Barcelona - PALMA DE MALLORCA, SPAIN (Formal Dress)
Shore excursions offered by Celebrity for Barcelona:
Barcelona Sightseeing - Half Day, $35
Gaudi and Barcelona - Half Day, $38
City Sightseeing and Spanish Village - Half Day, $38
Barcelona and Montserrat - Full Day, $85, including lunch
Imagine our surprise 2½ hours later when we awoke again, only to find ourselves still at sea and sailing at high speed. A few minutes later a cabin intercom announcement advised that as we approached Barcelona the Captain was informed that the port had been blockaded by fisherman in sympathy with the trucker's blockades on land, over the high price of fuel. Thus the decision had been made to substitute Palma de Mallorca instead, and that was where we were headed. Planned arrival was around 12:30PM and departure at the same time (5:00PM) as originally scheduled for Barcelona. The announcement added that as a result of the port substitution we would also be a couple hours late arriving in Villefranche tomorrow. Tommie and I were thrilled because we had just spent 3 days in Barcelona less than 2 years ago (prior to the Grand Princess inaugural cruise) and only planned to do some shopping there anyway. Conversely, it had been more than 10 years since Tommie had been to Palma, and was a port I had never visited. However, it was a great disappointment to most other passengers onboard because Barcelona was one of the major ports on this cruise. Nonetheless, it is our opinion that Celebrity worked wonders with this last minute itinerary change, and had an addendum to the daily program and a port guide printed and available at the front desk by 9:00PM. The shopping guide commentator even quickly recorded a short shopping guide of Palma that was then broadcast over the TV, and they arranged for some stores that would normally be closed for siesta from 1:00-4:30PM to remain open while the ship was in port. Complimentary shuttle busses were also being made available for the long ride from the pier to the city center. We have been on several other cruises where a port was canceled for some reason and absolutely nothing was even attempted to placate disgruntled passengers.
The ship did dock at 12:30PM, but then things started to get ugly as 1,000-1,500 passengers flooded onto the pier and swamped the 3 shuttle busses. We've been through situations like this before, and wanted no part of the conflicts and angry tempers that were sure to erupt. With another couple we disembarked the ship, walked a 100 yards down the pier, and hailed a taxi. Fifteen minutes and $5.00 later, we were at Majora Pearls (the furthest shop shown on the map provided by Celebrity) and were among the first to enter the almost empty store. We were served immediately and Tommie found earrings to match a necklace she received as a gift last year. By the time we left the tiny store ½ hour later, it was jam packed with 25 people from the Millennium–and another 50 or so waiting outside–all clamoring for service and complaining about the now hot and stuffy interior. We felt so sorry for the 3 sales clerks in the store who were inundated by increasingly hostile and pushy customers, each of whom demanded to be served next. We're sure each of the stores on the Celebrity map were experiencing the same nightmare.
We spent the next couple hours strolling the wide boulevards, looking at the sights, and gradually working our way down to the waterfront, where we found the beautiful Palma Cathedral and surrounding grounds. Here we discovered that the drop off and pick up point for the shuttle busses was just down the street, so after resting a bit and taking pictures we caught the next available bus (not a problem from this end) for the 10 minute drive back to the ship, which we re-boarded just before 4:00PM. The Millennium sailed as scheduled at 5:00PM.
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