We arrived into Barcelona on time at 9am via Ryanair after a very early start in Budapest and caught a taxi directly to the port for €28 – and back into the land of western prices.  Although our cruise ship wasn’t scheduled to sail until 6pm, we could leave our bags and complete the check-in procedure then have a few hours in downtown Barcelona ahead of our official boarding time of 4pm.

That done we caught another taxi to the southern end of Las Ramblas the pedestrian street, and walked up to the nearest Macdonalds to make use of the free internet. We were awaiting last minute details for our bookings in Iceland.

After nearly two hours (with the kids kept amused by the new Happy Meal toys ) we walked back to the end of Las Ramblas and caught a taxi back to the ship – the girls were so keen to get on board!  Straight to our cabin – WOW! Grand Suite with butler and maid, free room service , corner spa bath, wine and fruit and even a dressing room (see previous post). Then a walk around ship to familiarise ourselves – main eating on decks 3 and 4, main pool area on deck 9, Kid’s Squok Club deck 10 and our cabin on deck 8. The ship is huge though (can take up to 3780 passengers and 1100 crew) and I was still getting lost on the last day!

Ships lines were cast off on time at 6pm and we were bound for our first stop at Palma de Mallorca.  After our first of many 7 course dinners, we went to the dancing show followed by a reasonably early night as we had been up since 3.30am.

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

We docked in Palma de Mallorca early the next morning  and as we were only here for  the morning we took the Costa bus for €7 (return pp) from the port past the huge marina filled with beautiful yachts  and cruisers. Stopped near the Cathedral and walked up and around the old medieval city. Really pretty narrow streets winding around plaza areas.  We just spent the couple of hours just walking around and made it back to the bus pickup point by 12.15pm and back on board for lunch and the 1.30pm departure.

The girls went to the kids club for the remainder of the afternoon. I picked them up at 6.15pm and we all enjoyed the first Gala dinner.  Phoebe and Immi were keen to go back to the kids club as they were having a disco that night that started at 9.30pm. Dave and I went to a music show and went back to pick them up at 10.15pm. Late to bed – girls easily 11.15pm and I turned out the light at 1am.

Cagliari, Sardinia

We all enjoyed a bit of a sleep in this morning and room service for breakfast as we weren’t arriving into Port until 12 noon.  The port supplies free buses to take you out of the port precinct and to the front promenade area full of imposing building facades.  Another great walking city and we enjoyed wandering around for the next couple of hours up and around the walled citadel area.  Again lovely narrow streets and vistas, but also noticed lot more graffiti than Palma de Mallorca.  We made it up  to the Cathedral (and a visit to the crypt) for a good panorama over the city and on the way down came across some of the Costa crew learning a Sardinian dance. Back past the elephant gate brought us back to through the impressive buildings along the front promenade.

Palermo, Sicily

We arrived into port at 8.30am and ordered breakfast to the room again to save time and to be ready to go by 9.30am

This port is practically in the city with a short walk from the ship leading directly into the busy downtown streets.  Horse and carriages and taxis all awaiting.  The girls had been hinting to take a horse and carriage ride when we first saw them in Mallorca but the first approach was from a taxi who ‘proposed’ a tour for €100 for all of us so we kept walking!  After some serious negotiating we got a horse and carriage much to the girl’s delight for €50 and took about an hour’s tour clip clopping through the streets past the Teatro Politeama, Teatro Massimo and Cattedrale and Mercato’s.

The city streets were much busier and general overall view was that this was a real working city; a lot dirtier and grubbier and many rundown buildings and ones covered in scaffolding.  Most impressive was the Quattro Canti  or Four corners building where all four corners at the intersection with statues and carving running right up the full height of the buildings.

We were back on board ship by 11am and after updating diaries the girls got into togs for their first swim in the heated pools (3 of) and lunch in the poolside café. The girls were back at the  Squok club by 3.30pm and Dave and I went to Grand Rhapsody deck 5 for quiz time and cocktail hour. Phoebe and Immi stayed at Squok club for dinner while we enjoyed the 2^nd Gala dinner.

Civitavecchia, Italy

The next port of call was Civitavecchia about an hour from Rome.  Well ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ so you sure can’t see it all in one day and as we had both been there before (three times previously for me) we decided that 2 hours commuting for what would have been a maximum of 3 hours there wasn’t worth the trouble and money and enjoyed the day on board the ship going from activity to activity and eating!

Savona, Italy

As we were eating breakfast in one of the dining rooms ahead of going ashore we noticed that the weather had turned a bit and not only was it quite grey but it was also snowing! So we pulled our ski jackets back out and were faced with a bitterly cold wind as we walked off the ship and onto the wharf.

Again the port is very central to the town so we set off on foot to take in the sights – the main city street was nice but the narrow streets around lacked the quaintness of previous ports.  We did a walk up to the Priamar Fortress C1542 overlooking the Port and at one time in history Italy’s main military prison before returning to the ship.

That evening we enjoyed our ‘special’dining night in the silver service, invitation only restaurant for suite guests – Bellissimo!

The weather was really taking a turn for the worst and winds and swells were picking up changing our last port from Marseille to Toulon, France. We again decided to sit this one out and stay on board and enjoy the myriad of activities and the kid’s club. The last night bound for Barcelona was again rough with strong winds and quite big waves/swells. We could watch the GPS and real-time weather information on the TV in our cabin and the highest wind speed we saw was 110 km/hr – trying to open the door to our balcony was nigh impossible! The ship handled it well though and there was only a very gentle rocking that only helped to put us to sleep.

The next morning dawned fine and with heavy hearts we said farewell to our suite and made our way down to the auditorium to await our turn to disembark back in Barcelona our circuit now complete.