#MikeyOnMariner – Day 4 – Barcelona, Spain

 

 

Ahoy everyone or should I say hola after spending the day in Barcelona? It is currently 10:30pm here on board the beautiful Mariner of the Seas as we sail away from Barcelona, Spain and towards the beautiful resort island of Palma de Majorca. Currently as we are sailing the Costa Magica is sailing right next to us. It is awesome to see another ship sailing in the night with us as she is all lit up. Her beautiful orange funnel is all lit up and looks really cool against the dark Mediterranean Sea and the night sky.

 

Anyway, today was our port day in Barcelona and it was amazing! We arrived around 9:00am and disembarked at 10:00am after a quick breakfast in the Windjammer Cafe. We arrived in Barcelona after a quick shuttle bus ride from the port where we then jumped on board the local hop on, hop off tour bus. The tour bus was the quickest and easiest way to get around the city, stopping at every major tourist site such as the 1992 Olympic Stadium, the Gothic Quarter, many of Barcelona’s beautiful beaches, and the Sagrada Familia. We toured the city for about 6 hours seeing all of these sites and many more along the way including a stop at Barcelonata Beach.

 

One of my favorite stops today was the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is the cathedral located in the neighborhood New Barcelona. The cathedral’s construction began in 1882 under the direction of architect, Antoni Gaudi. The cathedral has a total of 18 towers. Twelve of these towers represent the twelve apostles; four towers are for the Evangelists; the next largest is for Mother Mary; and finally the tallest and largest one represents Jesus Christ.

 

 

Overall, I thought the city was very beautiful, clean, safe, and friendly. It is definitely now one of my favorite cities I have ever visited, I will definitely return on another cruise someday. So as soon as we had our fill of Barcelona for the day, we headed back to the port around 6:00pm where we were greeted by the Costa Magica, who had just arrived around 1:00pm. The Magica is a smaller relative of the Costa Concordia and it reminded me of that terrible January night on Giligo Island.

 

When we arrived back on board, we made our way to dinner as it was getting kind of late. Tonight I enjoyed the shrimp cocktail as an appetizer, grilled salmon for dinner, and ice cream with raisin cookies for dessert. The salmon was delicious and I am glad I ordered it since I had a not so tasteful experience with the fish on the first night. The service in the dining room was top notch tonight as well. Lucas and Leonardo from India both kept our water full and made sure our food wait wasn’t too long. I will say the service on board Mariner in all departments has been great, especially our room steward, Charles, whose towel animal creations we have enjoyed almost every night.

 

Well, that’s about it for tonight. I just returned from a round of mini golf against my brother.  I scored a 39 which is 9 more than last night. I was just off my game tonight for some reason. Anyway, have a great night everyone and I will tweet and blog to you tomorrow from Palma de Majorca!

 

-Mikey

 

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