Barcelona Port Question

[MTJtraveller]

I was wondering, given reading that the Barcelona port is large, if I needed to know for the taxi driver, more than "Take me to the cruise terminal, please". (Any Spanish help is also appreciated re: what to tell the taxi driver also!:p )

 

I have not cruised very much before so I kind am unsure of those little nuances...:(

 

I leave in 6 days! Yippee!

[Mike Andrews]

There are 7 terminals in the Port Vell area which is not far from the Ramblas

[sugee]

Here's a tip I learned from another cruiser that I thought simple, yet so helpful.

Write down your hotel's name and address on a 3x5 card or piece of paper. Also, write down the name of your cruise ship and port on a card. Show these to the taxi driver; he will most likely know exactly where to go. It sure beats trying to converse in a language with which you are unfamiliar! :)

[vivian02]

MTJtraveller,

Don't say "El Porto" the taxi driver will be confused and head for the Air Port. I found out the hard way. If you have your travel doc's show them that information. They need to know the Cruise Terminal and Ship's name. If you do this it shouldn't be a problem. Have a nice trip. Tim

[Lane40]

Sugee has a great idea. Our first time in BCN we grabbed a taxi outside the airport to bring us to the Golden Princess. Why we never thought about the fact that there would be an excellant chance the cab driver knew no English and of course we knew no Spanish. We sat at the airport for almost 10 minutes trying to explain that we wanted to go to the cruise ship. Finally, after making hand motions of waves and other things, the driver gave us a ink pen and his notepad and we wrote Golden Princess Cruise Ship. Guess what, this didn't work either, so my wife drew a ship and that he knew. We still laugh about it. At the time we would have probably laughed even more except that Delta left 2 of our suitcases on the tarmac in Atlanta. How did we know they left the 2 suitcases. Because we could look out the window and see both pieces just sitting there and people would pass by and never load them into the plane, but that is a story for another time.

 

So, write down everything on a card and if you can find someone at home to write it in Spanish so much the better.

[julieanne]

I was wondering, given reading that the Barcelona port is large, if I needed to know for the taxi driver, more than "Take me to the cruise terminal, please". (Any Spanish help is also appreciated re: what to tell the taxi driver also!:p )

 

I have not cruised very much before so I kind am unsure of those little nuances...:(

 

I leave in 6 days! Yippee!

While Castillian spanish is a little bit different, they do understand our spanish here. Just tell the driver "Queremos ir al barco Golden Princess (or your ship's name) por favor". (This means we want to go to the ship Golden Princess, please) Al barco means "to the ship", so if you cannot pronounce the espanol, just say al (ahl barko) barco por (pour fa-vor). That is as phonetic as I can be! Hotel is "hotel"! LOL! Buy a phrasebook and learn the basic numbers as well! Cuantos? (kwantos) is how much after you ask the question, so make sure you understand the answer! Have a great trip!:)

[MrsJobba2]

When I booked our upcoming cruise on the disney magic last year I decided I wanted to learn some spanish for when we stayed in Barcelona before hand. I took a basic 12 week course. However I didn't realise until recently that in Barcelona they speak catalan. :rolleyes:

[CruisinGerman]

Greetings from our home city of Barcelona. While people here of Catalán descent and upbringing will speak Catalán among themselves, they will have no problem speaking "Castellano" to you, as they are completely bilingual in both languages.

 

Have a wonderful trip and enjoy your stay in our city.

 

Kind regards,

 

Gunther and Uta

[MTJtraveller]

Thanks for your wonderful responses! I will call Princess today to find out if I need to give more specifics, hopefully they can answer my question. This board has been SO helpful...I think I need to book another cruise shortly after I get back as I will have cruisecritic withdrawl!:eek:

 

What a funny story about ending at the airport rather than the port...I guess it goes to show you that you have to be flexible and look at each experience (good or bad) as a great story once you make it home. :D

 

I have to laugh about learning a bit of language - which seems to be quite a challenge to me at my age - because we are visiting 6 countries this trip. Over a few glasses of wine, the other two couples we are travelling with and my huband and myself, doled out different languages to learn basic phrases. I got Italian, another couple got Greek and another Turkish...I think I got the best of the deal!

 

I am so excited to leave on MOnday I can stand it!

 

JEAN