DCL - 2016 Mediterranean. Day 1: Barcelona

Did I mention the 2am alarm!?? The car was already packed, we had a list of everything we needed to do in the morning (mainly to keep Rowan from getting distracted!) and at about 2:45 we were in the car and headed for Manchester Airport for our Ryanair flight to Barcelona.

Did you know that if you are booking a Ryainair flight and it says "3 seats available at this rate" for a particular price, to check fewer passengers? From what we can work out they work with different tariffs and different amount of seats per tariff. We obviously needed 3 seats, when we looked to book us all together it was saying 3 seats available... When I, out of curiosity, looked to see what would happen at 4 people it was a different price for every person, not 3 at the rate we had seen for 3 people, and 1 at another. So, did this work the other way? Yes, there was "2 seats available at this rate" which was a lower price. The saving was only small, but a saving is a saving, right?! 

We used the Jetparks car park at Manchester Airport (for future reference - always make a better note of where you are parked for coming home...!!)

We had, as was flying Ryanair, checked in online and after a small concern over how strict they were going to be with the sizes of our hand luggage (a few centimetres over what was allowed) we needn't have worried. We could of even of checked in our hand luggage bags for free if we had wanted to!

Once we landed in Barcelona we used the Aerobus to get from the airport to the city, it was fairly easy to find (as you have collected your bags, leave the airport and turn right following the path and the bus stop is clearly marked) and we managed to time it perfectly and was straight on a bus! 

We had a few hours in Barcelona before our Port Arrival Time (which we had specifically chosen a later one to get the most out of Barcelona) so rather than have to cart our luggage round with us all day we left it here. Brilliant service, polite and the place was lovely and clean too, and not far away from the Placa de Catalunya bus stop either. Things to note / remember:

• no bathroom at the locker store
• keep your passport / drivers licence out of the case in the locker as you will need this to pay
• there is a changing room so if you want to travel in one set of clothes and then get changed for Barcelona then this is completely do-able!

We then had lunch before walking around to see some of the Gaudi buildings, we saw numbers 2, 7, 8 and when we visited Barcelona again at then end of the holiday number 9 of Globotreks Top 10 Must See Gaudi Buildings. On our first day we also walked to see the Catedral de Barcelona (which we could not go into as we had all changed into shorts and knees and shoulders needed to be covered). The outside was beautiful though, so maybe next time I visit I will remember to wear a full length skirt!!

I found this too, completely on accident, honest... 

 It's a Disney Store!!

It was time for an ice cream and the walk back to the luggage storage before getting the taxi to the port, which was only about €15.

We arrived to the port before our PAT but seemed to be one of the last to be checked in, and the longest wait was behind about 5 families collecting their Oceaneers band!

Then there we were, on board the BEAUTIFUL Disney Magic!