Day 1 – Wheels Up

Finally our departure day has arrived. It’s only been the better part of three years to get to this point thanks to the pandemic. That being said, no more fretting about whether this one will be cancelled. In fact, pretty much all the restrictions have been removed. ArriveCan no longer required, masking no longer mandatory anywhere we are going to be (although certainly recommended), pre-testing not required (as long as a current vaccine record can be shown – we’re all good there).

From what we have seen, both on CruiseCritic and Facebook, the ships (ours included) appear to be less crowded. Half to three-quarters full seems to be more of a norm at this point in time. Ok…we’re good with that. Less lineups for everything will be a welcome change. We’re also going to try something creative when we get on board, but more on that on Sunday (actual boarding day).

Wheels up today at 7:30 PM local time. Europe has already had their daylight savings time change (this past weekend). Our arrival in Barcelona will (ok…’should’, but I remain positive!) be about 4:40 PM local time Wednesday. Whether we can actually sleep on the plane is always a crap shoot but we’re going to try. IF we can maybe jet-lag will not be a big issue. It’s night while we’re flying and 11:00 AM in Amsterdam (our first and only stopover). Kind of a ‘normal’ time to sleep. Relax as best we can in the airport there and continue to Barcelona. Piece of cake, right?

I’m pretty sure we’ve got everything in place but also willing to accept the fact that something will be forgotten. Maybe next time I’ll build a spreadsheet to remind us of stuff. Yeah…I’ll likely forget to do that too.

Ok…ride is here and off we go. If our plan comes together, there will be another post tomorrow to update you on our success (or lack thereof).