Month: June 2022

It was hard to leave the cruise ship and all the English being spoken, however time to break out on our own! After having a discussion with the taxi drivers in broken English as to what taxi best suited us (the walker confused them), we ended up at the Renaissance Barcelona Fira (which was a change in hotels for those tracking us on the spreadsheet) which I had changed us to when we were given some points for the Westin Hotel in Rome fiasco. What an interesting hotel and a place that my mother would NOT enjoy staying at! We were upgraded to a “junior corner suite” which really just meant that it was a hotel room with the bathroom in the corner – we did not have a corner view! The window was an horizontal “eye” in the sky – you will see in the picture below. Not much light in the room when it was dark! The hotel actually was two buildings close together with a walkway between them in the middle and at the side where the elevators were, a platform on the 14th floor for a restaurant and then the 26th and 27th floor for the fitness centre and roof top pool and bar. The LOVELY glass elevators going up and down between the buildings were very special too – there was no getting away from them! Drove me crazy as I had to keep my eyes closed and sometimes got off on the wrong floor when someone else got into the elevator! I cannot handle glass elevators! That said, it was a very nice hotel! The hotel was also really accommodating, I had let them know that we probably would be arriving around 10 or 11am and they had our room ready! So we were able to have an early siesta and then in the afternoon went for a walk to get some staples that we normally have when travelling – something to take my medication with and some snacks such as turkey and cheese plus some GF crackers. We walked over to the Carrefour store and we found that it was in a huge mall! Google did not tell us that! Also the grocery part was downstairs which we did not know. Luckily a security guard heard us talking as we were leaving confused not finding groceries and pointed us in the correct direction – down the flat escalator (like a moving side walk going down) and BOOM! Gluten free bakery items! I was in heaven! Okay, lets focus on what we really need. Cheese, turkey cold cuts, beer and chocolate milk. Got the first two thanks to Google Translate telling me the name for turkey, sent Andrew off to the beer section and I checked out the HUGE gluten free section. Oh my – check out those pictures! Now to find chocolate milk – little tetra packs will have to do! It was about 30 degrees during our walk back to the hotel and we took it easy the rest of the afternoon and evening and had some of our snack goodies that we had purchased for dinner.

We arrived in Barcelona about noon on May 31st and docked at a slip way father away than when we visited for the day on the Nieuw Statendam. We think it is perhaps due to this being the end of the cruise and the ship needing a lot of work done – such as re-fueling, groceries, and other supplies. So after sleeping in after a wonderful dinner the night before, we explored the Lido deck, which on this cruise we actually had not eaten at yet as my first attempt to was not very successful (they suggested I order from In Room dining instead as the Allergy kitchen serves In Room dining and it would be slow getting food to the Lido) while while I appreciated the safety concern, it would take more time to get food! We were able to dine successfully, I had turkey (which I talked to the chef about and it was made without stuffing inside) and rice and Andrew pizza. No GF pizza on this ship for moi. Then we walked around the ship for a while so I could take some pictures of the flowers and different areas as they do keep them really beautiful! There were a lot of people by this time off the ship on Excursions so we really had a free reign to check out what we wanted 🙂 Also at this time my big toe had been bothering me – I had a pedicure on the Nieuw Statendam 2 weeks ago and it has gotten sorer however with the 14 day gel polish I could not tell if there was something wrong under the nail. So I went to the Spa and had the lady who gave me my manicure of this cruise look at it. She removed the polish and said that I have an ingrown toenail from the treatment and I needed to see the ships doctor. So then I called the ships doctor and they were busy so they said they would call back later. Later they called – just before we went for dinner and they gave me an appointment at 8am. As I am aware that diabetics need to be careful with their feet and I am newly diabetic I did not want to mess around. We had a wonderful last dinner on the ship, said good bye to Piti (from Indonesia) who was our waiter for the whole cruise (except our 2 dinners in the other restaurants). Piti was an EXCELLENT waiter – of all the cruises that we have been on which I think is 9, he has paid the most attention to what is gluten free or not and was the most educated on different menu options. Then we needed to pack. I slept instead much to Andrew’s dismay! Packing can be done in the morning – which is what I did! I was up early and packed my suitcase before breakfast at 7am. Then at 8am I went to the Medical Centre to chat with the doctor. It was very interesting – he was from London and currently has a job offer from a clinic in Victoria (BC) to be a general surgeon. He decided to spend 2 months at sea to decide. So he REALLY wanted my opinion on the BC Health care system when all I wanted was my toenail to be looked at and fixed if possible! Andrew was in our stateroom waiting for me and I had still not packed my knapsack and other electronic stuff. An hour later, he would do nothing to my toe due to the diabetes (doctor is diabetic too and would not do it to himself either) and put me on antibiotics as I have an infection in my toe. Lovely! So I got into the elevator just as they said that all passengers should be off the ship! Oh I hope Andrew just put all my stuff in my knapsack! Sure enough the room stewards were waiting for me along with Andrew and everything was packed – he is so good to me! Said goodbye to our room stewards who have also been wonderful and got off the ship the last time! I am not sure if we were supposed to go through customs or not, however no one was around so we just hopped into a taxi and headed to our hotel! So that is the end of our Cruise segment and we are now in Spain to begin our 5 week long tour of the country!