Jewel July 2 Barcelona – Getting there

This is an exceptionally long review. To make it easier to digest, I have broken it up into 4 pieces that are included in the appropriate Message Boards:

Jewel July 2 Barcelona – Getting there. On the “Cruise Airfare” forum.

Jewel July 2 Barcelona – What a Great Time. On the “Norwegian Cruise Line” forum.

Jewel July 2 Barcelona – Ports of Call. On the “Ports of Call: Europe” forum.

Jewel July 2 Barcelona - Post Cruise Visit to Barcelona. On the “Ports of Call: Europe” forum.

Finally, I have placed this review, in its entirety, under “Member Reviews.”

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN – OR WELCOME TO BA.COM

I first found out that British Airways could get me from New York to Barcelona on Expedia.com. BA offered the lowest fare at the time on a single airline. I could have saved a few dollars by changing airlines, but I was worried about luggage getting lost. Also, Expedia would be harder to deal with if I wanted to change my “non-cancellable” flights or if I missed a connection. I figured with British Airways, I could go to a ticket counter at the airport and at least deal with any travel problems face to face with a person.

We were traveling from New York to London, then connecting in London to Barcelona.

When I booked our flights through the British Airways web site, I had several surprises. First of all, after paying for our tickets, I went to the “My Booking” section to select seats and found that they were not allowing seat selection. The terse explanation on the website was that they had already met their allocation of pre-selected seats.

Then came the second surprise as I read through the long email confirmation they sent me and saw a section about connecting flights. The computer had arranged a connecting flight 90 minutes after our London arrival. It also turns out we had to take a bus from their Terminal 4 to their Terminal 1. It also said we needed to go through security at terminal 1. But the thing that bothered me the most was when it said to allow a minimum of 75 minutes to transfer between flights at different terminals. That gave us 15 minutes of leeway. We had to get out of JFK in New York and go to Heathrow, two of the busiest airports in the world, and we only had 15 minutes of safety time to fall back on.

Since there were three of us together, I wanted to make sure we sat together. The computer wouldn’t let me. Also, I was concerned about the tight connecting time – what if our plane leaving New York was delayed half an hour? That’s not exactly unthinkable. No FAQ covering that.

So, I figured I’d give them a call.

Here’s what calling British Airways means: that monotonous British Airways theme music, a never ending on-hold recording telling you that they will charge you $20 to talk to you, and a reminder that all your answers would be on BA.COM.

After half an hour of their horrible symphony, I gave up and decided I would argue it out with them at the airport if necessary. I did some extensive research and came up with a list of five direct flights from Heathrow to Barcleona, plus another 12 connecting flights, that were after our scheduled flight yet would still get us to the port in time to make our cruise, so that no airport employee could tell me I was stuck and there was nothing that could be done.

The day before leaving, I logged on and found our seats were all together and quite satisfactory. I even had the opportunity to move the three of us a few rows up from the back, which was important because we had a connecting flight and the quicker we got out of that 747, the better. I don’t know why they couldn’t tell me where they were when I booked, but I guess that’s the way BA does things.

However, there was another surprise: British Airways was changing their baggage policies! While it didn’t affect us, it did make me read the policy carefully, which told me that my carry on luggage was an inch and a half too large to take on board. A few searches of cruisecritic.com helped me find out that BA is very strict, so at 8:30 at night we ran out to the nearest Sears to buy a suitcase that was an inch and a half shorter.

We showed up at the airport three hours early and went to the Fast Luggage Drop to put our bags on. The clerk saw our carry on and asked us to put it on her scale. It turned out it was 7 lbs. too heavy. It was the right physical size, but too heavy. She wanted us to take some stuff out of it to put into our regular luggage, but all it contained was a change of clothes for three people and a few books and magazines. What could I take out? Also, I wasn’t opening my luggage at the counter to put on a show for the other travelers to see my underwear so I told her we’ll just check it, which really seemed to surprise her. Maybe she just wanted to check out my undies?

I said to the clerk - that’s strange, we’ve only got a change of clothes in the bag,” and she said that “those types of bags aren’t really good for carry-on because they were so heavy.”

This was the standard “Crew bag” with the telescoping handle that almost ALL travelers carry.

BTW – I travel several times a year throughout the USA and always use our larger “crew bag” as a carry-on. I can’t recall ever seeing ANYONE having a carry-on challenged. I’ve seen guitars and skateboards going into overheads, as well as duffle bags that were twice the allowed length and required two men to lift them up.

I guess British Airways is strict.

Until I got to the waiting gate. There were bags twice the size of mine being carried on. There were backpacks with aluminum frames, and plenty of “pilot bags” And it just wasn’t in Business Class or First Class – the woman seated in front of me had a suitcase that was twice the length of a crew bag – AND she had a crew bag as well.

I don’t know what the baggage clerk’s problem was and why I was singled out. At that point, I just hoped they’d loose my luggage so I could get some money out of them.

Incidentally, they did a fine job with our luggage. Nothing was lost, nothing was damaged. There was just that *&%$^&* at JFK.

Once on-board the plane, the crew was attentive, friendly and better than any flight crew I’ve ever encountered in the coach section of an American carrier. The service was wonderful, especially considering that it was a full 747 that must have contained 400 people. Maybe it was just that they had more attendants working the plane. There seemed to be 6 flight people in the “World Traveler” section, which is BASpeak for “cheap seats.” Yeah - $1100 - that’s cheap.

We landed in Heathrow on schedule and rushed to the bus. We were at Terminal 1 within 15 minutes of exiting our plane at Terminal 4. I walked up to a British Airways representative and showed her the boarding pass for our Barcelona flight and asked where to go. She saw that I only had an hour and she took my family to the front of the security line and asked the security personnel to let us through because we were close to our boarding time. We were at the waiting area in Terminal 1 half an hour before they announced the gate.

The flight to Barcelona was on a 767, instead of the 757 that Expedia said the flight was. That means our seats D-E-F were in the center section, not a window section, which was disappointing because we had never flown over London or Barcelona and wanted to enjoy the view. That’s certainly no fault of British Airways, however.

WELCOME TO BARTHELONA

Our first task was to get through Passport control in the Barcelona Airport. Not hard to find. I had my Spanish phrase book open to the page on “how to talk to custom’s inspectors.” As it turned out, there was no customs people to talk to, just a uniformed officer with a big rubber stamp who stamped our passports. I’m not sure if he was even awake.

I studied Spanish for 4 years in High School. That was 30 years ago. But my wife speaks German and my son is studying German in school, so I was the closest thing to a Spanish speaker in the family. I could ask how much something costs, I could understand some of the answers I got, and I could navigate a menu in a restaurant.

Of course, in Barcelona, the books all say that the language is Catalan, not Spanish. My experience was that anyone I had to deal with spoke Spanish. It also seemed that most people had a smattering of English, except the cab drivers. My wife had prepared for that by writing out index cards with the addresses of places we intended to use taxi’s to reach. We had no major language barriers, although a few misunderstanding.

On the trip to the boat terminal, I asked him, based on in my wonderful Spanish education of thirty years ago, how much the trip would cost. He told me “Nada mas, veinte minutos” (Not much – twenty minutes)

So much for my Spanish capabilities. Well, how much could it cost anyway? (It was 15 Euros)

The taxi drove us right up to the terminal where an NCL porter took our bags from the trunk and put them on the ship. No hassles, and he seemed very happy with the 5 Euro tip I gave him. It was about 10:45 AM.

When I booked our flights through the British Airways web site, I had several surprises. First of all, after paying for our tickets, I went to the “My Booking” section to select seats and found that they were not allowing seat selection. The terse explanation on the website was that they had already met their allocation of pre-selected seats.

...

The day before leaving, I logged on and found our seats were all together and quite satisfactory. I even had the opportunity to move the three of us a few rows up from the back, which was important because we had a connecting flight and the quicker we got out of that 747, the better. I don’t know why they couldn’t tell me where they were when I booked, but I guess that’s the way BA does things.

The policy is intended to maximise the flexibility to help those who book later. They are not necessarily any less deserving of good seats than those who book earlier. And those who book later are often more deserving of good seats, because those who book late are often paying substantially higher fares than those who booked early. These late-booking customers are the highly-profitable passengers on whom the airline depends to make money. The airline needs to do something to ensure that they get their seat preference satisfied if it is possible to do so.

 

Keeping a good proportion of the cabin unallocated before the check-in process starts is the way that this is achieved. Typically, somewhere between 48 and 24 hours before the flight departs, each flight is "edited" to pre-allocate some of the remaining seats to commercially important passengers (higher tier frequent flyers, for example) and to try to make sure that groups don't get split up.

 

The remaining bookings that don't have seats allocated at this time will get them allocated automatically by the computer when you check-in online, which is available from 24 hours before departure (23 hours for flights from US stations). But if there is still sufficient room and flexibility, you may be able to change them for better seats manually, as part of the check-in process.