Here are some final shots I got of the street our little hotel was on, from our little balcony...
Well, when it came time to check out from our fourth floor room, the unthinkable happened!
The lift wasn't working.
Now, the suitcase I had left Cairns with had had a huge blowout whilst we were in the UK. When I went looking for a replacement bag, we decided to take a look at some of the local charity shops with a view to not breaking the budget so early on in our trip.
We had the fortune to happen upon a large sports-style travel bag, complete with handle and wheels, in the first shop we looked in and enquires what they had. The lady was very sweet and sold me my new bag for the grand sum of £2!
This has definitely been a life-saver, but dos nothing for the fact that I was still lugging around almost 20kgs of 'stuff'.
But I digress. I now had the lovely task of navigating this said bag down 8 flights of a tiny corridor of Spanish steps. The duty manager did offer to come up and assist if I came down and let him know when we were ready to go.
To tell you the truth, I just didn't have it in me to traipse all the ways down the steps, lead him all the way back and then make my way down again whilst inflicting the unpleasantness on another human being.
For some crazy reason, it seemed just easier to drag the bag down myself. Yeah right. Needless to say, after an unreasonable passage of torturous time, I managed to get this big lump of definitely mostly useless crap to the reception desk. It took me a good half an hour of air conditioning and wifi to even think straight again after that.
Finally it was time to make our way to the ship. Now, our hotel was selected primarily for its proximity to the port and for this specific point in time. The manager directed us to a nearby bus stop right at the port end of Las Rambles.
Fun times then ensued with is getting our luggage across several lanes of crazy Spanish roads, where we waited 20 minutes for the bus to the port stop. After I had lugged what now felt like 60kgs of big red sports bag up the steps of the bus, the helpful bus driver informed us that all we needed to do is walk about 150 metres to the port shuttle bus that would take us straight to our ship.
I then dragged my 100kg bag back down the bus steps and across the 7 lanes of traffic, through several klms of market stalls and hawkers who had to stand right in my path, telling me that Life would not be worth living without purchasing this fake Pravda hand bag and matching scarf for the same cost I had just forked out for our cruise...
Finally I spotted the port shuttle, or was that a mirage???, and managed to drag my sweaty, heaving self to the bus door and almost collapse in a miserable heap. Yeah, travelling is so much fun, right?... Just kidding! I love it.
As I was sitting in my seat on the bus, trying to pull myself back into some semblance of a human being, I glanced up and noticed the name of the company the bus is licenced under:
Yay. 'Will kill' I spent the rest of the ride praying fervently that this wasn't the trip they decided to live up to their motto.
We finally pulled up safely, much to my true elation, at our home for the next 9 nights and we were sooo excited!!!
Once we'd deposited the cursed luggage, made our way through security, passport control and customs, we were finally standing at gangway of our first ever cruise.
We are sailing with Royal Caribbean Vision of the Seas.
Heading aboard:
After a bit of poolside time and perhaps a cocktail or two to kick of the festivities, we finally were able to head to our cabin.
Cosy but comfortable:
After a lovely relax, we made our way to dinner.
Followed by a stroll around the deck...
After a long and at times strenuous day, we were gently lulled to sleep on our floating playground.
Hope it's as much fun as it looks.. careful of the cocktails too many and you have trouble understanding what people are saying, everyone you meet sounds like they are talking in a foreign language.. Let me know if that happens.
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