mevs904

We will be In Barcelona for 3 nights in April following our Princess cruise. The Barcelona/Montserrat tour looks very interesting, but there seems to be a lot in the itinerary and I was wondering how much ability there was to get out and walk around and how many of the sites were just drive bys. I’ve been very impressed with the preponderance of positive posts about this company and was wondering if anyone has had a fairly recent experience with their Barcelona tours. I did see one mention of this tour, but it was about 5 years old. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Bruin Steve. After reading your post we contacted the H10 Catalunya and asked if we would be able to arrange car service to and from the airport after our April cruise. It looks like we will be staying there and I will make sure to book the room through their website as you suggested.

I believe that for our Baltic cruise experience we found out the name of the hotel that Princess was using through our TA before we made the decision to book. We also made the decision to use Princess transfers to the hotel and to the ship understanding that it was more expensive than making our own arrangements. For this cruise we broke the rules and flew in the day of the cruise. Since we arrived very early in the morning the ship wasn’t ready to receive passengers so the transfer bus and Princess associate took us on an unexpected and lovely tour of Copenhagen where we able to see the Little Mermaid statue, the royal palace, and several other sites where we able to get off of the bus and walk around. They got us to the ship at approximately 11:00 am where we were able to board with no wait. Our stay at the Princess hotel was at the end of the cruise when we stayed in Copenhagen for 3 nights. Every aspect of the Princess arrangements was very positive so we are giving serious consideration to Princess for this cruise. If we decide to make independent arrangements we will look to the Hotel Smeraldo as our first choice. We loved the staff and location of the hotel and the transportation that they arranged for us was excellent. I don’t mean to take up this thread with information that’s not related to your original post so I’ll use the Roll Call thread for further posts.

Hi Koliver63! I’m so sorry about what happened to you. We are on your cruise in April and haven’t booked our flights yet, so I really appreciate your taking the time to let others know about your experience. We are in the process of deciding whether to do EZAir or not. We used it in 2019 on our Baltic cruise and it worked out very well. Are you booking your pre-cruise hotel through Princess? We were in Rome in October and stayed at the Hotel Smeraldo. We would happily go back there, but think that since we’re only staying one night before the cruise it might be easier to make arrangements through Princess and use their transfer services. We’ll definitely be carrying larger suitcases than we did in October so we’re looking to make things a little easier. Thanks for starting the Roll Call for our cruise. I do check in from time to time.

Yes, I agree that the Princess hotels are usually more expensive, but in Copenhagen they placed us in the Hotel Scandic which was nowhere near twice as much as other hotel choices and was ideally situated. We have enjoyed staying in a couple of Rome’s smaller hotels, but for this trip we will only be staying one night and will have more luggage than we usually carry for our land trips, so the idea of using Princess transfers is appealing. We were just in Rome in October so the only sightseeing that we’re planning on is the Borghese Gallery. Right now we’ve asked our TA for a quote and are looking for thoughts from posters on this board, then we’ll decide. Thanks for responding. I appreciate your thoughts.

We are also looking to book a hotel in Rome before our April 22 cruise. Does anyone know what hotel Princess uses if you book the hotel through them? We realize that it might be more expensive, but we did this in Copenhagen on our Baltic cruise and we were very satisfied with the experience. Concerning the OP’s inquiry, I know that we have stayed in one hotel that did have three beds in the room. It may have been the Hotel Sonya near Termini.

The one thing that we like about the Royal Class ships is the expanded Horizon Buffet with more international food choices. Other than that we really don’t care for the Royal Class ships due to the lack of a full promenade deck. We booked an April Mediterranean cruise on the Enchanted due to the excellent itinerary, but after that we’ll probably stick to ships (including other cruise lines ) that have full promenade decks.

Yes, I reread the post and see what you mean. We don’t bring water onboard, but the idea of canned water is not very appealing.

Where does it say that bottles of water are not allowed. A number of passengers routinely do this.