M&M@409

I booked the Hotel Sofia, because of the quality of the rooms and dining, and also because it’s not in the hub of the tourist area. For my first day in an area, I’m looking for a quick nap in a quiet neighborhood, after a morning flight arrival, and then a walk around a safe area, a great dinner and a slightly early bedtime to adjust to the jet lag.As of April 1, Sofia was rebranded as a Grand Hyatt. They are still honoring my suite choice and room rate. It also includes club lounge access. Reviews have been excellent. A lot of the traditional luxury hotels have been sold out for months because of the overlap with the World’s Cup.

We are booked on the Barcelona to Barcelona October 14-28, 2024. Because I am one of those people for whom vacation planning is half the fun, I was browsing through various websites to see what our hotel options are for flying in a day or two before boarding the ship, just window shopping, but not intending to book quite yet.. I was amazed to see that many of the hotels are already fully booked or certain categories are sold out, particularly those on the high end, especially at the big hotel franchises like Hilton, Hyatt and Bonvoy. The closer you get to the harbor, the more scarce and expensive the rooms become. This is because The America’s Cup is being held in Barcelona in September-October, 2024. For example, rooms at the waterfront W are between $4,000 and 8,000:per night at that time, about 10X the regular rate. I did manage to get a mini suite at a hotel located between the airport and the main attraction area. Had I not been curious about our options, we might have ended up in Barcelona with no hotel or an undesirable hotel. So if you’re cruising in that area at that time, don’t wait until last minute to find a hotel.

Regarding the lobster thermador, we were on Odyssey last week. I asked the server in the TK Grill why was there no lobster. She said that the only lobster available for the past several weeks was not up to TK’s standards and he would not allow it to be served. Apparently he holds tight reigns on the food that bears the TK name. For instance, if the potato bun is not availablee at the patio, they can’t serve the Napa burger or the Yountville Wurst. Here’s a tip. If you order a regular burger or Hot Dog at the patio, ask for it to be served on a potato bun. The regular buns are not very good.