Social Media
Recent Posts
Barcelona Cruise Blog

Venezia Transatlantic: Barcelona Day 1

on
June 23, 2023
 
I was originally supposed to arrive in Barcelona at 9am. Flight changes and delays pushed that back to 11am. A bus driver strike stranded me on the plane for an additional 40 minutes. Then it took them nearly four hours to get our luggage from the plane. I have my suitcase now. It will probably be 4pm by the time I make it to my hotel. Most of my first day in Barcelona has been wasted in this airport.
 
On the bright side I do know the Barcelona airport luggage pickup area like the back of my hand now.
 
 
One item I failed to mention about this trip is I did not buy any euros. I had mixed feelings about getting any euros because I have heard from people who have done this before. Supposedly people who got too many euros were struggling to try to get rid of them. I also heard most places will accept credit cards.
 
I did try to get a small amount of euros at the Montreal and Barcelona airports. A fair exchange for 200 euros would be $214. They wanted $287 in Montreal and $292 in Barcelona. I told them to keep their euros, I don’t want them. 

My plan is to try to do this trip with a credit card and dollars. I’m going to be using a credit card with no foreign transaction fees as my primary source of payment. I have heard if the credit card machine asks you to pay in dollars or euros, you come out better paying in euros.
 
My preference for transportation is to use Uber since I know I can pay with my credit card in the app. I spent 30 minutes in the Uber area ordering cars. The app will jerk you around for 5-10 minutes each time then say there isn’t a driver available. You can also order taxis on the Uber app. They do the same thing. I’m going to just go to the taxi line and hope they take cards. 
 
 
I go over to the taxi area and there are hundreds in line.
 
 
Then this happened.
 
 
That line was long but it only took 12 minutes. They do take cards. Finally I am on my way. 
 
 
I made it to the hotel and got checked in. 
 
 
I paid extra for this view.
 
 
What I have is a 24-hour hop on hop off bus ticket. My plan is to catch the bus here at Sagrada Familia which is only a couple blocks from my hotel. I’ll do one route today and the other route in the morning. 
 
 
 
 
IMG_2638.jpeg
 
 

This is where the two hop on hop off buses stop. The first one is Barcelona City tour. I booked with the other company.
 
 
This is my bus. The Barcelona Turisic. Both options seemed comparable. I have a history booking the City Tours bus. But I went with this one because it’s the original and official bus tour of Barcelona.
 
 
 
The headphones even have the tour name on them. The ones in Los Angeles were generic and red.
 
If you haven’t used these before you just plug in your headphones, select your language, and adjust your volume. They also have USB ports if you want to charge your phone.
 
 
We can’t go down to the soccer stadium because they have a game. I have to go past this point to pick up the red line so hopefully I can get down there tomorrow.
 

Catalonia square. This is where I should be able to pick up the red line bus tomorrow. If you are hotel shopping in Barcelona, this is a good area to look at. I wouldn’t trade my view of the Sagrada Familia. But this is a central location with a lot of restaurants and shopping that is cheap and easy to get to by public transportation.

Watch for low hanging branches. This isn’t my first rodeo.

This is Casa Terradas. It has a total of six pointed towers. In 1905 Terradas wanted a house designed for each of this three sisters and this castle looking house was the result.

Tomorrow I’m going to get on the other side of that bus because there were some places I couldn’t get a good shot of from the left side.

If you come here and want to go inside Sagrada Familia, book it in advance. The earliest I can get in now is in two days which is too late for me. That will be at the top of my list if I ever return to Barcelona.

I stopped at a restaurant called Chill for dinner. This is very close to my hotel and it was well-reviewed.

Oh they have more pages on that menu but it’s a lot of Mexican food. I’m only interested in Spanish food and beer.

Pardon peppers

Patatas Bravas

Iberico ham

I ran into my first issue not having euros here. I had to have the waitress add a tip to my bill before having her run the card because they don’t have a tip option on credit cards here. I thought I read that 15-20% was customary here but the waitress told me it’s not expected.

I made it back to the hotel and headed to the rooftop bar to enjoy the view and some drinks.

I tried the Estrella Damm at the restaurant. This is Voll-Damm.

I’m going to try all of their beers. This is A.K. Damm.

The last bottled beer they have is Estrella Galicia.

They do have one beer on tap. This is Mahou from Madrid.

I ran into my second no euro issue at the hotel rooftop bar. I did a room charge for my drinks but they only take cash tips. I tipped the bartender in dollars. I noticed other dollars in the tip jar so I wasn’t the only one.

I’m going to call it a night. I got very little sleep on the plane and I have a big day tomorrow.

 

TAGS
RELATED POSTS
2 Comments
  1. Deany Cheramie

    June 23, 2023

    St. G.

    Love your blog. I read every one. I’m a platinum Carnival VFIP like you. Your posts give me the courage to try more than the cruises out on New Orleans and Galveston (my usual ports). My wife and I are going on the transAtlantic on the Carnival Pride in October 2023. Thanks for giving us the courage!

  2. Scott Weinfeld

    June 23, 2023

    I love your blogs, doing the Venezia out of my home port in February, 9 days Bahamas and 12 day back to back journey to the southern Caribbean. Will become Platinum in February. Going on the Magic in a month from Norfolk (was supposed to be New York, but Carnival deployed it last November). Also sailed mardi gras, Celebration, Victory (now Radiance) and the former Ecstasy, Holiday and Jubilee.

    The best part going away from New York, no need to fly, live a 1/2 hour from the port and the best time to cruise is in the Winter.

Comments are closed.