2017 President's Cruise Review

[irishgal432]

We are back from our adventure in Europe. I do not see any reviews on the cruise as of yet and thought I would share my experiences for anyone who is thinking about taking the 2018 Cruise.

 

We are a couple in their Mid-50's and have never been to Europe. With work and three kids, it was nearly impossible to travel that far so we did mainly Caribbean cruises. Fast forward to being empty nesters We booked this cruise when we went on the 1st Annual President's Cruise. Having never been to Europe this gave us the best excuse to visit the country.

 

Barcelona:

 

We booked our flights with Choice Air non stop from Atl to Bcn arriv8ing at 8:15 AM on Friday morning. It was about 200.00 cheaper to book thru Choice Air.

 

There were 2 other members of CC on the flight and we opted to go with a company called Barcelona Day Tour. All of the reviews were pretty good. In Europe most tour guides are licensed to be a driver and/or tour guide. Ours was a driver only and we did not have him give us tours outside of the vehicle. Overall I would give this company a B. Our driver who we were assured was watching our flight and would meet us 1 hour after landing did not show up until 10:45. we had to find a person to call to see what was going on. not a good way to start after an all night flight. Our tour guide was informative and could drive a car expertly. thank goodness we were not driving. He took us past several points of interest and we stopped at Park Guell. It was rainy and misty so we did not stay for long. Even with the rain and mist it was very busy. I cannot imagine what it looks like when it is a nice day. The tour included hotel dropoff. We stayed at the Cittadene on Las Ramblas. Our driver could not find it and stopped about 2 blocks and ran down the street looking for it. He came back at said it was back there and promptly took our luggage out and said thank you for choosing Barcelona Day Tours. So off we tread down the cobblestone (remember I said it was raining) down the street to try to find this hotel. Thank god we did not miss the little itty bitty sign pointing us down an alley to the hotel entrance. By this time I was drenched, exhausted, our luggage was wet..

 

One thing to note on most of these tours they want Euro payment that day and do not take prepayment.