cruisin73

Day 2 of the cruise brought us to Mallorca. Doing some research before the cruise I heard about Balneario beach club. You can get a taxi right there. We did have reservations for lunch but we didn’t rent a sunbed. The sunbeds are $40 each and come with an umbrella and a welcome alcoholic drink. They looked nice but we decided to just sit on our towels we brought from the ship. My husband swam in the Mediterranean Sea but for me it was freezing, The water does look amazing though. For lunch we had paella my new favorite dish. My husband had the cheesecake for dessert and said it was the best cheesecake he has ever had. When we ordered dessert we also asked them to call a cab for us. Lunch was delicious and the service was great. We walked up to get the taxi. When the taxi arrived two guys got in the car we told them we think that’s our taxi but they were assured it was theirs. No big deal we just waited for the next one which came about 10 minutes later. When we got back to our room there were anniversary decorations everywhere. Nice touch royal. Tonight was formal night and we were celebrating our anniversary too. We ate at 150 Central Park. I had the Cesar salad that was made table side. It was very good. I can’t remember what I had for dinner but I did have the fried cheesecake for dessert which was delicious. I also got my anniversary present from my hubby which was a beautiful aqua marine ring from the jewelry store Effy on the ship. we had a great day and we are now off to France…

Views from the castle

So sorry it’s taking me so long. Life seems to be getting In The way. Continuing on… Its finally cruise day. The night before we asked the front desk to reserve a taxi for 10:15 we had a check in time for 11:00 for the cruise. Unfortunately that plan didn’t work out quite as well because there was a marathon that morning which delayed all the taxi’s. We finally got our taxi and we’re still at the cruise port at 11:00. Took about 15 minutes and was about 15 Euros. Not so bad and I got there pretty much when I wanted to. Check in was super simple. we got out of the taxi and got our bags we walked over to the porters and they took them put them on the carts. We went to the suite doors to get inside. There is no line so we could put all our carry-on on the conveyor belt and then we walked over to a woman who had a a tablet and she checked us in right there. I haven’t been on a cruise in five years but this is way simpler than It ever was in the past. Not sure if that’s because we were in Europe or if that’s just how they’re doing it now. I thought we were walking to a waiting area to get on the ship we were actually walking right onto the ship there was no wait at all. So there we were walking on the gangway I could not have been happier. As I said we haven’t cruised in quite a while so I felt like a new cruiser. We took our first steps onto symphony of the seas and we walked right to the bionic bar. Which unfortunately was broken at the time. It did work later so we were finally able to get those drinks from those adorable robots. Since we couldn’t get our drinks from the robots we decided to go to Central Park and go to the trellis bar. My husband got some sort of sunrise drink and I got a piña colada. Piña colada‘s are always my first drink of our cruise vacation. Then we’re off to chops to make all of our dining reservations. Usually when the concierge sends us our email I just have them make all the reservations for us but unfortunately this time we never got that email. After making all over the reservations we walked up to the suite lounge and talked to the concierge explaining that we never did get her email and turns out they did send it but there was some sort of system glitch at least that’s what they told us. Honestly they really did make up for it during the entire cruise. We sat in the suite lounge for a while just kind of people watched and then shortly after our room was ready so we walked down to our grand suite. Pretty much the exact same as any of the other oasis class grande suites the only difference is between the living room and the bedroom on Symphony there is a wall whereas an oasis it was just a curtain I think I actually like the curtains better because it makes the room more open. After we put our stuff down and let our room steward Leo we just walked around the ship and kind of got the way of the land as you will. That night we were eating at chops which was amazing we both had steak and it was probably the best meal we had the entire cruise . After dinner we had reservations to see the Aqua theater show called Hiro. Royal Caribbean has definitely stepped up their game in the entertainment department. This was an absolutely amazing show and if we had time I would’ve gone to see it again. I’m so happy we saw this on the first night though because it was actually the warmest of the nights as the cruise went on the nights seem to get cooler and sitting out there in the cooler weather and sometimes even a little bit of rain would not have been as fun. After the show we just walked around a little bit and went up to bed since we knew we would have an early morning the next day in Mallorca .

Views from the castle

Some aquarium pics

Happy anniversary!!! That sounds like me. 🤣

It is now Saturday. Yay only 1 more day until the cruise. We went out to another coffee shop for more cappuccino and croissants. Then got on the hop on hop off bus to the aquarium. My husband is really into tropical fish so he was pretty excited to visit the aquarium. They have this tunnel you walk through and the fish including sharks and stingrays swim all around you. They also have penguins which I really enjoyed seeing. Of course we had to walk through the gift shop. They got us as usual and we purchased some t-shirts. Then back on the HOHO bus to Montjuïc castle. But first we got on the montjuic cable car to the castle. We didn’t go inside the caste but we did walk around the outside. There are great views of the city and the port. We stayed long enough to watch some of the cruise ships sail away. It was fun to watch. We went back on the cable car to catch the HOHO bus back to the hotel. We went to a nearby restaurant for dinner and then back to the hotel. We had to repack our carry on for the cruise. We only wanted to carry our back packs on the ship. The HOHO bus for a one day pass is $33 per person. You can buy The tickets online or on the bus but we got our tickets at the hotel. The bus runs from 9am -7pm daily. it may not have been the most cost effective route but for us it was worth it especially to see some of the sites of the city. There are a few different bus routes so just make sure you get on the right bus. https://www.hop-on-hop-off-bus.com/barcelona/barcelona-city-tour-hop-on-hop-off-ticket_5850

Happy anniversary! What a great way to celebrate. Congrats to your son too.

This is all from the winery

Pictures from the very cute cafe.

That sounds like a great trip.

Day 2 was Friday May 5th. After our 17 hours of sleep we woke up refreshed. We walked to a cute little coffee shop. El Fornet coffee shop. Very good coffee and croissants. From the coffee shop we walked to our meeting spot for our winery tour. The meeting place was just a block from Casa Mila. We stopped and took pictures from the outside. You can pay to get inside but time was short for us so we just stayed outside. The winery we went to was Can Bas winery. They pick you up in a small bus and drive you 45 minutes to the winery. https://can-bas.com/en/tourism/ If you take the tour you will go to a second winery close by that has all cava wine. The tour was about 6 hours in total. After the tour those in our tour group decided to go out to dinner after. It was a great day and highly recommend the winery tour.

Our cruise went to Palma de Mallorca Spain, Marseille France, LeSpezia Italy, Rome Italy and Naples Italy. we actually stayed at 2 different hotels. The first one was AC hotels by Marriott https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bcndl-ac-hotel-diagonal-lilla/ the second one we stayed at just for 1 night which was after the cruise. Renaissance Barcelona also by Marriott. The second one seemed nicer in my opinion. The first hotel we were able to use our points which was why we stayed there. I would honestly recommend both. The first one was only a 5 min walk to the hop on hop off bus and there were many restaurants to and coffee shops near by. The second one had an excellent paella restaurant near by that was only 6 blocks away. We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel. No problem getting a taxi to the hotel there are plenty.

First day pictures we took from the hop on hop off bus.

This was our first time in Europe and our 25th wedding anniversary celebration cruise. Nothing short of amazing. Little bit about us. We are Andy and Nancy from New Jersey. In our late 40’s. This was our 5th cruise with Royal. 3rd time on an Oasis class ship. We stayed in a grand suite which was our 3rd time in a grand suite. Once you go to the suite class it’s hard to go back. We originally booked a land vacation to the Canary Island's. After about a month my husband said you wouldn’t want to do a cruise would you? Before he could even finish that sentence I booked this cruise. Lol Im a researcher so I had everything planned out before we left. We flew to Barcelona from Newark airport on Wednesday the 3rd. Jet lag is no joke when we landed we were exhausted and our hotel wasn’t going to be ready until 3 PM. We decided to get on the hop on hop off bus and just ride around and see the sights. By 2 PM we were completely exhausted and couldn’t go anymore. Went back to the hotel to ate a late lunch early dinner. By the time we were done the room was ready for check-in. It is now 4 PM and we crashed. Woke up at 9 AM the next morning best sleep we’ve ever had. to be continued…

Roger sorry about that meant to say thank you to you. It really was a great recommendation. Thanks for all your help in planning this day.

Just got back from bellaneario. Not sure I’m spelling that right but it was a perfect beach day. Only 15 min taxi ride to beach club from cruise port and 15 euro with taxi. Didn’t get sun bed just chose to lay on towels but even at 12:00 still plenty available. Made reservations for lunch before we came and had a delicious lunch. High recommend this beach club.

I just realized all aboard is 3:30 we have lunch reservations at 12:30 at Balneario Illetas. Will we have enough time to get back to the ship or should we cancel lunch?

We will be celebrating out 25th wedding anniversary on a mediterranean cruise next month. Does anyone have a favorite jewelry store you like? We will be in Barcelona and Palma De Mallorca Spain, Marseille France, Rome, Naples and La Spezia Italy.

I'm really enjoying going on this cruise with you even if it's just virtually. Love all the pictures.

Thank you! I did look into them however they don't do tours to cruisers in Rome anyway since we are only there for 5 hours. Also we will be in Rome on a Thursday and they don't do the tour I wanted on Thursdays. I did however find a friend of a friend able to give us a short tour while we are in Rome.

I got 11am for our cruise too and I checked in right away. Maybe they aren’t allowing 10:30 check in time anymore.

Thank you everyone. We did get a euros from out bank so all set for that. And our credit cards don’t have foreign transaction fees.

We will be on a mediterranean cruise on Symphony of the seas in May leaving out of Spain. Should I brush up on my Spanish or will the predominant language be English on the ship.

I just checked in for our mediterranean cruise. No problem. Maybe it will work now for you.