My excursions on our Carnival Pride Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Amsterdam cruise of 5/28/23

[EllieinNJ]

After arriving in Barcelona, we took the Aerobus from the airport to our hotel, HCC Montblanc, 1 block from Plaza Catalunya.  Lovely modern hotel and very reasonable price.  We had been in Barcelona in 2018 and did all the major sights so this time we booked a day tour with In-Out Barcelona tours to Girona and the Costa Brava.  It was lovely.  Our van held 8 and picked us up and dropped us back off at our hotel.  Website:  https://www.inoutbarcelonatours.com/

 

Our first stop was Gibraltar.  We did a private tour with John Lopez Rock Tours with six others.  He took us to all the sights on the rock.  He was a wonderful guide.  Here is his site:  https://www.gibraltar-rock-tours.com/

 

Next stop Lisbon.  We did the Lisbon, Sintra and Estoril tour with Spain Day Tours.  It was nice but very long.  It included the Petty Palace and really too much palace and not enough touring.  Website:  Spain Day Tours.com

 

Onto Porto.  I really struggled with this port but eventually booked with Tours4cruisers.  Really reasonable and not very long but saw all the sights.

 

We also booked with Tours4cruisers in Vigo and La Caruna.  Couldn't beat the prices.  Website:Tours4Cruisers.com

 

In Bilbao we took the excursion offered by Sandra's Cruise tours.  It was a long day and nearly missed the ship.  Website: 

https://www.sandrascruisetours.com/ship/carnival-pride-47.html  We drove along the coast and went into the Guggenheim.

 

We wound up not getting off the ship at La Rochelle.

 

We were suppose to go to Le Havre next but because of a port workers strike it was cancelled.  We wound up going to Amsterdam instead.  I wasn't able to have enough time to research any excursions so we wound up doing the City Sightseeing hop on hop off bus.  If you don't have tickets you cannot get on near the port but have to walk or take a tram to Central Station to buy tickets.  We found out that between 2pm and 6pm tickets were 15 Euros each so we walked around the city till then.  Someone else on our cruise said you can buy unlimited tram tickets for 9 Euros each.  Probably a better deal.

 

Our final excursion in Brugge was again with Sandra's Cruise Tours, website above.  The city is very beautiful but again a very long day and too much time on our own.

 

Debarkation was in Dover but we were doing a back to back with Norway so stayed on the ship to do laundry and rest up from this port intensive cruise.

 

I hope this will help some about what to do in these ports.