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Nov. 15 Riviera Transatlantic Review


Love.II.Cruise

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Pre- Info

 

Usually people want to know the perspective you are talking from. This usually results in people reading more or less of the review. This trip was a family vacation for us. It was a bucket list item for my parents. They wanted to take a cruise with each child and family. We were the last of the five children to take a trip with them.

 

Originally, they suggested a cruise from Papeete to Hawaii as a cruise on Princess. We declined due to the airfare cost and the fact we would be in Papeete during the rainy season. We also had been to both places before and wanted to try something a little more adventurous. We then suggested Windstar in the Caribbean with them - despite all of us having been to the Caribbean, we suggested this because it was an easy flight, on a small sail yacht, and to small places we hadn’t been before. They declined and were not interested. Then we suggested trying Oceania on a Transatlantic. Neither of us had been on Oceania nor had done a Transatlantic. We agreed to try Oceania together. And of course, trying a “new” ship was also appealing.

 

I myself have been on 17 cruises. My DH has been on 10 cruises. These trips included the following lines: Carnival (1 for me, DH never tried), Celebrity, Princess, Regent, and Royal Caribbean.

 

I’ll start this review by discussing our experience in Barcelona. If you don’t want to read that, you can easily skip to the embarkation part when I post it.

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Pre Cruise, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012:

 

We had reserved Hotel 1898 for 5 nights before our cruise. We had an overnight flight and arrived into Barcelona in the early morning. We went directly to our hotel and we're presently surprised when they had our room available. They informed us that had it been mid summer that it would not have been available.

 

We took a nice walk, then a nap, before venturing out for dinner.

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Can you tell me please the names of the,: Captain, General Manager, Dining Room Manager and also the Food And Beverage Manager. I expect that you will have had an excellent experience aboard the Riviera....Looking forward to you report and comments.:D

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Sorry for the delayed start. I want to share some of my pictures, but I'm having to reorder 1000s of pictures (from a different trip), which is taking much longer than I thought. I will have a post tomorrow with a couple pictures. ;)

 

You teaser:rolleyes:

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Can you tell me please the names of the,: Captain, General Manager, Dining Room Manager and also the Food And Beverage Manager. I expect that you will have had an excellent experience aboard the Riviera....Looking forward to you report and comments.:D

 

Below is the following information for the Nov. 15 Crossing:

 

Captain: Luca Manzi

 

General Manager: Thierry Tholon

 

I'm not sure of the dining room manager, but this is what I know.

 

Food & Beverage Director: Pasquale Di Landro

 

Restaurant Manager: Anatoli Makaev

 

Senior Executive Chef: Christophe Belin

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Pre Cruise Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012, Montserrat and Cava Trail Small Group Day Trip from Barcelona

 

On this day we did a tour with Viator. This tour included a trip to Montserrat and a lovely winery.

 

Unfortunately since this was a Sunday, Montserrat was severely crowded and I’m not sure if something special was going on because there were news crews and security everywhere. Even our tour guide didn’t seem to know what was going on. She gave some brief explanations of the area and then let us go on our own for a couple hours.

 

Here are a couple pictures of Montserrat.

 

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Nov. 11, 2012 Continued

 

 

At Montserrat did not hear the young boys sing (they used to castrate them to keep their young voices - so glad that is no longer the case). The church was completely full. It was wall to wall people and we basically couldn’t take but 3 steps in. So we gave up and decided to take the train up further into the mountain (this is an extra fee if you choose to do this). If you are afraid of heights, I wouldn’t recommend this. The view is wonderful from the top. There are a couple (steep) trails to hike around.

 

This is a view of the train from the bottom of Montserrat.

 

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Once you get to the top, one can find an excellent view on a clear day. It wasn't completely clear when we were there, but the clouds made it seem magical.

 

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Nov. 11, 2012 Continued

 

The idea of having a couple hours there was to also to be able to eat lunch on our own. We did have a light snack, but overall felt we were there an hour too long.

 

From there we went to a small area where monks live. We thought it would be exciting to meet one, but Sunday is their day of rest and they don’t open their doors to anyone. Perhaps this is why we were at Montserrat for so long.

 

Here is a closed door to where some monks live.

 

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For our winery/cava tour we went to Pares Balta. This is a family owned winery and has been in existence since 1790. By far this was the best winery tour we have ever been on. Our wine tour guide taught us so much about wine and cava. And to be able to see the underground area where they store their wine/cava was amazing!

 

The wine wasn’t the best we had, but we did purchase a bottle of wine and one bottle of cava to bring on board our cruise.

 

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Notice the webs and mold. It did smell quite musty and I was a little worried about my allergies.

 

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A picture of our great wine tour guide:

 

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Nov. 11, 2012 Continued

 

This is a view of the train from the bottom of Montserrat.

 

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Once you get to the top, one can find an excellent view on a clear day. It wasn't completely clear when we were there, but the clouds made it seem magical.

 

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Wow! I don't think I would enjoy the ride to the top of the mountain. :eek:

 

We took the funicular to the site of the Olympics but it was not too steep. Thanks for the pics of Montserrat. We spent 4 nights post-cruise in Barcelona but never made it there.

 

Kathy

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You teaser:rolleyes:

 

I love the looks of that train ride! I wanna go!

Thanks for the pics.

Are you going to post about the cruise itself? I would love to read about that, too.

 

I like to call this Pre-Cruise part a "teaser" to the cruise review! ;) I'll be discussing the cruise in general, our room with pictures (which is 7135 - one of those aft PH Suites with the wrap around balcony), daily activities, restaurants, etc.

 

 

 

Nov. 11, 2012 Continued

 

Our group size for this Viator tour was only 8 people. It was very intimate and I think that is what made the wine tour so special.

 

Out of the 8 people, 6 of us (my parents, this new couple we met, and ourselves) were staying at Hotel 1898. This new couple we met were scheduled to leave on Nov. 14 out of Barcelona to travel back to the US. I had done a lot of research on this date since there was to be a major strike across several counties in Europe on Nov. 14. I asked our Viator tour guide if there was a strike (rather than just bluntly say there was going to be one to this other couple). Our Viator tour guide said there would be one and she would be participating. She basically said it was her civil duty to protest and said it would be peaceful.

 

Our new friends were now concerned about getting out of the country and actually spent most of the time at Montserrat finding out if they could get home. I'll discuss what happened in a later post. ;)

 

That evening we went out for dinner and I'd say we hit a tourist trap on Las Ramblas. Next day to come... another tour with Viator - City Tour of Barcelona and HIGHLY recommended! :D

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We loved the trip to Montserrat several years ago. The church was lovely and the boy choir very sweet, but the highlight of the trip was the funicular and the view from the top. Spectacular!

 

I have to admit to chuckling about your idea that it might be exciting to meet monks. My husband works at a Benedictine monastery school in DC and we meet monks regularly. They are lovely, kind, scholarly men...but exciting? Interestingly, hospitality is one of the core values of the Benedictine order, but they seem to build their monasteries in the most inaccessible places--Montserrat and Monte Cassino, in Italy, come to mind.

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Pre Cruise Monday, Nov. 12, 2012, Skip the Line: Best of Barcelona Tour including Sagrada Familia

 

On this day we did another tour with Viator. This was a city tour outside of the Olympic Park (Summer 1992), with entrance tour to Sagrada Familia, walking tour of the Gothic quarter, a visit to Park Guell, and La Pedrera. Today we had a different tour guide - this time a gentleman and we were lucky that it was just the 4 of us on the Viator tour.

 

Believe it or not, we met the couple the day before outside the viator office. They were going on a different tour than us today. This was the couple who were trying to leave on Nov. 14 (strike day). They did discover their flights had been cancelled and arranged to stay an extra night at Hotel 1898 and fly out on Nov. 15. They graciously thanked us for the information on the strike.

 

On our tour, we first went to the Olympic Park of Barcelona. The games were hosted here in the summer of 1992. We captured a picture of the tower that is known as the Montjuic Communications Tower. We could see this tower from the roof top of our hotel, but didn’t know what it was. It was built for the 1992 olympics as a telecommunications tower for television. This tower represents an athlete holding the olympic flame. Below is a picture of it.

 

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Below is a picture of the Museum where you can see the city from.

 

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The pictures of the city below are taken from the Museum. In a couple pictures you can see a round structure where they used to host bull fighting matches. However, Catalonia has outlawed it.

 

 

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Nov. 12, 2012 Continued

 

 

Speaking of Catalonia... Barcelona is in Catalonia and Catalan is the main language spoken there. In schools, both Catalan and Spanish are taught, but Catalan is the dominate language. If you speak Spanish and venture off the beaten path you may find yourself in a pickle talking with locals that only speak Catalan. But I assure you, everyone knows what Sangria means. :D

 

We’ve been to so many cathedrals and churches that we have lost count. After a while we have taken it for granted and haven’t found them to be anything exciting. When we arrived at Sagrada Familia we were transferred from our Viator Tour Guide to our Sagrada Familia Tour Guide. We also had head phones to turn on at certain points of this tour.

 

Just standing outside this fascinating church seemed to be a blessing. The groundbreaking was in 1882. Architect Antoni Gaudi took over the construction in 1883 and he died in 1926. Sagrada Familia is estimated to be completed in 2026 (this would be the centennial of Gauidi’s death and I expect they are shooting for this date) or 2028. Gaudi is actually buried in this church and if you go into the basement there are small windows where you may see another level below - a worship area and the crypt of Gaudi.

 

This church has to have gone through many change designs as the industrial revolution took place (and may go through more changes as some feel like we are entering the sustainability revolution). Today it has modern lighting and plumbing for the restrooms that surely were never in the original plans. Not to mention, this church survived the Spanish Civil War.

 

Below are pictures of the outside of Sagrada Familia.

 

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Nov 12, 2012 Continued

 

Once we stepped inside, we were immediately overwhelmed at what we saw and as we looked up whispered “Oh my!” We were completely taken aback. We had no idea what this church was about and did not do any prior research ... thinking that it was just “another” church. But no, it is not. We were extremely fortunate that the tour guide watched out for my husband and me. We kept losing him... we just couldn’t concentrate on following him. We’ve never been so moved in our lives. It was truly amazing and I would recommend everyone that visits Barcelona to see this. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about place in a city that I’ve ever been in my life.

 

Below are some pictures of the inside of Sagrada Familia. We are looking forward to going back in the future to see the how this church progresses. When you look at these photos think about the spaciousness of a forest, knots in the trees as the towers extend up in height. The stained glass isn’t completed in some of the photos, whereas in others you can see the sun going through and illuminated the posts with a heavenly rainbow of colors.

 

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This next picture is a dizzying straight up view.

 

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Nov. 12, 2012 Continued

 

We then left Sagrada Familia and walked about in the Gothic center of Barcelona and learned a bit of the Spanish Civil War. These were narrow little walkways that I’m sure many tourists do not walk down just because of pick-pocketers and so forth.

 

We then went to Park Guell (architect of Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi). This is a park that was designed by Antoni Gaudi. Below are pictures of the park.

 

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This guy was great to listen to.

 

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Nov. 12, 2012 Continued

 

We then went to La Pedrera. This building was also constructed by Antoni Gaudi. We were told there are a couple families that live in this building, but other parts are open to visitors. Below are some pictures of this building.

 

The rooftop...

 

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Our tour guide was also going to protest on the Nov. 14 strike and said to expect shops, restaurants, and banks to be vandalized and so forth. Today we saw a trash can on fire and our tour guide said to expect this sort of thing.

 

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Nov 12, 2012 Continued

 

Once we stepped inside, we were immediately overwhelmed at what we saw and as we looked up whispered “Oh my!” We were completely taken aback. We had no idea what this church was about and did not do any prior research ... thinking that it was just “another” church. But no, it is not. We were extremely fortunate that the tour guide watched out for my husband and me. We kept losing him... we just couldn’t concentrate on following him. We’ve never been so moved in our lives. It was truly amazing and I would recommend everyone that visits Barcelona to see this. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about place in a city that I’ve ever been in my life.

 

Below are some pictures of the inside of Sagrada Familia. We are looking forward to going back in the future to see the how this church progresses. When you look at these photos think about the spaciousness of a forest, knots in the trees as the towers extend up in height. The stained glass isn’t completed in some of the photos, whereas in others you can see the sun going through and illuminated the posts with a heavenly rainbow of colors.

 

IMG_0100.JPG

 

This next picture is a dizzying straight up view.

 

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Lovey, what a gorgeous church!!!! Just beautiful!!

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