Dicecatt

April 23rd, arrival and Barcelona It has been a wonderful day so far. sorry for no caps, i am at the hotel and this keyboard is not normal. our plane was 45 minutes late in taking off last night, because of rain, so we were about half hour late this morning, and arrived 9 am barcelona time. easy to get the baggage and get a taxi. our driver was very nice and helpful, and comunicated well with dicedawg who has a limited knowledge of spanish. i understood maybe 3 words. the taxi was 28 euro. we had a slight problem when we were close to the hotel...la ramblas was closed! It is (oops I just figured out caps) Sant Jordi day (St. George´s day) and there were lots of festivities. Girls give books to boys, ... read more

Well...with all the Volcano upset this week, we have been worried that we wouldn't make it to Europe. We were more hopeful than most since Spain didn't seem as affected, and Barcelona airport was in full function most of the time with the exception of a few hours on Sunday. But, I am happy to report, I just did online check in for our flight, and all looks great! We could have upgraded for $500 each, but that is money that I couild spend in Europe so we skipped that. Dicedawg has a CPAP machine that really needs to be plugged in and apparently there are only a few rows with plugs, not sure what will happen with that, because the reservationists couldn't tell us what classification the rows were (probably first class). I hope we ... read more

I had 40 people at my house today...whew! One great thing that always comes out of that is the house gets really clean! So now, I just have to keep it that way for my dear mother in law who arrives in 16 days to watch our rugrats for us while we go on our jaunt to the Mediterranean. So now, I get to devote all of my spare time (between two cheer banquets, an out of town cheer competition, my youngest child's birthday, and a few more major things) to our Med trip! 18 days away! I picked up our Euro on Friday. I decided not to wait and get it out of ATMs once there. It makes me feel better just to have it, and I can make cute little envelopes for my tour ... read more

I have so many things still to decide/arrange/complete. 1. Cruise docs. Dicedawg's passport arrived (took only 2 weeks) so I need to finish that up. 2. Figure out international calling and email access with cell phone carrier. 3. Figure out whether to get Euros ahead of time or just hope our ATM cards work in Barcelona:) 4. Arrange transportation from airport to Hotel Curious in Barcelona 5. Finish and print the Google map I created of the sites we wish to visit in Spain 6. Figure out Corsica. I'm still not convinced we want to do Las Calanches, it looks amazing but it is expensive, and 4 hours of driving is a lot! 7. Have Dicedawg arrange for a tux 8. Fax medical form for Dicedawg's Cpap machine, and fax our prepurchase of Onboard credit (because ... read more

Very, very, very happy! Obsessive doesn't even describe how many times a day I would log into our cruise reservation, and then obsessively check the Disney boards to see if anyone else on our cruise thread got their assignments. Last week, those on a back to back (first the 14 day Transatlantic cruise and then the 11 day Mediterranean) began getting their Med cabin assignments. Quick break down on what I am talking about when I mention "cabin assignments", when you book a cruise, you can choose your category and cabin, or choose a GTY, or a "guarantee". Sometimes the GTY is the only option. That means, you are giving the cruise company the ability to put you wherever they need you, sometimes at a reduced cost to you. It is a gamble. I rarely hit ... read more