Barcelona Cruise Port Terminal Questions

[Tlawmich]

My cruise partner called Royal Carribean to find out if we could make a 10:40 am flight after our cruise which docks in Barcelona at 6:00 am. She was told it could take 3 - 4 hours to get off the ship, and then we would be required to go through a customs check in the cruise port terminal. The RCL representative then said that the customs and security checks at El Prat airport could take another 3-4 hours. Has anybody had any recent experience with this process? Has security become more cumbersome recently due to the terrorist attacks in London and France? Should we consider changing our airline tickets to the day after the cruise or do we have a good chance of making our flight? Thanks in advance for any recent experiences or information you can provide.

[swoopy2110]

You can be at the airport by 7am if the ship is on time.. They're only being cautious and worst case scenario. The airport is very easy to access from the port.

[nelblu]

In the past I've made a 10:30am flight with plenty of time to spare. Airport is about 20 minute ride by taxi. As the previous post mentioned that they are cautious. On my Feb. Navigator cruise out of Miami the on-line check in would not accept any flight leaving earlier than 11:30 am. My flight was at 10;32am and being awfully cautious decided to self-disembark. We were off the ship at 6:45 and at the airport by 7:15. Had 3 hours of waiting.

[irishgal432]

We booked The 1040 flight to ATL from Barcelona by Choice Air, so if there are any issues, Choice Air hopefully will get us on the next flight .

[ken_nyc]

If you booked the air through the cruise line it should not be a problem, they would not offer a flight that doesn't meet their requirements.

[Norwich Cruiser]

Do self assist and you should have absolutely no problems at all.

 

Taxis are plentiful especially if you are off the ship in the first hour and it's a very easy twenty minutes ride to the airport.

[George C]

Taxi line can take 20 mins and security and airport lines were long.

[crosby99]

Took us a long time to get a taxi in Barcelona.

10:40 to me is too risky...although you will usually make it I suspect.

Personally I wouldn't book earlier than midday

[bobmacliberty]

We're on that same flight after our cruise in September. We'll self-disembark ASAP and just to be safe, book a car rather than wait for a taxi. From what I've read, the car is probably not necessary since there are supposed to be many taxis.

[Sailor_Sally]

When we got off the Freedom in Barcelona the taxi line was over an hour wait .

[Spike2015]

Just came back and the taxi like was long! But if you are off early that shouldn't be a problem. We didn't have any problem getting off the ship and there was no passport control there.

 

We didn't leave right after the cruise. We had friends who did. They got thru security and check in pretty quick. But passport control was very busy and a lot of pushing and shoving. They almost missed their flight. Not sure why but you have to go thru passport control at the airport before you get to the gates.

 

When we left on Monday it wasn't bad. The agent told us we were lucky There was only one plane leaving for the US and there was only 200 of us that had to go thru the passport control.

[Tlawmich]

Thanks you all, I appreciate your input.

[CharlotteNCCruiser]

We just got off the Freedom this past Sunday in Barcelona. They starting making announcements at 6:15 that the ship was cleared and people doing self assist could leave. We slowly got up and went to the dining room for breakfast and we were still off the ship by 7:45. We did not wait for our bags long and were in a taxi by 8:30 and at the airport by 8:45. The taxi line was long, but moved quickly. The line at the airport took over an hour to get our luggage tags, and there were only 4 reps for the customer assistance line. If we used the machine to get our luggage tags we would have been quicker, but we were too early to check in for our 2:30 flight. If you are ready to debark at 6:15 and do self assist you will have no trouble making that flight. We wished that we had an earlier flight. They were really good in the line for American Airlines about moving people ahead who had earlier flights. The security line moved quickly once we had checked our bags and Passport Control was opened by flight so no one could actually get to the assigned gate, which was at the end of the terminal, until they posted your flight on a sign in front of Passport Control which was about 20 minutes before the boarding time on our boarding passes.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[ken_nyc]

Do self assist and you should have absolutely no problems at all.

 

 

 

Taxis are plentiful especially if you are off the ship in the first hour and it's a very easy twenty minutes ride to the airport.

 

 

 

I second that! Self assist. We preordered a car to pick us up last year so we didn't have to wait online. We were one of the first off the ship.

 

 

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[George C]

If you fly 1st or business class on any airline, Barcelona airport has a very very nice lounge with comfortable chairs free food and liquor

[ken_nyc]

I second that! Self assist. We preordered a car to pick us up last year so we didn't have to wait online. We were one of the first off the ship.

 

 

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I just looked at our American Airlines itinerary from last year and we had a 10:00am flight and had no problems.

 

 

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[nelblu]

You could get an RCL shuttle at $31.50 each way per. We did and again made the 10:30am flight with no trouble, even though we waited until the bus was almost full.

[Ned11]

I was on the Epic and came off the ship at 8.15. Had to wait 10 minutes for a taxi and was the airport for 9am. Our flight wasn't till 1.15pm so a lot of just sitting around.

 

 

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[bobmacliberty]

If you fly 1st or business class on any airline, Barcelona airport has a very very nice lounge with comfortable chairs free food and liquor

Do you need to go through passport control to get to the lounge? I'm thinking about CharlotteNCCruiser's post about not going through passport control until your flight is called.

[George C]

Do you need to go through passport control to get to the lounge? I'm thinking about CharlotteNCCruiser's post about not going through passport control until your flight is called.

 

you need to check in so its after your passport is checked, huge airport, but huge lounge at no cost and about 11am they had brought out some top shelf liquor and you just helped yourself, plus coffee snacks small sandwich's etc. also had wine beer and soda