Table Mountain was spectacular today!
We’ll arrive Tuesday morning at 8:30 am and spend four nights in the city before boarding the Sun Princess. Our home base will be the Marriott’s Barcelona Edition Hotel in the Gothic Quarter.
Over the years, we’ve spent quite a bit of time in Barcelona and the surrounding areas, so this visit is all about relaxing, enjoying great meals, and savoring good vinos. We’ve also booked a walking food tour with Devour Tours—we recently did one with them in Madrid and had a fantastic time. As a Cuban-born Spanish speaker, we always enjoy being in Spanish-speaking countries.
On Saturday, we’ll board the ship for a 36-day voyage through the Mediterranean, ending in Ft. Lauderdale. We’re especially excited to experience the Sun Princess, the first of the new Sphere Class ships, while staying in a Sanctuary Collection mini-suite. The Sanctuary Collection represents only a small percentage of the ship’s staterooms, making it a more exclusive experience. For our non-cruising friends, here’s how Princess describes the Sanctuary Collection on the Sun Princess:
“Enjoy our highest-level all-inclusive package, Princess Premier® – as part of your booking. That includes specialty and casual dining, unlimited premium spirits and fine wine, reserved theater seating, multi-device MedallionNet® Max Wi-Fi, crew appreciation and more. The Sanctuary Pool Deck; this top-deck space is reserved exclusively for adults in Sanctuary Collection staterooms. Relax poolside with a cocktail, order bites and beverages from a custom menu, and enjoy exclusive live entertainment. Here, it's zen time any time. You’ll also have access to the Sanctuary Restaurant, reserved just for Sanctuary Collection guests, where you can walk in whenever it’s convenient and enjoy a custom chef's menu with dedicated waitstaff.”
We’ve read both the glowing and the critical reviews of this new ship concept, and we’re curious to see for ourselves whether it fits our style of cruising. Not only is the Sanctuary Collection new, but so is the ship’s overall layout. If it turns out not to be our cup of tea, we’ll happily stick with the more familiar Princess ships for now.
As for the ports, we’ve been to nearly all of them before—except for Bar, Montenegro. We’ve only booked two excursions this time: one is a full-day winery tour from our port of Marseille with our good friend Frank, the owner of All in Marseille Provence Tours. We’ve toured with him many times, and he’s simply the best! The second is a private excursion to the Alhambra Palace in Granada, booked through Spain Day Tours, a company we’ve used in the past and highly recommend. Visiting the Alhambra has been on our list for years, and we’re thrilled to finally make it happen during our Málaga stop. For all the other ports, we’ll be exploring on our own.
Tonight, we had to say goodbye to our dear friend and gracious host
of the past three weeks. It’s always hard to part ways when you don’t know when you’ll see each other again. Hopefully, Douw will visit us at our home in Southern California next year. Tentative plans have been made, but the tears still flowed. 😢
