- Prologue: The Most Stressed Out Cruise Vacation Ever – So Much Just Went Wrong!
- Introduction: My “Free” Carnival Glory 14 Day Crossing Cruise from Barcelona Spain
- Not Very Impressed: The Atlanta American Express Centurion Lounge (Review)
- Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q Beef Short Rib Delta Air Lines First Class Meal Review
- How to Transfer from Mexico City MEX Airport Terminal 2 to Terminal 1
- The Hilton Mexico City MEX Airport Hotel Terminal 1 Review 2024
- Review: American Express Centurion Lounge Mexico City Airport MEX Terminal 1
- Air France A350 Business Class Mexico City to Paris Review
- Review: The Air France Lounge at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport – Terminal 2F
- Review: Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona Spain Corner King Suite – A Diamond Free Upgrade
- Carnival App plus Pre-Boarding and Boarding Experience Arriving Early
- Carnival Glory Aft Wraparound Cabin 7445 Review
- Carnival Glory Main Dining Room Food Review 2024
- Carnival Glory Entertainment Reviews 2024
- Expedia Booked “Rapha Transport” Driver Speeding at 90+ MPH While Blasting Religious Music From Carnival Cruise to Orlando Airport Transfer!
- My Disappointing Delta Air Lines 757 First Class Flight from Orlando to Detroit
- Final Thoughts on my “Free” 14 Day Carnival Cruise from Wydham Status Match Offer.
This is going to be a unique series of posts and will be featured both here on EyeOfTheFlyer as well as on FrequentFloaters. Also, I am starting with a prologue as so many bad things happened that they really need a post on their own before I begin.
This review is centered around my “free” Carnival cruise due to holding matched Caesars status from Wyndham Diamond status. The cruise was a unique one departing from Barcelona after the Carnival Glory had been in dry dock in Spain and then sailed back with passengers to its home port in Port Canaveral.
To get to Barcelona, I wanted to try to get max value, and experience, out of my Delta SkyPennies. So, I booked a one-way flight departing Mexico City on Air France’s brand new business class seat on the A350 for just 75,000 points each. I used credits from my The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (plus a Delta eGift card to trigger the $200 credit) and then used Regional Upgrade certs to fly to Mexico in first class. But the first stressor was Air France pilots scheduled a strike for the two exact dates, April 15 & 16th, that I was to fly with them. Just swell. After a few days of stress, they called off the strike – phew!
The next heart attack moment was 75% of the way to the airport in South Bend I discovered I left my phone at home in the charger stand. Nightmare! I simply could not travel over two weeks without my phone. We, as quickly and as safely as possible, turned around and did an Indy 500 pit stop to grab the phone and then went back on the toll road to SBN airport. Get this – we made check-in for bags by 1 minute! Clearly, a 14-day cruise with no clothes would not have worked.
Due to arriving so late to the airport, I could not take advantage of parking at the much cheaper La Quinta airport hotel as I had planned and thus, in addition to mad stress, I started this vacation having to pay an extra $75 in parking – Grrr!
But we made it, and the flight down to Atlanta was fine, and the next one was nice as well, including a chance to enjoy the Masters on the IFE and then on the web since we lost Satellite TV once we exited US air space.
For me, one of the most important parts of vacation is removing stress. Thus we always, when we cruise, arrive a day or two before the sailing date as the ship will leave without you if you are late. We chose to overnight at the Hilton MEX Airport to make sure we had a buffer for our flights to Spain. While I will review the hotel in due course, just know that either brushing our teeth in the hotel or the fruit from the breakfast to the water at breakfast at the Hilton, who gave us no room upgrade as a Diamond, but instead left us the gift of Montezuma’s revenge for many days after arriving in Spain. Yuck!
The cruise went fine (other than the fact we caught colds onboard). But the Expedia-sponsored car service we booked from the port to the Orlando airport was not stress-free. The young driver spent most of the ride zipping in and out of traffic doing 90+ MPH (in a 70) in a big van while blasting inspirational music – we were happy to arrive in one piece at MCO.
Bottom line this was not the way to take a relaxing cruise vacation and like every other trip I take I have learned more about what to do and not to do on a trip! – René
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Cannot wait to hear more about your trip!!
@dee – Not to give anything away but other than these stress events it was a very fun and amazing trip.
I’m stressed already, but I’ll stay tuned.
@ChristineK – Strawberry 😉
good to hear!!
My Uber driver stressed me out on the ride home from the airport due to his propensity to speed. Just to put it into perspective, I ride a Ducati.
Whoa! What was he driving?