We have decided to take a break from all of our moving and house improvements that have been going on constantly since our last trip to France, Germany and Switzerland in September and October, 2012. During most of that time, we have been very busy completing our successful move from Florida, to be closer to family in South Carolina, our new home state.
We have signed up for another Transatlantic Cruise on Princess Cruises, this one originating in Barcelona, Spain, and ending in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We will be making this cruise on the Ruby Princess ship. Information about the ship can be found by following this link, Ruby Princess Information.
The cruise duration is 15 nights, with five port days (including Barcelona), and ten relaxing Sea Days before we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale. Just what we need to recover from all of our recent moving and remodeling.
Unfortunately, being located in South Carolina now places us farther from our “normal “Florida cruise port, Ft. Lauderdale. This will result in this being our first “flying home” experience from a cruise ending in Florida. On our prior travels, our normal mode of transportation either to or from Ft. Lauderdale had been via car, but since the duration of the drive has now doubled, and is in excess of eight hours, we are opting to fly both ways for the first time ever.
We will be arriving in our departure city, Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday morning , November 27, so we will have over two days to explore the city prior to our 7:00 PM Embarkation time. We had previously visited Barcelona as a port of call on our Honeymoon Transatlantic Cruise in 2008, so we are somewhat familiar with some of the city sights. However, being able to spend two nights there will enable us to have more time to explore other parts of the city, and to be able to experience being there at nighttime. In addition, we have also previously visited all of the other ports on the itinerary except for Toulon, France. Hopefully this will allow us to plan our port of call day trips using the knowledge we already have for those previously visited ports, removing some of the stress.
We will be posting our Trip Itinerary, and of course, several posts on the planning effort as we proceed with the overall trip planning.