Eli_6

Hubs is finally home! Ride is supposed to be here soon but hubs isn't ready. I have got the kids showered and ready. FX we will be leaving soon.

Slow Biden eating:

Sort of. They live beside one another. Donald is a turtle and Slow is a tortoise so Donald Hump needs water and Slow Biden prefers land. We got them both at the same time during the last election...hence the names. Donald has a big ridge/hump on his back and Slow Biden is, well, very slow. Turtles are actually not slow at all but sort of freakishly fast. Donald always tries to bite us, too, whereas Slow Biden us very friendly and nice. He "runs" to his food bowl every time he sees my husband since my husband feeds him. His diet is all fresh vegis so a bit of a pain.

And Donald Hump:

This is Slow Biden:

As I wait for my husband to get home, here are some pics of our pets. Jubilee:

Waiting on my hubs. He said at 3 pm (more than an hour and a half ago) he only had 3 patients left but he still isn't home. Sigh. He has to clean all his animals and finish packing. He animals = parrot, tortoise, 2 turtles, rabbit and 2 fish tanks. I don't clean them because he let kids get them so he cleans them or they do. We have a sitter coming to feed them but he needs to freshen them up before we leave. I am thinking our ride will be waiting on us for awhile. But it is OK. Used to this. I plan and am ready early. Hubs flies by the seat of his pants and is always late. It makes life interesting! And I am getting caught up on Vanderpump Rules.

I am used to it. That's how he rolls...

As an aside, I am starting to get nervous. My husband is not home yet. He still has to clean all his animals (parrot, tortoise, rabbit, turtles, two fish tanks) and finish packing. It is 4:36. Our ride arrives at 5:30...

No. We are flying business and F2F doesn't book business.

I have my boys and I fully packed. My husband is still packing...and he hasn't gotten home from work yet. Why do the people who pack 2 weeks ahead of time marry the people who pack as the cab waits outside to take you to the airport?

Have fun! We will be heading for the airport ourselves in about 4 hours. We have to head to the airport extra early because we were unable to check our youngest son in online. Sigh.

Brilliant idea. Thanks for the recommendation!

A couple of pics from JH of the Pride getting last minute dry dock touch ups:

After there being so many issues last year with lost luggage, I invested in "Tiles" for all bags to track them. (Planning to fly with carry on only but just in case we have to check a carry on.) I also saw where the Apple air tags could even be used to track children...unfortunately, air tags dont work with a droid and they didn't have the wrist band "Tile" holders for kids like they do for air tags...but they did have tile dog collars. So, this was my pre-cruise "hack" to track my kids with a Tile in the event someone was foolish enough to steal them...or one of them got lost going to the bathroom.

A little bit about us: We are a family of four: Mom, Dad, and two boys ages 9 and 10. This is not our first time in Europe or our first time on the Pride. We did the British Isles cruise on her last year. While the sites were amazing, the cruising aspect was not one of our better cruises with Carnival…so we are coming in with tempered expectations. I am hopeful that there have been some improvements and will try to post my observations once on board. We have a hectic schedule so I can’t promise that I will get to check in or post pics every day, but I will try. I am definitely the planner in our family. So much so that the other day I expressed concerns about the security strike at Heathrow and making our connection. My husband said, “Well, worst case scenario, we can always take the train to Edinburgh or rent a car and drive.” In case you haven’t figured it out: We are cruising from Barcelona. To Portugal, France, Belgium, Spain, Gibraltar, and ending in Dover. At no point are we going to Scotland. Further, we have never taken a cruise from Edinburgh before. So, as you can see, my husband just shows up for the cruise and goes along with things. As part of my planning, I start packing well in advance. I have scoped out the best ways to get as much as I can in as little luggage as possible. This is primarily a practical consideration as I want everyone to be able to carry their own luggage. I can’t be pulling my luggage and luggage for two kids. And, when they were younger, I also had to keep them from playing in traffic or running off. So, over the years, I developed a 1 backpack and 1 carry on rule. Everyone gets one back-pack and one carry on suitcase for their clothes and items. This also allows us to be able to fly without checking luggage thereby reducing chances of lost luggage. I use vacuum sealed bags to be able to get everything in and this seems to work well. For Barcelona, I already divided out each day and have our outfits planned out for each day for all of us and all packed in one bag so that there will be no need for us to even unpack our other suitcases during our three days in Barcelona. Once on the ship, we will be able to wash clothes or send them out for washing--yay for finally being platinum and getting three free bags each! I also vacuum pack many of our clothes to save space. This year, we will also be forgoing formal wear. I did bring formal wear last year and my husband’s dress shoes and boys’ dress shoes along with their suits took up an entire carry on. (Mainly it was their shoes—hubs is a 12/13 and boys are already in men’s sizes.) That’s simply too much valuable packing space being used up for what amounts to dinner on only two nights.

Today is THE BIG DAY!!!! We are leaving for our big European adventure to Barcelona, Gibraltar, Lisbon, Vigo, Leixos, La Coruna, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Mont St. Michel, Brussels/Ghent, Dover, Cambridge, and London. We will be covering 5 countries in 2 weeks 5 days. Here is our Itinerary. I will be updating this thread with pictures from our journey as we take it along with any tips and tricks I have and my opinions on the "renovated" Pride. ITINERARY May 24-25 Depart Wednesday May 24th from IAH and arrive in London on May 25th. Then we will depart LHR to BCN and arrive in Barcelona about 6pm on Thursday, May 25th. We are staying at Granados 83 in the Eixample district in a family duplex. May 26 At 5 pm, I have the Sagrada Familia Basilica Nativity Tower Scheduled. My boys and husband may tour the Barca stadium in the morning. May 27 As of right now, my plans are still pretty open because I know we are usually tired the days after travel. Plus, we are coming back to Barcelona next year, too. We want to see Caso Batlo, Casa Mila, the fountains, possibly the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, Sant Pau Art Noveau site and La Pedrera. Open to any suggestions anyone provides. May 28 Check out at noon. Check in for cruise at 12:30-1. I may try to fit in a site or two depending on how we feel. Caso Batlo and Casa Mila are close to our hotel so we may try to squeeze one or the other in this morning. NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE MAIN EVENT: THE CRUISE! Day 1 Embark at 12:30-1 (Hoping to get a pic with John Heald!) Day 2 May 29 SEA DAY (i.e. Kids play on slides and Mom does laundry day.) Day 3 May 30 – Gibraltar - We are doing this on our own. We will probably get cable car tickets and go to the top of the rock. Day 4 May 31 – Lisbon – We have a 4 person private tour booked through Viator. I am hoping to see the Moorish Castle of Sintra and the Initiation Well of Sintra. Day 5 June 1 – Leixos – All four of us are taking the “Ancient Braga” Excursion with Carnival. Day 6 June 2 – Vigo – My husband and I are doing “Galician Historical Gardens” Excursion with Carnival. Day 7 June 3 – La Coruna - My husband and I are doing the “Galician Special” tour with Carnival. Day 8 June 4 – Bilboa – We have a Carnival excursion booked for all 4 of us. Day 9 – June 5- Bordeaux/La Rochelle La Rochelle – I think here I just want to take a taxi into town and see the Towers of La Rochelle and The Old Town. Day 10 – June 6 Sea Day Day 11 – June 7 Mont St. Michel – Doing Carnival Excursion to Mnt St. Michel for all 4 of us. Day 12 – June 8 Brussels – Doing Panoramic Ghent Carnival Excursion for all four of us. Day 13 – June 9 Depart Dover We will take a train to Cambridge because I have an appointment at the Corpus Christi Library to view some manuscripts in the Parker Collection for some research I am doing for my dissertation. There is a botanical garden near the university my husband will take the kids to. June 10-12 – Plan to take my kids to the Tower in London and possibly Hampton Court as they have never been despite being to England before. I think they will really enjoy the Tower because of the old armory, swords, etc. Then we fly home!

We are laving out at 8:50 pm so my kids could get in a full day of school and hubs a full day of work. Land at LHR at noon. Hopefully, we will just all sleep on the plane. We did this same late flight last year and it worked out well for my kids and I in terms of sleeping. I didn't even wake up for breakfast. They woke me up when it was time to land and I had to sit up. My husband said he couldn't sleep.

LHR to BCN will leave out of Terminal 5 at LHR...probably 5A. But could be B or C. If you are flying in on British Airways, you will fly into Terminal 5 as well.

We are getting close...oh so close! I think our flight from LHR to BCN is pretty full. I ran a search to see what other flights were available if ours cancels and there was only one economy and 1 business available on our flight. The ones before and after had more availability. My flight from IAH-LHR appears to be full, too.

If you have Diamond, platinum, in a suite or FTTF and do carry off, then you can be off lickety split. We once had a 10 am flight off of the Splendor in Seattle and were there two hours early. Similar with Mardi Gras--at MCO (about an hour away) by 8-9 am. Usually off at Galveston by 7-8 am and on the road. However, you have to carry off the luggage yourself and have some sort of priority. Otherwise, it may take a long time to get off and I wouldn't risk that early of a flight.

No. We have been on this cruise since it first came out. I was looking at other cruises under my Mom's number and saw it because she is bad at interneting.

FX it stays that way.

@TxTeach79 Download the British Airways app if you haven't already. In a different group people flying in to LHR today are saying their LHR to BCN flight was canceled. They are saying to download the BA app so you can keep up with flight status in real time and immediately rebook another flight. The poster was able to do that because they had the app but apparently a lot of other people didn't find out until the arrived at the airport and by then the later flights for the same day were full so they ended up being stuck in London until the next day.

@TxTeach79 I have you beat. I just purchased a pair of "orthopedic" skechers for this trip because I knew we would be walking a lot. They are also "slip ons." 😂