Cruise Day 5 - Barcelona (sort of).

Alarm goes off at 7 am. Mum is sitting in the chair by the window completely ready to go. No idea what time she got up at. We go to the Saffron Restaurant (the one we use for dinner) for breakfast. In the morning passengers are allocated any available seat rather than the allotted tables we have for dinner. We end up at a table with Richard and John – poor souls just can’t escape us.

During breakfast the captain makes an announcement saying they are having trouble berthing and everything will be running at least an hour late. We were supposed to leave for our bus at 9.45 am. It’s only 8.30 am when we finish eating, so we go back to the cabin to wait for further announcements.

By the time it gets to 11.45, we’ve still heard nothing and are concerned about the lack of information, so we go to the reception desk. Getting out of the lift on Deck 5, the ship looks like a modern, slightly posh, Marie Celeste. I explain to the guys on reception (yeah, okay, there was no one left on reception on the Marie Celeste etc.) that we were supposed to be on the 9.45 tour that was delayed, do they know what’s happening? Yeah, it left at 10.25. I tell them we didn’t hear any announcements, but they insist calls were made and that if we’d been in the public areas we would definitely have heard them. But it says in the news letter to stay out of the public areas as it can cause congestion. Then we should have had our TV tuned to the channel to receive announcements in our stateroom. Eh, we did. He shrugs - the announcements were definitely made. I ask him what we do now. He shrugs again and says there’s a regular shuttle bus. Yep, that’s great – me, Mum and the wheelchair on a shuttle bus.

We decide to go for it, at least see a bit of Barcelona on our own. When we get on to the dock I see one of the excursions staff getting people on to a bus for a tour. I explain what has happened. That’s a shame – there’s the shuttle bus. I ask if we’ll get a refund. No refunds, under any circumstances. She doesn’t offer any help at all, doesn’t offer to put us on another tour – nothing. Very pissed off now.

We get on the shuttle bus for the short drive to the town. We’re dropped off at The World Trade Centre – no map, nothing – just get on with it.

Mum is very keen for me to see The Sagrada Familia, which she thinks is at the end of Las Ramblas (anyone who’s been to Barcelona groaning yet?). So we head off, in the blistering heat, me pushing the wheelchair. After a long, long walk along Las Ramblas, Mum says we should really be able to see spires or something by now. I decide to find a tourist information office. The first one I find is down some stairs, looks like it’s in a subway. I park Mum in her wheelchair at the top and walk down. There’s also an escalator going up. A woman is standing at the bottom of the escalator, blocking it with her suitcase.

‘Excuse me – could you help me get this case upstairs? I really just can’t do it.’

‘Eh, gimme a minute to just ask them a quick question, then I’ll come back and help.’

‘Oh, the queue is very long – you’ll be there for a very long time. Couldn’t you help me first?’

I wonder how long she's been standing there waiting for help. Fine. I grab her case and carry it to the top, where she assures me I will be rewarded by God. If he could just help me find this bloody church, that would do.

The queue for information is, indeed, ridiculously long, so I find a map and head back to Mum. Mum is surrounded by tourists asking her directions in various languages. She’s just laughing and shaking her head.

Can’t make any sense of the map, mainly because I don't actually know where we are at this point, so using my very rusty school Spanish I ask two passing women how to get to Sagrada Familia. They indicate a bus. I tell them I’m walking, with the wheelchair. They look slightly horrified and give me directions in very fast Spanish that I just don’t get, but I do get that these directions are going on for a very long time. They pat my arm and shake their heads as they wander off. At this point I begin to wonder if Sagrada Familia is actually in Barcelona at all.

We give in and get a taxi. Taxi driver doesn’t speak English, but takes one look at us and says, ‘Sagrada Familia?’ Yep – that’s us - it must be obvious that we need to be 'saved'. It’s a good ten minutes in the taxi and I’m told later that it’s about a 40 minute walk from where we were, which would have been closer to 90 minutes pushing the chair.

Sagrada Familia is a spectacular sight, but I’m so hot and tired, and I’m struggling to manoeuvre the wheelchair in the crowds – people can, believe it or not, be very ignorant and selfish when confronted with wheelchair users – that I really just want to take some pictures then get the hell out of Barcelona. That’s exactly what we do.

Back at the ship, I’m finding it hard to get out of my bad mood, and I know it’s affecting Mum, but it’s been the worst possible start to our few days of excursions.

At tea we sit with a couple who are not at all happy with P&O – I’m not happy with them at the moment either, so we have a good moan. The woman is hilarious – really over the top complaints, but done in such a funny way, by the time she’s finished listing everything that bugs her I’m laughing so much I finally get out of my huff. Her final statement: ‘Our cabin steward is a lazy bastard – runs a damp cloth over a few things, but cleans nothing. The cabin has never been hoovered since we got here. I’ve placed some crumbs under the chair, taken pictures of them, and I’m going to see how long they stay there.’ Taking pictures of crumbs – that’s the way to relax and get into the holiday spirit. I imagine the woman and the steward in a kind of Mexican stand-off re the crumbs – him moving them a little every day, just to freak her out, but never actually clearing them away. Crumb wars. The couple normally travel with Royal Caribbean and say they’ll never use P&O again.

Back to the cabin for a rest before dinner. Foghorn Leghorn is yelling into his phone (at least I assume he’s talking on the phone – Mum has other ideas), ‘No, no! Don’t do that – if we do that we’ll bankrupt the entire stock market!’

Mum rolls her eyes. ‘I’m telling you, he’s mad – delusional.’

There's a 'Sail Away' party on the sun deck as we leave the port, but we're too tired to go up and see what it's like. There'll be others on other days.

No John and Richard at dinner, so we don’t get to hear about their day in Barcelona and we don’t get to tell them about our misadventures … so we moan about it to Manoj, our waiter. He’s surprised to hear about the lack of refund. ‘That’s stupid – why would P&O risk losing two passengers’ future business for the sake of £68?’ Why indeed, Manoj – maybe you should be running the company.

Our trip to Cannes and Nice leaves at 8.30 next morning, so we need to get an early night. I set the alarm for 6.30, but Mum will probably still be up and ready before it goes off. I'm tempted to sleep on the reception desk so I don't 'miss any calls'.

Mum gets into bed and reads her book. Minutes later she’s asleep and the book has fallen onto her chest. I put the book away and put her glasses on the night table. It's been a stressful day for her and she's shattered.

‘Thanks,’ she whispers, then she’s out for the count. If it actually rained now she’d sleep through it, which would be a real shame.

Try to sleep, hoping tomorrow is a better day. Could it be any worse? And not even any Countdown to take our minds off things.