Just back Star Princess Med part 1

We just got in last night after a 24 hour marathon flight home. This is my first attempt to tell our real life fairy tale cruise trip report. For starters the trip was at least a 9 out on a scale of 10 for my husband and a full 10 for me that is we LOVED IT. We learned a few things from this cruise critic message boards that really helped make it so much more comfortable thank you. I felt I should share the details of our experience for those of you cruising this itinerary later this summer/fall.

Who are we... an American husband and wife in our early 50s late 40s, outdoorsy, and experienced travelers. This is our third trip to Europe as a couple and our first real cruise, we had traveled by ship for 4 days around Indonesia on our honeymoon but nothing like this.

We began in Portland, Oregon where we live and used a local travel agent who specialized in cruises. They were recommended by CondeNast Traveler magazine (on their gold list). I took a copy of the best price I could find online and asked what could they do. Well they met the price, lowered the amount of our deposit in half and gave us 100 dollars each in on board credit. They also surprised us with a half price coupon book (which we were even more surprised to see we used) and the gift of a free 8x10 photo portrait from the cruise. We took our American Express mileage rewards points and got free business class air tickets for this cruise. It was nice to be on Delta because they have eliminated the first class and instead give a business/first cabin overseas. It was first class to Atlanta complete with the hot towel and linens big deal. The flight to Madrid was very nice in a new plane and great service. We had to buy our own ticket Madrid to Barcelona. We used Spaniard (which we paid about 80 dollars US each). The trick to using mileage reward tickets is early planning AND BOOKING, flexibility in city choice (for example settling for Madrid) and persistence (I called daily checking for available flights with improved convience at one point). If you have frequent flyer miles and don't know how to use them to your best advantage take a lesson from the experts at the flyertalk message boards. They are like cruise critics board except for frequent flyer stuff. The last lesson here is that if one telephone airline representative is not helpful, interested or kind...call back again and get someone else who gives you what you need. More about this later...on board.

So in Barcelona we stayed at the much discussed Hotel Colon. It is ok but not much better than ok. They charge a lot for their rooms and they are a little tired looking. The bathroom in our room with cathedral view (scaffolds included) was not really up to our standards. It was kind of old and yucky in my opinion. IF I were to do this again...I would pick one the newer more modern hotels in the city and to heck with charm. The one last thing I will say is that only one thin door was between our room and the bathroom next door. You could hear everyone of the bodily functions our German-speaking neighbors emitted. I think they guy must have had a throat clearing problem.

We did enjoy the Gaudi architecture in Barcelona. Taking the hop on hop off tourist bus works well for these art treasures. Do see "La Piedra also known as Casa Miele". It is the apartment that Gaudi designed and the tour is well worth the effort. There are some decent bathrooms near the bookstore in the apartment if you should hear the call. Our first view of THE SHIP was from high atop Park Gruelle another (and my favorite) of Gaudi's masterpieces. We wore out fairly quickly in Barcelona due to time difference and length of travel to Spain. So the very first day of arrival (we arrived at around 1:30 pm) we took a 3-hour nap to help ourselves readjust. Since we nap at home this worked great for us. I have always been told to just stay awake. HA!

We did find a reasonable place to eat courtesy of Rick Steve's Spain travel guide, which we used. The restaurant La Fonda is listed and we recommend the fixed price dinner good and fit our budget around 20-30 euros for three courses. These prices made us realized the sheer brilliance of taking this cruise. We Americans have trouble enjoying beautiful Europe thanks to our very weak dollar to the euro. (BRIEF EDITORIAL LICENSE we have to fix this situation America!)

The other critical element for us in Barcelona was getting ourselves set for the cruise. We wanted the following shopping list for our room:
7-8 large 2liter drinking water plastic bottles $.37 euro each (3 dollars on ship)
a small Melita brand coffee pot and plastic cone with filter paper and coffee scoop (approximately $10 euros)
Starbucks coffee 250grams ($ 4.75 euros we buy the best)
12 pack of Pepsi light (should have skipped this)
One bottle of red wine Sangre de Toro (very well priced)
One bottle of Johnny Walker black label (well priced can't recall how much)

All of these comfort items were purchased at Corte Englais the big department store in Barcelona with the exception of starbucks there are 7 locations in Barcelona. We brought from home 3 large bags of "the worlds largest cashews" from Trader Joes at home.

This made for some lovely cocktail hours at the end of every day of the cruise on our balcony. We went for the minisuite. It was worth every penny. I felt even a little smug at times for being so cleaver to have such a lovely room with a view more fabulous every day for such a reasonable price. The price of hotels in Europe made our minisuite the ultimate deal. I remember one day thinking as we peered out at Monte Carlo from our balcony that the hotels we were viewing probably cost, as much for one night as did my entire cruise in the minisuite. If you can upgrade even at cost it is the smartest thing you can do believe me.

Finally we got to cruise day. I was so excited I could hardly wait plus I was really ready to leave Hotel Colon. So we asked the front desk to change some dollars into Euros. We had each brought 100 euros over initially. The hotel then called us a cab. When they saw the three huge suitcases plus carryon bags and and we had so much stuff we got a small van. The trip to the ship was a rip-off at 30 to 40 euros (due to the luggage she said). We had made the trip from the airport with same bags for 20 euros. Anyway we got there at about 11:45 and were greeted by those chipper helpers with their princess cruises clipboards. They had us through the line and checked in with our new shiny blue cruise cards in less than 30 minutes. It was so quick we barely broke a sweat, which in hot Barcelona was a first for me.

Next phase onto the ship in part 2.

How long do we have to wait for Part 2???? I am so enjoying your review. We'll be doing a similar cruise on the Millenium from Barcelona in September and also a cruise on the Star Princess in January. So keep the ship and port reviews coming!! What was the Las Ramblas area like?

I also appreciate your review. We will be on the Golden next summer for the British Isles and Western Europe so I'm looking forward to how Princess handled a European cruise. We were going to do the Med cruise but can only get away in July due to our schedules and it would just be too hot for us. We'll have to wait for that cruise until we can go one year in early May or October.

Look forward to further installments.

Hi - I'm waiting eagerly too!! We're on the Star from Barcelona to Venice on July 27, and I'm hoovering up information and reviews!!

Keep the info coming - when you've recovered, of course!

Vivienne

Gosh when are we getting part 2 ??
We docked beside Sar Princess at one of the ports of call in the Med .We cruised on Brilliance of the Seas out of Barcelona on the 26th May .
We also had a great cruise but I would be intrested in making comparsons on the ships .Friends of ours cruised on Star Princess ----- They thought it was wonderful .