La Pedrera – Unplanned Day 3 in Barcelona and the Ordeal That Wasn’t

This is the third post in a series about our first European vacation. We booked a repositioning cruise aboard the Celebrity Apex, which would depart from Barcelona, Spain, sail west through the Straits of Gibraltar, stopping in Portugal, first Lisbon then two nights in Porto, with a final stop in La Coruna, Spain, before disembarkation in Southampton, England. Check out our day one and two experiences in Barcelona!

Embarkation or the La Pedrera Pivot

Today was a big day. The plan was for a casual breakfast and then a taxi over to the cruise terminal, boarding the Celebrity Apex at 11:00 AM, or so we thought. This cruise would reposition the Apex from dry dock in Marseille, France to Southampton, England, her home port through October. There is always a small risk with a ship coming out of dry dock late, but this was a routine 2-week maintenance, and Marseille didn’t seem that far from Barcelona.

At 7:30 AM, Celebrity sent an email stating that the Apex was delayed leaving her dry dock, and as a result would be arriving in Barcelona later than originally planned, and that the terminal would be closed until 2:00 PM, at which time those of us originally scheduled to board between 10:30 and 11:30 AM could board.

We did later hear stories of passengers who did not receive an email and headed over to the cruise terminal while it was still closed, as well as passengers who thought they had no choice but to check out of their hotels and wander around Barcelona with all their luggage until it was time to leave for the terminal.

Once we received the email, however, I checked with the front desk, and they were happy to store our luggage for free until we left for the cruise terminal. They also offered to arrange a taxi, which was a nice bonus. 

That problem solved, we decided to add La Pedrera, otherwise known as Casa Milà, to the day’s itinerary. La Pedrera is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the last private residence Antoni Gaudi designed and was right around the corner from our hotel. Using the La Pedrera web site, I booked an 11:45 AM entrance, which cost 29 euros per ticket. This left us time to sit down for breakfast somewhere, and get back to the hotel to pack and drop our luggage with the front desk before La Pedrera.

We headed out in search of breakfast, though our first choice was closed that morning, so after meandering along Carrer de Provença, we stopped at Pastelerias Mauri at the corner of Rambla de Catalunya. This pastry shop was established in 1929, and has a large, eye-catching display of cakes and pastries out front, and a fairly basic cafe on one side for dining in. 

This was really the first place that did not seem to cater quite so much to English speaking tourists, and there did seem to be a number of locals eating in the cafe, which seemed a good thing. We managed, despite the language barrier, to successfully order a Spanish omelette and a chocolate croissant. The omelette was fine, the croissant better than fine, and the service was efficient. We had been paying for most things with a credit card / Apple Pay, but here we broke out some euros we’d been carrying. 

As an aside, it was being at a place where English-speakers were few that I realized all the time spent on Duolingo and Babbel re-learning high school Spanish was for naught. Our brains seized up, and we just plain lost the ability to speak Spanish. Ironically, all the effort to learn Portuguese in preparation for Lisbon and Porto would later prove unnecessary. More on that when we cover Portugal.

Casa Milà / La Pedrera

After returning to the hotel to pack and drop the bags with the front desk, we walked over to the La Pedrera entrance on Carrer de Provença. In English, La Pedrera means the quarry, which is what the locals were reminded of when it was first built, with its undulating stone surface facade. This is the last secular building Antoni Gaudi created before devoting all his time to Sagrada Familia. 

After picking up audio guides, we walked through the entrance hall and found ourselves in the Butterfly Courtyard, in which we were surrounded by organic forms of insects, and of course, butterflies. A large butterfly sits on the lintel, and a fantastical insect, possibly a butterfly, envelopes the staircase leading to the main floor. Natural light shone, and fresh air flowed into this oval courtyard from the bright blue sky during our visit.

There are elevators and stairs to take you up to the apartments, whale attic, and warrior rooftop. The apartments on the fourth floor were an interesting study in how a bourgeois family in Barcelona lived approximately 100 years ago. Among the living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen sit the furnishings, household equipment and utensils of the era. 

Above this floor is the Whale Attic, essentially a museum space dedicated to Gaudi’s works, featuring 270 catenary arches. You truly feel as if you are encased inside a whale, as the the structure of the attic, with all its arches recalls a whale’s skeleton.

From there, we climbed up to La Pedrera’s rooftop terrace, also known as the Warrior Rooftop. Panoramic views of Barcelona present themselves, as do the guardians of the building: numerous stone chimneys carved in the form of warriors. You can peer down into both the Butterfly and Flower Courtyards as well. Interestingly, the roof sports an imitation of the bench from Park Guell’s Greek Theater.

After about an hour, and with short visits to the shops both upstairs and on the ground floor, we wrapped up our exploration of La Pedrera, glad we’d had the opportunity.  We had a quick lunch of hand-made empanadas at Las Muns (hard to resist when the type of empanada is cleverly imprinted on it), before the hotel-arranged taxi arrived at 1:30 PM to bring us and our luggage to the cruise terminal in time for our new 2:00 PM embarkation time.  The taxi cost $40.

Embarkation… For real, this time!

The Celebrity Apex was the only ship on the Barcelona cruise port schedule that Sunday, so everything seemed quiet as we approached the port area. However, when we arrived at the cruise terminal ten minutes before embarkation, it was clear that madness had ensued. The Apex can hold up to 2,910 passengers, and it appeared as if every one of them, minus the two of us, were queued up in front and along the side of the building waiting for boarding to start.

Dropping bags was a somewhat disorganized affair. I left Rona with the carry-ons, and rolled the bigger bags toward a roped off area, behind which sat a whole lot of luggage being loaded onto carts and then vanishing into the building. I read somewhere it was a good idea to take a photo of your luggage before surrendering to the cruise line, in case they got lost, and so quickly did so. This was a bit of a free-for-all, so I just moved up to the ropes and found one of the porters who scanned our bags and whisked them away.

We had originally reserved concierge class, and then a week before the cruise, used the Celebrity MoveUp program to bid on an upgrade to the lowest level suite, which we won! Fortunately for us, both concierge and suites include priority embarkation, so we avoided the massive line snaking around the outside of the building, and within about five minutes, we were inside and through security. We got to hang out in the priority area, offering seating, snacks and drinks.

While seated, a Celebrity official came up to us to check our boarding documents, passports and hard copy or digital proof of the U.K. ETA (Electronic Travel Authorization), which you need if you are traveling to the U.K. starting in 2025. U.K. immigration officers would still come aboard the ship one day before arriving in England to perform face-to-face passport checks. Moments later, we were on our way along various hallways, ramps and escalators, heading for the ship. All in all, we were in our cabin one hour after arriving at the port of insanity.

After oohing and aahing over our Sky Suite stateroom (#10143 – mid-ship), of which we’d already seen countless youtube videos and so were not actually surprised, it was time to do all the things. First stop, the spa, where Rona had previously reserved a fire and ice mani-pedi as an embarkation day special for $110.99, paying for most of it with our onboard credit. There weren’t a lot of color choices, but they included a gel manicure in the package. Overall it was a good experience, but she was glad not to have paid full price. 

While Rona was experiencing the spa treatment, I made my way to Café al Bacio on Deck 4, which I had been unreasonably thinking about for almost a year. I’d loved this place on the Celebrity Solstice during our 2018 Alaska cruise. They offer a wide variety of pastries, coffees, teas, and snacks, with some or all of it included, depending on whether you have a drinks package and the level of that package. You can sit in any one of the comfy seats and someone will take your order, or you can walk up to the counter and order either to go, or to have someone bring it to your chosen seat. 

As I approached the counter and placed my order, a sense of nostalgia from the Solstice came rushing in, and I told the friendly crew member how happy I was to be there. I snagged a seat overlooking the Grand Plaza and martini bar, where the bartenders put on quite the evening show. As live music flowed up from the Grand Plaza, a crew member brought me two tasty little sandwiches of chicken salad on a brown roll, and egg salad with cucumber on a french roll, followed by a cafe americano. This was serenity.

With caffeine and snacks devoured, I wound up exploring the ship so that one of us would know where things were, and eventually wound up relaxing on a lounge chair in a quiet location on deck 15, right near the Rooftop Garden Grill, an outdoor, but partially covered, specialty dining option. This was a great place to take in the views and relax with a drink.

Mani-pedi complete, Rona eventually found me in the Solarium pool area, another great location to relax and stare out at the horizon. Since she’d had no snacks or drinks, we headed back to Café al Bacio to grab her one of those delightful little sandwiches, and a drink. This is also where she discovered her love of their Iced Cafe Mocha, made with lactose-free milk. For those who cannot or prefer not to have dairy milk, they seemed to have every kind of non-dairy milk.

By now, our luggage had arrived in our cabin, and we were able to unpack, freshen up and get dressed for our first of three speciality dining meals onboard. Tonight would be Fine Cut Steakhouse. We headed down to deck 5, where Raw on 5 and Fine Cut sit opposite one another, and after checking in were immediately seated beside a window. We had a really nice view of the Mediterranean during sail-away.

For starters, Rona had the Lobster cocktail, and I had the crab cake, and between us we also shared the Ahi Tuna Tartare. Each of these was excellent. Since neither of us had ever tried it before, we ordered the 32oz Tomahawk steak for two, with sides of Parmesan Truffle Fries and Grilled Asparagus.

Unfortunately, we didn’t enjoy the steak as much as we’d been hoping. Tomahawk is a fattier cut of meat than we realized, and without drowning this particular steak in one of the sauces, it wasn’t overly flavorful. Still, we got to try it, which is one of the awesome things about cruising.

Lastly, even though we were stuffed, we, that is to say, I, ordered the Double Chocolate Brownie, covered in vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and toasted almonds. Even though it was not on the menu, Rona asked for some fresh fruit, and they happily obliged. I made a small dent in the brownie’s dense, chocolatey goodness, managing to stop just short of exploding. It was delicious, and a perfect way to end the long day with Barcelona slipping into the distance.

Tomorrow would be a day at sea, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar in the evening before heading north towards Lisbon.

How do you feel about the risk involved with the first cruise after dry-dock? Share your experiences!