Today, we embark on the Viking Neptune Ship, but first we had a few other things to do this morning before checking out of the hotel.
Since we were not able to attend Mass last night for the Immaculate Conception, we were planning to go this morning at 9:00 AM. When I woke up at 6:00 AM, it was still dark outside, but I could tell it was also cloudy, and we are expecting rain later today. I was able to work on the blog post for yesterday and get caught up.
Other than going to Mass this morning, and then finishing the last of our our packing, we did not really have anything scheduled and it was nice to relax a bit from being on the go for the past three days here in Barcelona.
Stephanie got up about 7:30 AM, and we got showers and dressed. We were then able to finish packing our suitcases for the travel over to the ship since we did not need anything out of them the rest of the morning. We had decided we would take a taxi to the ship and not use the public transportation. It was not hard to get to the port on public transportation, but we realized we would be most likely sitting on the port shuttle bus waiting until it was full enough with passengers to depart. We also have the extra bag with our Christmas tree in it and taking a taxi would just be easier.
The Parròquia de Sant Pere Nolasc Mercedaris Church
We headed to Mass about 8:45 AM at The Parròquia de Sant Pere Nolasc Mercedaris Church, and were glad to see that they were actually having a Mass this morning. After what happened last night, we were not 100% sure that they would. Everything we had read and seen indicated that the churches usually followed the normal Saturday Vigil and Sunday morning Mass schedule on the holidays, but this church had not, at least for the Vigil Mass last night.
Mass was nice, it was not crowded, so we could spread out inside the small church. We were able to follow the readings in English on Stephanie’s phone since everything in the church was spoken in either Spanish or Catalan, we were not exactly sure which language it was.
The Parròquia de Sant Pere Nolasc Mercedaris Church
After Mass, we headed back to the hotel, and noticed that there was a sign on the curb of the street right at the small entrance drive to the hotel designating it was a taxi stop. We headed back up to the room and finished the last of our packing and at about 10:30 AM we headed down to the lobby to check out. As soon as we got out to the street, a taxi approached and it had a green light on top designating it was available to hire, so we hailed it as it approached.
Our taxi driver was younger and could speak great English, We told him we needed to go to Terminal B at the port. There was not much traffic and we were at the port in about 15 minutes. It was the best Euro 11.00 we ever spent. It was quick and easy, and only a bit more than the fee we would have had to pay to ride on the port shuttle bus once we got to it via public transportation, the shuttle fare was Euro 3.00 per person.
We had researched the taxi cost online and had seen that it could cost extra to phone in a request, which we had thought we might have to do through the hotel staff, and also cost an additional Euro 4.50 fee just to to go to the port, and then possibly cost extra for bags. Based on that information, we were worried it would be a lot more expensive to take the taxi with all of those extra fees. For some reason, it was just the cost of the ride that we had to pay. The taxi driver did not have change for our Euro 50.00 bill, so we charged it on our credit card, which was also simple.
We gave the driver a small tip in coins, even though they don’t expect it. We gathered up our bags and headed to the terminal. There were porters there who wanted to help us with our luggage. Unfortunately, we had given most of our change to the taxi driver and only had a few small denomination Euro coins left to give the porter for a tip. We felt bad, but that was all we had, and had told him that.
Lifejacket Demonstration
We headed inside the terminal and got checked in for our cruise. We were the only people here checking in, so it went really quickly. We boarded the ship and were directed forward to attend a demonstration on putting on life jackets. They were vastly different from any life jackets we had seen on our previous cruises and looked a little confusing to put on. Apparently, there was not going to be a ship wide muster drill, we only had to attend this demonstration, verified by them scanning of our cruise cards, and then watch a video on the cabin TV once we got to our room, and acknowledge that through the TV once it was over to satisfy the muster drill requirements.
We found a bar on level 1 and decided to go ahead and purchase the Silver Spirits package, which is the all inclusive beverage package that covers drinks up to $15.00. We wanted to make sure it worked, so we also ordered a glass on Pinot Grigio to make certain!
Rainy Outside On The Viking Neptune
Since we were not able to get into our cabin until 2:00 PM, we decided to head up to get a bite to eat for lunch at the buffet called the World Cafe. It was good, we just had to figure out the layout. There is a central station on each side that has the same food selections, but there are different stations on each side of the central station on each of the two sides of the buffet.
After lunch, we sat outside for a while waiting for our cabin to become available. The sun had actually come out earlier when we had driven over to the port, but now it was cloudy and soon it started to drizzle. We were in a covered area, so we were protected from the rain.
Waiting On Our Cabin In The Explorer’s Lounge
Then we headed to the Explorer’s Lounge on Deck 7 to check it out. There is a nice viewing area looking out the front of the ship, and was quite nice to sit there and enjoy the view. Of course, we had a beverage there while we were waiting for our cabin to be ready.
At 1:30 PM, they made an announcement that all of the cabins were now ready, so we headed to deck 4 to find our cabin, 4042. The rooms are really nice, but we had a little bit of difficulty getting used to the drawers and closet sizes.
Our Cabin – 4042
There was not quite as much storage space as we were used to on the Princes Cruise ships, but we made due. We needed a lot more hangers, so Stephanie called housekeeping and in about 10 minutes our cabin steward Irene showed up with our extra hangers.
One item to note is that the Itinerary for the cruise has changed slightly. Due to a storm in the Atlantic causing rough seas, we will not be going to Funchal, Madeira. We are now scheduled to go to Las Palmas on Gran Canarias in the Canary Islands. We are scheduled to be in Las Palmas from 1:00 PM until 8:00 PM. We were scheduled for 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM for the stop in Funchal. It is farther to go to the Canary Islands than Madeira, so that was reason for the shortening of the time in port at Las Palmas
Our Cabin – 4042
Irene also gave us an orientation on the cabin and how everything worked, most of which we had already figured out. One thing of difference is that all of the cabins have a doorbell, which is really more like a door buzzer, and we just were not used to that. When Irene had arrived with the hangers, she had rung the doorbell, but it was not that loud and we almost did not recognize what it was.
One issue we found out about was that the complimentary sodas in our cabin refrigerator did not include any Diet Coke, only Coke Zero. Stephanie asked Irene about the Diet Coke, and she was going to have to ask her supervisor if any was on the ship, or if they expected any to be in the supplies being loaded here in Barcelona. It was listed on the drink menu we had seen earlier at the bar, so we knew it should be available. Irene came back a few minutes later and rung the doorbell, which at first we did not recognize again when it was ringing, or really buzzing. Irene told us there was not going to be any Diet Coke on the ship for this trip, which was not good news. We were going to have to go back out into Barcelona and find some ashore, Stephanie just can’t tolerate something that is in Coke Zero, that is added to the aspartame sweetener.
We though about it for a while and decided we would first try and see of there was any Diet Coke in the duty free store in the terminal. We headed off the ship and into the terminal, and were pleasantly surprised that they had cans of Diet Coke for sale. It was not cheap, Euro 1.50 per can, but still better than going out into town in the rain to find a grocery store, and having to pay for a taxi to get there an back. Plus, most of the grocery stores usually only have 2 liter bottles, which tend to go flat after they are opened and are shaken up by the movement of the ship. We were not even sure we had even seen cans at a grocery stores here, so it was not a certainty we would find any cans of Diet Coke in town.
We purchased 15 cans of diet coke for the cruise, basically one per morning, and headed back to the ship with that mission accomplished.
With everything unpacked, and the diet coke mission complete, we headed out to explore the ship more now that we were not having to carry our backpacks and the extra shopping bag with the Christmas tree.
We had a glass of wine at a couple of different bars just to check out what they had to offer. We had noticed they had Seagram’s VO on the menu, but apparently, they were in short supply, some bars had none in stock when we asked the bartenders about it, but they were hoping that more would be brought on with the supplies being loaded onto the ship today.
Around 5:30 PM, we headed up to the World Cafe buffet for dinner. They had a really nice spread of seafood including split crab legs, boiled shrimp, scallops, stone crab claws and a few other items. There is also a good sushi bar every night here, and we had some of that, which was the best sushi we have ever had on a ship. We also had some wine with our dinner.
After dinner, as we were walking past the bar in the World Cafe, we saw that they had a bottle of Seagram’s VO in the display, so we stopped there for a couple of drinks. The bartender there, Milos, did not know if they would get more with the supplies being loaded onto the ship, and this was his last bottle at the bar.
Explorer’s Lounge
We had a few drinks and met some nice people while we were sitting at the bar. Then we headed back forward to the Explorers Lounge, there was a guitarist playing there tonight and we wanted to check that out. The guitarist, Zeus, was good.
We were tired and headed back to the cabin at about 9:30 PM. We have an excursion tomorrow that starts at 7:45 AM, so we did not want to stay out late. We put in a room service order for 6:45 AM tomorrow so we can have breakfast while we are getting ready for the shore excursion, it will be easier than going out for breakfast,
We set an alarm for 6:30 AM tomorrow morning and went to bed about 10:00 PM.