First Day of Cruise – Embarkation in Barcelona
Woke up this morning to find the Gillespies — Betsy’s sister and family — had arrived in the night and made it to the front apartment. So it was breakfast for 11, and trying to do laundry, which didn’t go as well as expected.
Both apartments had those compact combination units that are both a washer and a dryer, but they didn’t dry. So we ended up with a lot of wet, clean, but not dry laundry.
While Mom and dad struggled with the laundry, the Gillespies took their only chance to see Barcelona by doing a short walking tour of the town. We took a taxi to the ship for early boarding, and mom and dad stayed behind to salvage the laundry and help the Gillespies get to the ship when they got back from their walking tour. The trip to the boat was short and pleasant, with a driver who spoke more English than the one who drove us from the airport. We learned from him that all those bicycles that we saw in Barcelona are relatively new, having been introduced as part of the changes people went through for the Olympics.
The boarding process was fast and simple, but had a whole pack of people. But we flew through the process, got to our room, dropped of our stuff, and then located one of the main dining rooms — called Windows — to have lunch. We only ordered the entrée, no starters or desserts. They seemed to expect us to eat more.
After that we did our own personalized tour of the ship, followed by the 3 p.m. official tour.
It ended in the Galaxy Star Lounge, where we saw mom and dad sitting in chairs on the side, so we knew they had made it on board.
We didn’t discover Kent and Carolyn until we saw them at 4:30 at the mandatory emergency drill. After all the emergencies on cruise ships over the past two years (all Carnival Cruises — we are cruising Norwegian Cruise lines), I was more than happy to have the emergency drill BEFORE we left dock.
From there we went to the Freestyle Information session, where they had raffle tickets — and Carly won dinner for 2 at a specialty restaurant. We will have to discuss with her which restaurant she wants, what night to go, and how/who she wants to use it with.
When we came back down to the rooms, everyone else was there, and the decision was made for our entire group to dress and go up to dinner together — all 11 of us. We went to Windows again. They asked if they could seat our party of 11 at two tables. We said that was fine. The five kids sat themselves at one table, and asked Mom, their grandmother to sit with them. So the six of them sat at one table, while Betsy, Carolyn, Kent and I sat with dad at the other.
At the “adult table,” we looked over where the kids seemed to be trying to outshine each other with “Amah”, as they call their grandmother, with their with, charm, and good manners. Dad pointed this out, and made the comment “look over there — that is the whole reason for this trip.”
Meanwhile, we adults found our table waiting a long time for our meals to come. Seems despite having been almost the first arrivals in the dining room, there was such a rush of orders for the lobster tails that the kitchen had fallen behind. Since I had ordered the surf and turf, it was thus my fault everyone else had to wait. Carolyn wanted to be on deck at 7 p.m. when the ship pulled out. But we were there at 7:15 finishing up and the ship hadn’t yet pulled out. It did so not long after.
After dinner the family broke up into different groups. The kids were all together, then it was boys and girls, then Carly was on her own, and we met her back at the room, when Betsy and I were getting ready to swim.
We got to the pool, and the water was cold, so we spent our time in the (not very) hot tub.
Betsy went back to the room, I swam a few laps in the pool again, did a little more hot tub, and then Carly and I returned to the room. From there we toured the gift shop, and then had a snack at the Raffles court. Betsy then returned to the room, while Carly and I went to the Blue Lagoon, to have chicken wings and fries. At that point, we found the Gillespies and Nathan passing through, on their way from the show at the Stardust Theatre to head to the Welcome Aboard Party in the Galaxy of the Stars Lounge. Nathan stayed in the Blue Lagoon and ordered a Frankfurter and fries, then we all retired to the room, where we will be going to bed soon.
After all, tomorrow, we land in France.
At The Rainbow 