let our friends miss out. Plus, it's so stunning that there's always something new to see. If you want to book the Sagrada Familia, please be sure to use the official website as third-party booking sites may charge you more: https://sagradafamilia.org/en/tickets Various options are available, ranging from self-guided audio tours to guided tours in a range of languages and visits that include going up one of the towers. I am not a huge fan of the self guided tours as I prefer to be able to ask questions, so we booked a guided tour in Spanish (easier for our friends than in English). You are given the option of entry 15 or 30 minutes before your tour begins. It's definitely worth picking the 30-minute option because there is an airport-type security check on the way in. The guided tour takes about an hour and then you can stay as long as you like afterwards to visit the museum in the basement. The whole place is just amazing. If you haven't been, I can't recommend it highly enough, even if, like me, you are not at all religious. A few pics to whet your appetites: Once we were done at Sagrada Familia it was time for some lunch and I had carefully picked out a little bakery that specialises in empanadas (savoury pastry turnovers) that was half way between the SF and Park Guell, our afternoon destination, so about another 15-minute uphill walk to get there. It's called Basilicata and it doesn't have a website but here's the link to it on TripAdvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187497-d10820650-Reviews-Basilicata_empanadas_y_algo_mas-Barcelona_Catalonia.html The owner is an elderly man who is originally from Peru and he was an absolute darling. We were the only ones there as it was quite early by Spanish standards, and that was perfect because there are only seats for five inside. We each had two empanadas and there were really good. I had one with bacon and mushrooms and the other with chicken. And since I finished them I was allowed dessert - a slice of chocolate cake. From there it was another 15 minutes uphill to get to Park Guell. Not only does Park Guell sit on top of a hill, it is also hilly inside, so this is something to bear in mind if mobility is a challenge. We went to the Carretera del Carmel Entrance, which I had seen recommended by a blogger somewhere because it's the highest of the entrances, so most of the park is a downhill walk from there. Again, please be sure to book tickets on the official website here: https://parkguell.barcelona/en Entrance is timed, with 30 minute slots, but we arrived about 10 minutes early and were able to go straight in. The views over Barcelona are amazing. You can see all the way down to the port. There was a Viking cruise ship in port on the day we visited. DH and I had not previously made it here so it was new to us too. We ended up taking a taxi back to the hotel from the park, as it would have been a 40-minute walk, albeit downhill. Once back, everyone else went for a lie-down (I think I exhausted them all ) and I went to the gym. Go me! Today was DH's birthday and I had booked us into a place that someone over on CC had recommended. It was a great choice. It's called Tracatra and it was just a 10-minute walk from the hotel. https://www.tracatrabarcelona.com/en/ They serve traditional dishes and tapas and they have live music. When I booked, I mentioned that it was DH's birthday so they brought out some candles with dessert and sang happy birthday. Iberian ham croquettes: Goat cheese croquettes: Galician steak to share: Seafood paella, also to share: Happy birthday! Not the greatest pic but you can clearly see our friends' son's face in the others. But at least it gives you an idea. With all the excitement I forgot to take pics of the desserts themselves but they were very nice. One was cheesecake, which is what that candle is stuck into and the other ones we tried were the panna cotta and the torrija with Catalan cream and nougat ice cream. And that brings our pre-cruise stay pretty much to a close. If we had been boarding at the original time, we would have left the hotel at 10.30 am and headed straight to the port. With the delay, we had the hotel hold our bags for us and strolled to the nearby El Corte Ingles which is a very well-known Spanish department store to do some window shopping. There are some very nice sandwich places near there too so we had some of those before returning to the hotel to wait for our transfer to the port, which arrived promptly at the new time I had arranged with the supplier. It took a lot longer than it should have done to get to the port because of road works so we were glad to have a pre-arranged transfer rather than sitting in a taxi watching the meter tick over! And on arrival at the port, check-in was painless and we were on board in about 20 minutes or so. Next up, ports of call.

Thank you for all the amazing information you've been providing. It must be a huge amount of work.

I have had this happen before. The times showed up a couple of days later. Just keep checking back.

Here's a useful write-up on Rotterdam by British travel writer Simon Calder from the Independent. You don't need to subscribe or register to read it. If it asks you to, scroll down a little bit and there should be a link that says "I'll do it later". Click on that and the full article should open. The article also contains other links with suggestions of how to spend your time in the city. https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/netherlands/rotterdam-architecture-climate-rooftops-netherlands

No change to the vanity outlets on Allure as far as I can see, judging by your pics and the CP balcony cabin I just vacated on Tuesday. That block of outlets is still there. I actually thought it wasn't working until someone on my live thread said to check if it was plugged in under the vanity. (Hint: it wasn't ). Also, no bedside outlets added, or at least not that I was able to find. I used a power bank to recharge my phone on the bedside table.

Pre-cruise stay in Barcelona Our 2-night pre-cruise stay was at the Hotel Catalonia Eixample 1864: https://www.cataloniahotels.com/en/hotel/catalonia-eixample-1864 This hotel belongs to Catalonia Hotels, a Spanish hotel chain that is based in Barcelona, as you might expect from the name. We found it to be very well located, close to plenty of eating places and a 15-minute-or-so walk from the Sagrada Familia in one direction and the Rambla in the other. It is located in an attractive historical building. Since we arrived quite early, around midday, our rooms weren't available yet but the hotel gave us a voucher for a free glass of cava each at the hotel bar and took care of our bags while we headed out for lunch at a pizzeria called Luigi which was literally just a few steps down the road. Their website is a bit of a mess, which is why I'm not including a link but the food was good. I had rigatoni pasta with veal, mushrooms, onions and cherry tomatoes, which was delicious, and DH had a pizza. He's a bit fussy about his pizzas but he said this one was very good. It was also very big so he couldn't finish it. (No dessert! ). By the time we had finished lunch our rooms were ready. We had two rooms for our party of five: a standard double and a triple. They were quite small but were nicely decorated and comfortable. Neither of them had much of view: ours (the double) overlooked a small interior patio; I can't remember exactly what our friends' triple overlooked. Ours were the cheapest rooms and they were more than adequate for our needs but there are other superior ones that would probably have better views and maybe be bigger. One thing that I particularly liked about the shower was that the taps (faucets) were not positioned right underneath the shower head, but at the opposite side, so you didn't get showered with cold water when you first turned the shower on. It was DH's birthday on the second night of our stay and they gave him a bottle of sparkling wine in recognition of the occasion. There is a small but adequate gym which is open 24-hours a day. I had it all to myself. There is also a pleasant business centre with two computers, a printer and comfortable seating. The free WiFi was good and we actually found that our devices would connect to the chain's WiFi if we happened to be in the vicinty of any of its other hotels in Barcelona. And there is a roof terrace with comfortable loungers and a plunge pool. The pool was undergoing maintenance during our stay but we wouldn't have used it anyway as it wasn't warm enough for us. View from the roof terrace: We ate in the hotel restaurant on the first night of our stay. It is called Les Finestres de Llúria and is open to the public as well as hotel guests. It serves a business lunch for €24 per person, with a choice of dishes, and is à la carte in the evening. The dishes are mostly traditional cuisine. https://www.ebocarestaurants.com/en/restaurantes/les-finestres-de-lluria/ It was very quiet, with only one other table occupied but service was a little bit slow as they had a large group in the adjacent section of the restaurant, which is also where they have the breakfast buffet. The food was excellent and reasonably priced. They brought us a complimentary bite-sized pumpkin tartlet each to start with. Then my DH had the prawn and spinach canneloni, while I had the pork cheek and mushroom paella. I wasn't able to finish mine as it was a big serving (so no dessert! Again! ). The breakfast buffet was also very good. Although it wasn't huge, everything was very good quality, including freshly-squeezed orange juice rather the concentrate out of a machine that you so often see at hotel breakfast buffets, and you could get cooked-to-order eggs too. Unfortunately, there were too many people milling about for me to be able to get any pics. If you sign up for the chain's loyalty programme before booking you benefit from a discount on the price of the room, a complimentary bottle of water in the room on arrival, and a type of cash-back programme that stays in your account and can be redeemed against a future stay. We were very satisfied with our stay at this hotel and would happily come back again on a future visit to Barcelona, so I hope this will be helpful to any RCB peeps looking for a hotel in Barcelona.

Thanks for doing this review @twangster. I've just come off Allure in the Med and had intended trying it out but we had free voom for the whole cruise as it was only 4 days, so this is very helpful for future trips.