Good morning Barcelona!  We are up and out and wandering for our morning walk in the gorgeous warm sunshine.  Walking down La Rambla in search of coffee, which we find at a little café called, appropriately enough, Cappuccino’s.  Caffeined up, we head down to the World Trade Center to confirm that indeed the Onward is docked there, meaning Pursuit will be at the normal docks over the big bridge and not within walking distance.  Oh well.  Taxi it is then.  The hotel has already offered to arrange a cab for us, which we will do when we get back. 

Next we walk over to Barcelonetta, just enjoying the morning and fresh air, before winding our way back through the little streets and lanes of the Gothic Quarter on our way to the H10 hotel.  Breakfast, shower, final pack and we are ready to head to the pier by 11:30.  Taxi arrives right on time, and even though it is a royal pain to get to the port from this location – you can’t just take a left onto La Rambla and go directly, you have to go all the way up to Placa Catalunya, then traverse the side streets to get back to Parrel’el – it is still worth it rather than trying to walk to World Trade and take the Blue Bus.  At any rate, doesn’t take us that long to get there and we are checked in and waiting in the terminal by 12:15.

As we wait to board, one of the shoreside reps comes over and asks one of us to come with him because security found some scissors in our luggage. Huh?  First of all, how did he match us to the bag? There’s like 100+ people here?  Secondly, scissors?  Really?  Never had that happen before.  So, I dutifully follow the guy over to security where a lovely lady scans our little bag and asks me to open it up for the haircutting scissors I always bring with us on long trips.  She then proceeds to get into an argument with another, not so lovely, security guy who insists the scissors are too big.  She keeps showing him on the measuring scale they are not (she actually cheated and didn’t lay them on the measure correctly!) and showing him that the ends of the scissors are blunt.  Ok. Scissors finally pass.  Then not so lovely security guy wants to see the wine opener.  After inspecting the knife on the opener, he reluctantly allows that too. The finale is the Swiss Army knife.  By this time I’m just looking at the guy thinking what is your deal buddy?  Wrong side of the bed?  Bad morning at home?  Trying to throw your weight around?  This has never, ever happened boarding a ship. But lovely security lady is having none of his guff – thank you! So after a thorough inspection and some rapid back and forth in Catalon, the knife is also allowed and we are cleared to go.  Just bizarre! 

Back in the waiting pen, we are finally taken aboard for our muster briefing and then up to 9 to go the specialty reservation desk, then lunch on the aft deck which is very bizarre without the Sunset Bar!  More seating space, certainly, but still so odd!  Then on to the cabin, which is also a little different than Quest in terms of storage space, but still well designed.

As we wander through the ship, we find that we know tons of staff from the Quest.  Half the bar staff and servers have come from Quest it seems.  It is like old home week!  So fun.  The day progresses as normal, gym, drinks in an absolutely empty Living Room, dinner – yes we are definitely taking Table 4!!! – welcome aboard show which is not the variety show but another one for some reason, but singers and dancers are great – even if they aren’t Zoe and Galen.

Let the B2B2B cruise begin!