It's finally time to get on the ship... we grabbed some breakfast at a little sidewalk cafe near our Hotel, disappointingly found out that La Boqueria was closed, then grabbed a cab and headed for Port Vell to board the Norwegian Gem!!
We got on the ship a little after noon, but our room wouldn't be ready until about 2, so we had fun exploring the ship, and mostly finding out where all the restaurants were. And of course, the first restaurant we found... we stopped and began our week long binge! We ate at the Blue Lagoon which is known as the comfort food cafe and is open 24 hours. After eating plates full of sardines, it was great to order a simple plate of chicken tenders and fries.
Until of course, we discovered the welcome barbecue on the deck beside the pool. They had some really great Penne Rosa and some wonderful grilled skirt steak. We didn't pig out though because we were excited about having lamb on the dinner menu... in hindsight, the grilled foods were WAY better than the lamb, and we would have gorged ourselves if we had known it was going to be one of our favorite meals of the entire cruise!
And we couldn't help but order a special drink (Virgin of course!) poolside for our big sailaway ... suckers!
It was rather relaxing just exploring the ship, stopping to eat, or chill in a lounge, and then finding our room, etc... etc... even enjoying a new view of Barcelona from the ship and looking out over the Mediterranean blue water, imagining the adventures that awaited us.
That is looking up at Montjuic, you may remember from one of my previous posts... beautiful!
We were so excited for our first dinner on the ship... the dining room was just beautiful and we loved the pampering service. As mentioned before, the lamb we were so excited about was a little lacking but they had a Vanilla Bean Souffle on the dessert menu, and that happens to be one of my favorite desserts. I had heard to order whatever you want on a cruise, and after eating my first souffle, I found myself wishing I had a little more. So I told Chris I was going to try out what we heard and order another one... he made fun of me of course, and when I timidly asked the waitress if I could have another one, she laughed and said of course, and said she would bring as many as I wanted and we all laughed thinking that was ridiculous but little did I know... because that second one was so fabulous, I ordered a third! Chris thought I was crazy but I didn't care because what a fabulous way to start our Cruise! Yummy!!
And what beautiful views we had all along the cruise, even just at sea. There really is something so special about that Mediterranean blue water, and the sunset over the Mediterranean was always even more amazing. We loved that our daily bulletin included the times for sunsets and we often found ourselves on the back of the ship at sunset. Amazing...
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1 comment:
crazy beautiful. You are going to be enjoying this trip in memory for a very long time.
you two are going to be in your 80s. the great-grandkids are going to come over. you'll pull them next to you and say, "did i ever tell you about our cruise? here let me show you our album again..." and they'll roll their eyes and pretend it's the first time because they love you.
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