Teeara

A few photos from our flight:

So here we are at 5:48 pm Barcelona time. I think the last time I posted here on CC was about 3 pm NYC time (9 pm Barcelona time). We haven't slept since 2:30 a.m. NYC time and we're pretty pooped. First off, let me say that we did NOT lose our luggage as I mentioned earlier (yay!). Ours was among the first 2 dozen bags off the flight which was freaking awesome. Being able to see on AA's app that our luggage was loaded in their storage containers was a huge load off our minds. We flew Premium Economy and had a less than pleasant experience. There just wasn't anywhere to store the things we wanted during our flights. Plus, we forgot that since we had bulkhead seats we couldn't put things under the seats in front of us since there were no seats in front of us. We did like the recliner seats, though, that popped up from under the seats. Those were very nice indeed. But the chairs themselves were extremely hard and Pam had a difficult time getting her headset in so she could watch "Elvis". Our dining experiences were much better. Dinner was fantastic. We had the beef pasta with an herb cream sauce and it was lovely. Not salty or spicy. Perfectly flavorful and with the roll the gave us lots of yummy bread to sop up all that yummy extra sauce. We had some spreadable cheese and crackers and finished it off with a slice of tiramisu which my roommate said was not as good as Olive Garden's. Tough competition indeed ;o) We hit some turbulence during the crossing, but not too much or for too long. It was a fairly uneventful flight. They finally brought breakfast out a shockingly 1 hour prior to landing. We had a plate of fresh fruit: pineapple, canteloupe and honeydew slices with blueberry and raspberries and a sprig of mint; a container of vanilla yogurt and some grain free granola, some raspberry preserves and some unidentifiable cinnamon flavored bread item that tasted delicious (albeit a little dry) without any clue as to what it was. The landing was smooth and we were off the plane lickety-split at 6:45 a.m. We breezed through customs (most likely because it was so early in the morning. After gathering our luggage we exiting the luggage area to meet our driver from Welcome Pickups who quickly brought us to Hotel Jazz. Since our room wouldn't be ready until 11 a.m. at the earliest and since we had to be at La Sagrada Familia by noon, we decided to walk the 2.1 miles slooooooowly since Pam has her bum knee and we really needed to walk after being so cooped up yesterday and last night. We stopped at Starbucks for a Venti Nonfat Latte, two bagels and a shared slice of lemon loaf. Hey! We're on vacation and walking ;o) We stopped often and enjoyed the architecture, but, but eventually we had to reach La Sagrada Familia. Naturally we arrived on the wrong side to meet our tour so we had to walk all around the building to find our tour guide Victor with Get Your Guide. Victor was fantastic and the tour was the one of the best tours ever. He was extremely knowledgeable and friendly and knew all the answers to the questions we tossed at him. He was patient and funny the way you want a tour guide to be. The tour lasted 1.5 hours, but he said that when it was done we could go back into La Sagrada Familia and send as much time as we wanted to. If we weren't so freaking exhausted and Pam's knee didn't hurt so bad I'm sure we would've stayed. So instead we bought our books and postcards at the store (a must do when you're a scrapbooker like me) and then off to find a taxi to drop us off at Obama Gastropub. I wanted to stop by the place since it was close to Hotel Jazz and had tapas and was open in the mid afternoon when we would want to be eating. It was perfect for us. The food was cheap, the portions were way larger than we expected and were right tasty. If you're staying close to Plaza de Catalunya and are looking for a sitdown place to eat, this was a nice place to go. They had soccer playing on multiple screens and there were wooden floors with tables and chairs. It is not, however, handicap friendly, so be forewarned. So after our "linner" we are finally esconced in our huge room here at Hotel Jazz. We have a huge Family Deluxe Room with 2 single beds, a sofa, a table with 2 chairs, and a corner chair. Our room is a corner room with 4 windows that look out onto the city streets. It's going to be very pretty at night. But seeing as how the sun is starting to set and I really need to start winding this down I just want to say that Barcelona so far has been fun even though we're really tired. We've had our cranky moments (but who hasn't during their travel days?). Tomorrow is our Spain Day Tours all day trip to Montserrat and tour of Barcelona followed by our first Cruise Critic gathering up at the pool deck here at Hotel Jazz followed by the most stressful part of the trip---the dreaded Covid test. See you on the other side!

I miss you so much, Kalina! I wish you and Will were sailing with us. But you have your hands lovingly full with your beautiful Brooklyn now who I know you will teach to absolutely love and adore cruising.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the massive scale of this plane that just pulled in next to our gate.

We skipped lunch at the Admiral’s Club. It was horrible compared to Boston’s breakfast. But the showers here at JFK were fantastic.

Here’s our luggage. We’re NOT light packers 😉😁

I wasn’t sure if they would let us have breakfast there when we arrive since we aren’t technically checking in until after 3 pm. Sure would be nice if we could.

So for those of you who know me here on Cruise Critic, I'm Theresa, also known as Teeara, also known as the keeper of the spreadsheets on our rollcall here on the WOTS 2022 WB TA. Many of us were originally booked on the ill-fated Allure WB TA scheduled to set sail in October 2020 and had made our final payment and were excited about setting sail when Royal canceled the cruise thanks to Covid. Grrr..... So some of us agreed that the next time Allure opened up for booking a Fall TA again we would, too, since we had such a great roll call group going here on CC. We figured that wouldn't be until 2025 when Allure would be due for her next dry dock. Well imagine our surprise when Allure came up for another TA for this fall instead and was open for booking a year after they kicked us off of our canceled cruise. Many of us immediately booked this cruise. THEN we were in for yet another shock when it was announced that we weren't going to be on Allure after all. That they were transfering all of us to the brand new Wonder of the Seas instead AND that we would keep the same rates we paid for Allure and in some instances our same cabins. Some people, unfortunately, were not able to keep their same cabins since Wonder doesn't have the same categories of cabins (especially in the higher tiers) and they were bumped down to junior suites). So some of us were over the moon and some of us were less than overjoyed. Having said all of that, I just wanted to impart a bit of the backstory to some of the drama that so many of us have endured in order to reach today as we start our journeys to reach Barcelona and our ultimate destination, Wonder of the Seas. This will be my ninth cruise with Royal Caribbean and after the second day at sea I will finally become a Diamond member (Woo Hoo!). This will be my roommate Pam's fourth cruise and she will become an Emerald member during the cruise (Woo Hoo!). We are staying in an Owner's Suite for this cruise and are very excited about it having only stayed in interior, balcony and junior suites before. This will also be the first time we're staying on Deck 18, the highest deck ever for us. My preference is for a lower deck (around 7) and aft. On Wonder, all of the Owner's Suites are on Deck 18 so we don't have a choice as to deck location (and no, I'm not complaining and no, I won't give it up for you!). Today is Wednesday, October 26th and it is our travel day. So we flew from Boston to New York this morning. The flight was a bit bumpy thanks to the storm off the Eastern Seaboard, but my SeaBands worked perfectly and I had no discomfort. We have a 7.5 hour layover here at JFK until our flight leaves this evening to Barcelona. I purchased a day pass for the Admiral's Club from American Airlines and it has been very nice so far. We had a breakfast of eggs, hash browns, fresh fruit, yogurt, pound cake and cappuccino at Logan. We'll have lunch here at JFK later on this afternoon. Right now we're sitting next to the window watching them load planes. We hope to be able to snag some showers later this afternoon before our flights, too. It's first come first served. So that's about it for now. I plan on posting every day to let you know what's going on. I'll post the Cruise Compass every day and share some photos as well. I also plan on shooting a lot of video for my YouTube channel until after I return from the cruise. If there's anything you would like to see please post it here and I'll see what I can include. So since today is travel day you might not hear from me again until tomorrow night (Thursday, October 27th), so here's what's on the agenda tomorrow. We arrive in Barcelona around 6:45 a.m. We're staying at Hotel Jazz near Plaza de Catalunya and will be hunting down someplace to have some breakfast. We have a tour lined up at 12:30 at La Sagrada Familia, so we will be heading over there for that. Once done, we will be heading to the Obama Gastropub near the Plaza de Catalunya (they have a pretty good American style menu and my roommate does best on travel days to stick to American style food) for an early dinner. Then we'll head to the hotel and get settled for the night. That will be when I check in with you again and give you the day's update. For those of you who are on our sailing, I wish you safe travels and I can't wait to see you in Barcelona!

Have a great time! I'd love to do this itinerary some day. We love the Voyager class ships. And living in MA and sailing out of Boston is great. Puerto Rico is fantastic. One of our most favorite places to visit. One of my co-workers just visited her family and she said the power is pretty much all back on there. We also stayed at the Casablanca Hotel back in 2017. Fun place. Here are a few pix: We had a great time there. We were on the top floor I think. It was very spacious. A couple of restaurant suggestions: the Waffle House for breakfast! They don't have air conditioning, but the waffles were to die for. Yum Yum! The Chocolate Bar for brunch - anything is fantastic, but the churros con chocolat was divine. I will follow your live stream. We'll be boarding Wonder on 10/30 for the TA from Barcelona. I'm doing a live stream, too. We leave tomorrow morning! Very excited. Our first TA!

All caught up now. I love your reviews. I really like the split nature of them, too. I think I might try that, too. I love your photos and descriptions. Have the seas calmed down for you? How have the temps been? It looks like they have warmed up a bit based on what the Compasses are listing. Have they said anything about the new system that's brewing off the East Coast and how you might be affected by it? Continued safe travels to you! We fly to Spain tomorrow and our adventure begins. Oh, and if you run into that Spanish gentleman again... Strawberry: Fresa Mango: Mango Rum: Ron Peach: Durazno Mango Lava Flow: Flujo de lava de mango Peach Lava Flow: Flujo de lava de melocotón Please keep your hands off me: Por favor, mantén tus manos fuera de mí.

Thanks for this one! I got it for my Kindle. Backup reading for the TA next week in case I need it.

I think you can email anthemevents@rccl.com and someone on Anthem will be able to work directly with you. I was able to work directly with someone on Wonder at wonderevents@rccl.com in order to get Music Hall for our upcoming Wonder TA next week.

That is a great suggestion.

Thanks for that info! I've never heard of iScanner before. Going to try that for my Wonder TA livestream.

Hey Deb, you can always "gift" me with one of those "extra" drinks during the Wonder TA ;o)

I'll be giving you the dirty look as you reboard ;o))) Remember, I'm in the 10:00 Party-on group ;o)))

I'll have to remember to give you a really dirty look when you board ahead of us on Wonder ;o)))

Following! Would love to do a Panama Canal cruise in 2024. Those usually come out in March I think.

Me too!

We will be arriving prior to the Wonder TA at 6:45 a.m., too, in 9 weeks. Our plan is to check our luggage at the hotel (Hotel Jazz) and then scoot out to grab a nosh. Then a slow walk to La Sagrada Familia stopping off at any stores that pique our fancy. We have tickets for the 12:30 guided tour of LSF. Once finished we will make our way back towards the hotel. We will stop for an early dinner at the Obama Gastropub (close to Plaza de Catalunya, great prices AND they don't close for siesta times like many other restaurants do) before returning to the hotel for an early night. We have a Spain Day Tour the following day that will do Barcelona sights including Park Guell and Montserrat. Speaking of Park Guell, that would be a fantastic thing to do for you. It opens early, too.

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like the tour I did on Star Princess back in 2008.

I'd like an answer to this question, too!

At home I'm in bed by 8:30pm and up at 3:10am M-Th. Fridays and weekends I try to stay up until 11, but often fall asleep in my recliner around 9:30ish. On a cruise, if we have a port day the next day we try to get to sleep no later than 10pm since we'll be up at 6am to watch the ship sail into port. On a sea day we're still usually asleep by midnight. I'm a morning person after 30+ years of long commutes to San Francisco, Los Angeles and now Boston. We'll see how we do on Wonder in 3 months. I'd like to stay up later and enjoy some music and shows. Those 8 sea days during the TA will allow sleeping in. Looking forward to it.

I always write "Please, no upsells" on the form when I check in and I never have any problems.