Carnival Pride Europe Cruise Review: Days 1 + 2 – Chicago to Barcelonafeatured

I remember it was maybe our second trip to Europe. I think we were flying out to Barcelona to sail on one of the Carnival Vista’s inaugural sailings. The day before we left, I was sitting at a bus stop downtown and I just kept thinking to myself, “I get to go to Europe tomorrow.”

Six years and countless transatlantic flights later, I still find myself falling into disbelief that these big, grand trips we take every May are actually happening. In a leadership course I was taking right before this trip, I went through an exercise where my coach and I determined that when I get anxious, I tend to catastrophize — I look for the worst-case scenarios and I plant my mind around them so that I can root for solutions. Whenever we fly to Europe, I plant my mind around things that can go wrong with our flights. It’s almost always centered around our flights (and Covid, to a lesser extent, the past few years), but same effect: I can never really believe these trips are happening until I actually get there.

We started planning this trip nearly a year before it happened: we had cruise credits from 2020 that were expiring with flight credits also burning holes in our virtual wallets. I didn’t really put a ton of thought or effort into planning because I think on some level, I never expected it to happen (even having been on two cruises after the restart). But then I found myself, the night before we flew to Barcelona, 10, maybe 11:00 at night, still thinking to myself, “I get to go to Europe tomorrow.” Well, that was, if I could get the extra five pounds of weight out of my suitcase. Packing never has been my strong suit.

I sent off some work emails, I took things out of my suitcases, I took a shower to blow out my hair for the flight and then put more things back into the suitcase. I was torn between trying to keep myself up late so I’d be tired for our flight and trying to get as much rest as I could before our early morning wake up.

The weather in Chicago wasn’t forecasted to be great — lots of rain, potential for thunderstorms. I wasn’t even just checking our flights — I was also checking the weather for our inbound planes, where it was also forecasted for major rain and thunderstorms. No way our flights wouldn’t be impacted, I decided. So instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, I looked at alternative flight routes in the event our flights got delayed enough (or cancelled because, you know, if you haven’t caught the hint already, I’m a catastrophizer).

Flying to Barcelona used to be an easy direct flight from Chicago but American Airlines post-Covid flight schedules from O’Hare aren’t as favorable as they used to be for non-stop international flights. Instead, we had to connect in New York, The taxi picked us up right on time at 7:30 AM and we hit the road in the pouring rain with fingers crossed that our flights were early enough to give us a shot at on time connections.

There was surprisingly light traffic on our way to O’Hare and, despite the heavy mid-week bustle ahead of the long Memorial Day weekend, our priority status on American and our TSA Pre-Check had us checked in (with suitcases that just made it at the weight limit) and through security in a matter of minutes.

O’Hare was a madhouse, but we had a respite from it all in the form of the Flagship Lounge, which had finally reopened just a few weeks earlier. Stephanie and I both have oneworld frequent flier status through American, which gives us entrance to the swanky Flagship Lounge whenever we fly internationally. The Flagship Lounge is a premium experience, meant largely for the premium tickets that grant entrance to this lounge (first and business class international and transcontinental travelers). The experience is elevated from the moment you enter to a champagne cart with flutes of bubbly and fresh mimosas. There are quiet rooms and expansive runway views, every kind of beverage you can imagine from a fully stocked bar to a Coke Freestyle machine, two large fridges filled with all kinds of bottled drinks, a Ghiradelli hot chocolate bar and my favorite, a build your own Bloody Mary bar. There are bottles upon bottles of champagne and wine, hot and cold bites and even a made-to-order station where, during breakfast hours, they’ll make you a fresh omelette to start your day with. It’s a perfect space to get some peace away from the bustle of the airport and the strict requirements for entry mean it’s almost never busy at O’Hare.

We had plenty of time to kill before our flight, so we had a hearty breakfast, we downloaded the new season of Somebody Feed Phil and we wandered around to get some steps in since we’d be sitting so much between our two flights.

I figured our flight was going to be delayed pretty early. I mean, I generally always assume our flights will be delayed because my track record of on-time arrivals is not stellar (thanks, American), but in this case, I’d been tracking our inbound flights and they changed three times between the time we left Mom’s house and the time we arrived up at the lounge, and the latest one was scheduled to arrive 20 minutes after we were supposed to board. You can’t board with no plane, but you can stay up in the lounge and have another glass of champagne, so that’s exactly what I did until we had to make our way down just in case we needed to present for passport checks.

Favorable winds brought our plane in from Dallas about 15 minutes early, but according to the gate agent, it takes them 55 minutes to turn a plane around and they had a larger than normal volume of passengers needing wheelchair assistance. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop — a maintenance issue, maybe, or a delayed flight crew — but in the end, we were delayed about 20 minutes and we made most of that time up in air. Our flight to New York’s JFK airport was quick and comfortable and before we knew it, we were descending across that distinctive skyline over into Queens.

We had about two hours between the time our flight landed and the next one started boarding, but a half hour of that disappeared when a rogue plane in Terminal 8 was parked in the jetway incorrectly. We still had just enough time, though, to hurry across into the main terminal to visit the NYC Flagship Lounge. It was bigger than the O’Hare version. There weren’t made-to-order stations, but there was a Flagship Restaurant (only accessible for travelers flying in Flagship First, though). There also wasn’t a Bloody Mary bar, but there was still a champagne cart at the entrance and a delectable assortment of Jewish deli cookies and desserts and a soup bar so we made do with our quick visit.

Our flight to Barcelona boarded right on time and departed five minutes early and into the late afternoon sun, we jetted east towards our next destination in Spain.

Dinner was served just as soon as we leveled off, a choice between pasta or chicken with rice. The chicken was cold, the rest of the meal unremarkable, so we were glad to have gotten our fill in with our two lounge visits. American offers plenty of entertainment and we had our choice of dozens of movies and television shows which was a blessing because none of us could sleep. We were flying on a 777, which feels a bit tighter on the squeeze than a Dreamliner, and time differences have never been any of our friends — by the time we landed in Spain at 6:45 AM, it still wouldn’t even be bedtime at home! Besides, who needs sleep when you can watch four hours of Spice Girls documentaries from the BBC?

On the plus, just after breakfast (yogurt, granola and a fig bar), we were treated to a gorgeous sunrise over the mountains as we made our final approach into Barcelona. It had been four years since Stephanie and Mom had last visited (three years for me) and I was just so excited to be back. Barcelona will always hold a special place in my heart because it was the first place we visited on our very first trip to Europe, but even the nostalgia aside, the rich culture, the art, the architecture, the FOOD — Barcelona has a lot to love and I was so excited to have the next two and a half days to rediscover my favorites.

We landed just after 6:30 AM and made our way through customs and immigration, where we were required to fill out a health declaration before arrival. While we had rigorous checks when Stephanie and I went to Madrid a couple of months earlier, they were just waving folks through by the time we got there.

Our initial plan was to just take it slow, maybe do our pre-departure Covid tests for the cruise, but otherwise keep close to the airport for a few hours. We knew it was unlikely our room at the hotel would be ready so early and we didn’t want to wander around Barcelona like zombies with our carry on bags and yesterday’s clothes. We had just settled into a quiet corner of baggage claim with our suitcases when Stephanie couldn’t find her wallet in her purse. 9.5 times out of 10 when this happens, it’s just sitting in a corner of her purse she hadn’t touched, so when I looked through it, my heart sank as I realized she was right — her wallet was gone. She remembered her purse getting jostled around a bit in some turbulence during the flight and went off to find someone who could check the plane for her. Mom, me and our six pieces of luggage headed off to the lost and found. Stephanie quickly called us from departures — a crew member had found her wallet, which was a BIG sigh of relief. How terrible would it have been to lose your wallet on the first day of your 18-day vacation? Even Murphy and his law couldn’t be that cruel. On the minus, though, the crew member had to go turn over a plane that came in from Miami and it was going to be at least an hour and a half, maybe two hours, until she could return Stephanie’s wallet. Stephanie sat upstairs and waited. Mom and I sat downstairs at arrivals in a coffee shop that served, perhaps, the largest cappuccino I’ve ever had. And it was two hours before she had that wallet back. So in retrospect, mission accomplished — we did kill some time — but the little energy we had left after a night of no sleep was zapped.

It was just past 10:00 AM so we decided to try our luck and see if our room was ready at the hotel. Uber isn’t much of a thing in Barcelona and the transit options aren’t great from the airport to the area of the city we were staying at, so we just grabbed at taxi. Taxi’s are metered in Barcelona, and if you are at arrivals, you’ll want to go downstairs to get to the dedicated taxi line. If someone asks you if you need a taxi outside of that line, politely decline — they are likely to scam you — and walk to the taxi line. You can’t miss it.

We were quickly assigned a taxi large enough to accommodate all of our luggage and began the 30-minute drive to our hotel in the Eixample neighborhood. The taxi ride cost around €34, and while tipping is not compulsory for taxi services in Spain, we gave our driver a bit extra for his help with all of our luggage.

I had booked us at the Room Mate Carla hotel. It fit the bill for us (three beds, in the Eixample neighborhood, minimum of 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor) AND, bonus, booking it through American Airlines hotel tool yielded me 14,000 Loyalty Points to help my status requalification so I can keep waxing poetic about the Flagship Lounge for at least another year.

The staff at the hotel were quick to welcome us and super friendly, but our room wasn’t ready and check in technically wasn’t until 2:00 PM. We had hours to kill and zero energy so we had them stow all of our wheeled luggage and headed off to find a quick bite to eat.

I love walking through Barcelona. I love the architecture and the greenery and the splashes of color across every street block. Mom and Stephanie were a little less keen to stop and smell the Gaudí, so we stopped off at the Passeig de Gracia McDonalds for a quick lunch.

I know what everyone is going to say: why would you bother going to McDonald’s in a city with such a rich food scene? Well, one, we’d been awake for nearly 24 hours at this point (which felt like only an hour or two because flying has this uncanny way of making time move at wacky speeds, but even thought it felt like no time had passed, we could feel every single hour of sleep we didn’t get) and two, European McDonalds are incredible. Forget about your Big Macs, your Quarter Pounders — I had a goat cheese burger with roasted onions, a side of potato wedges and a McFlurry that was drenched in something more delicious than Nutella.

Our walk slash McD’s excursion took us about an hour and a half and we were hopeful we’d get back to find our room ready, but no dice. They were surprisingly busy for a Thursday and our room wouldn’t be ready until closer to that 2:00 PM mark. We just kind of gave up and sat it out in the lobby. Mom kept falling asleep. Stephanie was half incoherent. I kept trying to convince myself that I could rally for a multi-mile walk around the city or a visit to the Boqueria. We didn’t even get our room until 2:15 PM. On the plus, the room was plenty comfortable and we had a sweet balcony terrace. On the minus, we all had the energy levels of a sloth and were slowly resigning ourselves to not getting in much of Barcelona on our first day.

Now within the three day window before our cruise, we wanted to knock our Covid tests out before we did anything else. We had purchased the proctored tests through eMed and did our tests from our hotel room. We’d been doing this for all of our international trips since the requirement was put in place and it was incredibly convenient, but I’m glad the testing requirement is gone and I hope to never see a pre-cruise Covid test ever again. After I got my test done, I passed out. I don’t even remember falling asleep, just Stephanie waking me up. She and Mom both passed their tests, so I updated VeriFLY and promptly fell back asleep.

Mom was done for the day. She was just absolutely exhausted. Stephanie and I rallied for a trip to Lidl to pick up some snacks and drinks for the room. We made note of all of the fun cafes near our hotel and tried to agree on what we had the energy to do for the rest of the night.

We landed on dinner at a spot Stephanie had found not far from the hotel but like most restaurants in Spain, they close midday between lunch and dinner (generally around 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM) and we had about an hour until they reopened. We were only two blocks away from the Passeig de Gracia, so we walked over to see Casa Batlló (one of Gaudí’s masterpieces!) and to buy transit cards at the nearby Metro stop. I’m a big public transit fan and, especially in Europe, find it an affordable and dependable way of moving around a city. In Barcelona, you can buy tourist cards with unlimited Metro and bus rides (our two day unlimited was around €17 a person) and it’s just nice to not have to worry about paying per ride.

After meandering around, we finally made our way back towards the cafe, La Real Hamburgueseria, where they specialized in some very elaborate burger creations. Mine was covered in melted raclette cheese and it was SO good! I was fascinated by the Spanish dining culture — it wasn’t until late, well past 9:00 PM, that the restaurant really started to get busy. On a weeknight!

We skipped dessert and headed to a nearby bodega for ice cream bars to bring back to the room and surprise Mom with as a treat. We watched BBC (just about the only English speaking channel we could find on the TV) and spitballed the things we wanted to do and see over our next two days in this incredible city.