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Published: January 10th 2019
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This will be our third transatlantic cruise and second westbound. It has been difficult trying to pre guess what the weather will be like whilst crossing the Atlantic.
Another early start, as we wanted to get to the ship early to get a Posh Pass. Not holding out much hope, but being early will give us the best chance. This is a paid for pass to an exclusive luxury bathing area on the top deck.
There is a kettle in the room but no tea or coffee, so no hot drinks to start the day. The first tough decision of the day.
Last night, we ordered a taxi for our journey to the port. When we got out of the hotel, he was parked on the side of the road waiting for us. 15 minutes early. How’s that for service.
Check-in had not started when we arrived at Barcelona port where it was bitterly cold. After about 10 minutes, the area to drop off the bags opened and then we moved onto actual check-in areas. The €5 tip to the porter to be rid of our bags so early in the day was excellent. We are boarding
Norwegian Epic with 100 US Dollars we changed up in Tenerife. The bags get screened and are delivered to your cabin normally very fast.
We approached the first assistant we saw and she said they were not quite ready yet. Seeing that there was a small group of people mingling just inside the door, we went over to join them, the assistant then said we could not stay there either as no one should be inside the building. She then asked us all to go outside. One gentleman took offence at this and turned to George and said ¨typical of you English. Not a good start to his day. We had nothing to do with the decision. Our first potential mission was to avoid this awkward character and his wife whilst on board. We think he was Bulgarian as he had an eastern bloc accent but he said he was from Florida.
We did not get our first hot drink and caffeine fix of the day until about 10.30am from the Spanish cafe inside the port building.
Check in went well and we got boarding in group 1 as we had arrived early. Whilst waiting for the
actual boarding, we met up with another English couple. They were also trying to get Posh Passes. Unfortunately, even though the four of us made a quick run to Guest Services on deck 5, there were none left. Time for a rethink. This will be our first Epic cruise without a Posh Pass.
We had a quick lunch in the garden buffet on deck 15 and met some familiar members of staff that we have met on previous cruises. This is our preferred eating haunt.
Our muster drill today was in the Manhattan restaurant on deck 6. It is amazing how the staff manage to get 4500 people to be quiet so they can brief them all at the same time. Failure to attend the muster drill can get you thrown off the ship.
After the drill, there were many people trying to get into the lifts near the entrance to the restaurant, so we decided it would be best to try the stairs. We ended up climbing 9 floors to the buffet on deck 15.
At sail away, we went to H2O at the aft / rear of the ship as many of the Facebook
members were going to be there. We did not feel comfortable there, so went back to our cabin and sat on the balcony. We were soon joined by some others on neighbouring cabins. In the stateroom net door, we have friendly English speaking neighbours for our 13 night cruise.
We noticed that there are a lot more LGBT members on this cruise than any other we had been on. They are always way friendlier, so it is great to meet up with them.
Dinner was in the buffet again as it was Spanish night.
We completed the evening with a little bit of gambling in the casino
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