berkeleykel

It’s crazy to me that it’s already the evening of day 4. It feels like we boarded yesterday. 
Backtracking quickly, we flew from London to Barcelona this past Saturday, one day before embarkation.  We like to fly from Gatwick because it’s a quick train ride from our flat. Our choices from Gatwick were EasyJet or Vueling. Last year we tried Vueling for first time and had a bad experience (see my previous blog), so this year we went back to EasyJet, which we’ve taken about 12-15 times before without major issues. 
Our flight ended up delayed over two hours due to a mechanical issue that required us changing planes. We had to cancel our dinner plans and deal with a whining 7 year old, but other than that it wasn’t a big hiccup. I was just glad that the flight landed on Saturday so we didn’t have to worry about missing the cruise.
We pre-booked a van from Sun Transfers from the airport to our hotel in Las Ramblas. It was around €75 and included a car seat and booster seat for our 2 year old and 7 year old.  We were in the van headed to our hotel within 35 minutes of landing and our transport was waiting despite the delay, with no extra cost. I was a bit worried whether we would fit in the van — the booking said we could fit five “medium” size suitcases and we had three 81” suitcases, a carry-on suitcase, a stroller and three bookbags, but it all fit easily.
We stayed one night at Citadines Las Ramblas. Citadines is an apartment-style hotel chain in Europe. I like it because they sleep up to four, which can be hard to find in Europe, and include a kitchenette, which is good when traveling with young kids. The location in central Barcelona can’t be beat.
The hotel is not luxury (I’d rate it at 3 stars), but it is convenient, so it is our go-to for Barcelona.  
 
 
 

I should add that the first night we had booked the main ice skating show, 1977. When we showed up it was announced that it was changed to iSkate 2.0 due to injury to two of the cast members.😬
We liked it okay. M fell asleep about 2/3rd through but our two year old powered through and clapped his heart out. While waiting for the show to start we saw an extremely stressed genie who had reserved seats front row center for a family who did not show until the minute the show was starting. In the meantime he had to ask three different groups to vacate the reserved seats. When the family finally arrived, he put on a game face and didn’t display any of the stress to them. Moral of the story -  don’t keep your genie waiting!  They have a stressful job and may not always show it, but they do a lot of work behind the scenes to create a seamless experience. 

I should add that the first night we had booked the main ice skating show, 1977. When we showed up it was announced that it was changed to iSkate 2.0 due to injury to two of the cast members.😬
We liked it okay. M fell asleep about 2/3rd through but our two year old powered through and clapped his heart out. While waiting for the show to start we saw an extremely stressed genie who had reserved seats front row center for a family who did not show until the minute the show was starting. In the meantime he had to ask three different groups to vacate the reserved seats. When the family finally arrived, he put on a game face and didn’t display any of the stress to them. Moral of the story -  don’t keep your genie waiting!  They have a stressful job and may not always show it, but they do a lot of work behind the scenes to create a seamless experience. 

It’s crazy to me that it’s already the evening of day 4. It feels like we boarded yesterday. 
Backtracking quickly, we flew from London to Barcelona this past Saturday, one day before embarkation.  We like to fly from Gatwick because it’s a quick train ride from our flat. Our choices from Gatwick were EasyJet or Vueling. Last year we tried Vueling for first time and had a bad experience (see my previous blog), so this year we went back to EasyJet, which we’ve taken about 12-15 times before without major issues. 
Our flight ended up delayed over two hours due to a mechanical issue that required us changing planes. We had to cancel our dinner plans and deal with a whining 7 year old, but other than that it wasn’t a big hiccup. I was just glad that the flight landed on Saturday so we didn’t have to worry about missing the cruise.
We pre-booked a van from Sun Transfers from the airport to our hotel in Las Ramblas. It was around €75 and included a car seat and booster seat for our 2 year old and 7 year old.  We were in the van headed to our hotel within 35 minutes of landing and our transport was waiting despite the delay, with no extra cost. I was a bit worried whether we would fit in the van — the booking said we could fit five “medium” size suitcases and we had three 81” suitcases, a carry-on suitcase, a stroller and three bookbags, but it all fit easily.
We stayed one night at Citadines Las Ramblas. Citadines is an apartment-style hotel chain in Europe. I like it because they sleep up to four, which can be hard to find in Europe, and include a kitchenette, which is good when traveling with young kids. The location in central Barcelona can’t be beat.
The hotel is not luxury (I’d rate it at 3 stars), but it is convenient, so it is our go-to for Barcelona.  
 
 
 

I should add that the first night we had booked the main ice skating show, 1977. When we showed up it was announced that it was changed to iSkate 2.0 due to injury to two of the cast members.😬
We liked it okay. M fell asleep about 2/3rd through but our two year old powered through and clapped his heart out. While waiting for the show to start we saw an extremely stressed genie who had reserved seats front row center for a family who did not show until the minute the show was starting. In the meantime he had to ask three different groups to vacate the reserved seats. When the family finally arrived, he put on a game face and didn’t display any of the stress to them. Moral of the story -  don’t keep your genie waiting!  They have a stressful job and may not always show it, but they do a lot of work behind the scenes to create a seamless experience. 

On to day 1, no time to waste. 
 
We bought a few breakfast items (yoghurt, apples and muffins) at the grocery store directly across from our hotel the evening before, so the kids ate that for breakfast. We ordered our Sun Transfer van to arrive at 10:05 -  he arrived at 9:55 with both the car seat and the booster seat as requested. It was again around €75. We could have gotten a taxi for cheaper but I like to have it booked in advance with a reliable company that will provide car seats.  
 
We arrived at terminal B at the port around 10:30 and were able to check in with no lines. We had a boarding time of 11 am (the earliest available to select) and were given boarding group 20.  Th first groups were called around 10:50 and we were called right around 11.
We headed straight to Playmakers to watch the WWC finals and were pleasantly surprised by how quiet it was.  Rooms were ready around 1 pm and our luggage was just down the hall by the time we made it to our rooms around 1:30 pm.  
We ate at the MDR at 6 pm (early seating) and I have to say it was our worst MDR experience yet, and I’m an MDR apologist. They didn’t bring any food out for the kids (even starters) until after the adults’ mains were delivered, despite us inquiring twice. M was at a breaking point by the time his food was delivered.  The kids mac and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches were comically bad. They just half melted a square of cheese on the macaroni, and didn’t even half melt the cheese for the grilled cheese. Even our two year old turned his nose up at the food. The adult meals were better, but check out how many vegetable were included in our “seasonable vegetables” side!

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Enjoy! We'll be following!

I’m with you on the railing miserably on the first blog. I tried, but am awful at remembering to take pictures and actually post daily about the trip. I’m hoping to try again in November on my next cruise. Hope you are enjoying the first few days of your cruise and I’m sure you are super excited for the UFS! 

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

We went on this excursion on our Marseille, France day. A bus picked us up from the port and drove us to Aix-en-Provence. I’m not sure if we had the normal bus because the tour guide did not have any audio system. Instead she walked up & down the bus aisle giving us information. Pretty sure we missed a lot of it and seemed a little stressful for the guide.
Once we arrived we began our walking tour. It started off okay, but got very boring. It was all about architecture, but was mostly “pretty” “beautiful” “classic” and “baroque.” I’m not sure if it was a language barrier issue, but it wasn’t very informative. It would have been great to be given the meeting point right at the beginning of the tour so that we could explore on our own. We did have some time to do that at the end, but we would have enjoyed it more to skip the tour part. 
 
I would recommend visiting Aix-en-Provence, but not this tour.

Bionic bar replaced with the Chernobyl Bar.
Perfect Day renamed Three Mile Island. 

Can't wait for those ship names though.
 
Fallout of the Seas
Radiation of the Seas
 

Someone on here said it took the Suez Canal.  I never saw an official account.