<p>Fodors.com is a great site that some CCers sent me to…they have a lot of very knowledgeable folks who help with planning and have a wealth of knowledge. Many of them travel very frequently to many of these locations.</p>
<p>Their forums have a TON of interesting details & tidbits.</p>
<p>Thanks, Onward! Europa is one of the 5 hotel printout I made last night. DH wasn’t sure he liked the lociation - looked good to me. AND I read that it made a Rick Steves list. Not bad for 80euro/night.</p>
<p>Thanks also to HImom. I have not yet been on that site.</p>
<p>We found the hotel Europa to be very centrally located. We did Rick Steve’s walking tour and went from the hotel to Plaza Mayor, went to the cloistered nuns, the palace and if I remember correctly we walked to the Prado (I think that was a long walk). We did this with a pre-teen and a teenager. I loved Madrid. Enjoy your trip.</p>
<p>DONE - booked 2 nights in Madrid in May at Hotel Europa ;)</p>
<p>Thanks for the good info, Onward! DH and I reviewed the website and maps and decided it would be a great choice. We did the reservations online. There is no cancellation fee,so nothing to loose… Hotel Europa looks like a Keeper.</p>
<p>Once at the English version of the website I realized that the 80euro/night rate mentioned above was for a Single. The Double rate is 100euro. We opted for the Superior Double (120euro), so it will have exterior balcony. These rates include 8% VAT tax. </p>
<p>The website says taxi to airport is about 30euro. The breakfasts are not free, but the price list shows options (with coffee) as low as 2.40euro.</p>
<p>Great location. From the airport you can also take the metro. I think it would be two transfers, but way cheaper than a taxi. You would exit the metro practically at the door of your hotel. </p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
<p>We’ll be taking the train from Barcelona to Madrid. We might get gutsy taking the metro then (though maybe not a big savings). Not sure on the trip from Hotel Europa to the airport - it may make me too nervous to do the metro. </p>
<p>I did read a fun review of the hotel mentioning their metro adventure on the way to the airport. There was a nice local lady (who spoke no English) that detoured her own trip to ride with them to the airport, making sure they did the tricky connections correctly.</p>
<p>We did the train from the airport in and it was fairly easy. And we were zombie jet-lagged. When we bought our tickets at the counter in the airport, we were told exactly which trains to take.</p>
<p>Are you going from Barcelona to Madrid via AVE? If so, you will absolutely love it. I have taken it from rt Madrid to Sevilla, rt Madrid to Valencia, rt Madrid to M</p>
<p>I’m only a teenager, but I saw this and thought I’d comment. I did a two week trip of Europe last year and we visited Austria, Italy, and France. I’m also English. It depends what you like. For instance, if you like big cities, then places like London, Paris, and Venice and for you. However, if you want a less crowded city I would suggest visiting areas of France like the Loire Valley, so that you can spend time in Paris but also see the ch</p>
<p>Helpful input, SillyS. I’m glad you had the opportunity to tour Europe. Our son went in hs, with a CO music group. He saw London, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany - concerts in 6 locations. Now it’s our turn to see Europe 
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<p>gloworm - Yes, we plan to take the AVE from Barcelona to Mardrid. I haven’t researched it closely yet. We may need to buy tickets ahead of time, but we have not done so (flexibilty would be nice, if possible). It is pricey ($120euro each). If we were tighter on budget we might have done the cheaper overnighter, which would also save hotel expenses.</p>
<p>I believe you will need tix in advance. There is also a window (I don’t remember what it is) for purchasing them at less expense. I believe we purchased ours for last August between M-V in June. The time of day and # of stops may also affect cost.</p>
<p>I’ll be looking into advanced tix for high speed train from Barcelona to Madrid. After that, I’ll get into the fun detail planning of our priorities in each city. Still not sure if we will do the Hop On / Hop Off bus in Barcelona - our hotel is nearby, so it will be handy and I’ll lean toward doing it if it covers a lot of our interest areas.</p>
<p>If you have time, we had a great time in Toledo. We took the train from Madrid to Toledo. Beautiful, old town.</p>
<p>On this trip, we are already tight on time. But other readers should make note of the helpful Toledo hint. (Maybe we’ll get there someday on another trip.)</p>
<p>Tonight I booked a hotel near the airport before our 6am flight. The room with 14 days of free parking and airport shuttle is only a tad more expensive than our parking bill would be. Darn - we’ll still need to get up before 4am. But there will be less stress about the driving and parking. If you ever need similar, google for hotel, park.</p>
<p>Well, I am on the flight home from Miami, just coming back from a cruise on the Epic this week. So much fun, and hard to go home to the cold and work after relaxation. Thought I’d send some advice to you about the Epic, before I forget it!</p>
<p>Prebook the Blue Man Group, Second City, and Legends on slow days where your excursion gets in early, or if you have no port stops before you get on the cruise. You can walk into second city as many times as you want if you love comedy, just give them your room key and smile if they ask if you have reservations. You can always go in late, but it’s more interesting if you go early and get closer seats. When the Blue Men start wandering the audience, unless you are brave, do NOT look up at them and smile. I keep my head down and look ****ed ( I don’t know why that word is x’d out!), as I do not want to volunteer for their show. If you refuse, they don’t make you. Howling at the Moon, dual piano players are GREAT! Don’t save that for later. </p>
<p>Alcohol is relatively inexpensive, like a reasonably priced restaurant. But we stuck some bottles of wine in our suitcase (not carryons, left with the baggage handlers with the tags), and they did not confiscate them, nor did they charge us the $15/bottle corking fee we expected. Personally, out of Europe with that great wine, I’d buy some really good and cheap bottles in Europe, stick em in my bag and realize the worst they can do is charge you a corking fee. Check that out though, I don’t think they confiscate wine. And European wine is so delicious and cheap. The pina coladas on board are very good, and beer is about $5.</p>
<p>Not necessary to book specialty restaurants, but they can be good. Do it at least a couple days early or you’re stuck with very early or very late. The sit down dinners that are free are excellent anyways. The vegetables for lunch/dinner in the buffet are so good. They change the buffet every day, and I swear they have 20 different types of veggies that are good every day. Best coffee is in the coffee bar 5th floor (and on the 15th, pool deck.) Have to pay for specialty coffees, but a cappucino is really good. Even the free coffee is much better than most cruise lines. Best wine is the chianti in the dining room ($7.50/glass). My opinion only, of course! But I like really good wine that doesn’t cost much.</p>
<p>We decided to do the walkoff debarking, where you carry your own bags. We left right at 7:30am, which was the earliest, and got off the boat in 5 MINUTES! Have done this before and the lines were huge later. It is well worth your time to get off as soon as they allow, you can save an hour.</p>
<p>Casinos pay off is not bad at all. I did far better than usual and even won $1,000 on a slot machine, which I paid $900 towards our cabin bill (lots of wine and excursions). Made our final bill very low, yay.</p>
<p>This is a great ship. Very relaxed on the dress, the only restrictions were no shorts in the sit down dining rooms. So we wore jeans and sandals/tennis shoes, and fit right in. Do not bother to bring fancy clothes/suits/dresses, unless you like that kind of stuff. Workers are mostly from the Philipines. Very helpful, low key, very pleasant and competent. I’m spoiled, I don’t know how we can do another ship!</p>
<p>Internet costs a fortune. If you have an iphone, get a cheap international plan (about $5) before you leave, and you have access. We also got 50 texts for $5 from AT$T. Figure that out before you go, I wish we had, because we didn’t do the internet and ended up charging $110 for internet charges. Yikes!</p>
<p>I wish we could go on your trip! It is going to be so much fun. I am very, very jealous.</p>
<p>Thanks for the EPIC info, busdriver! </p>
<p>“Prebook the Blue Man Group, Second City, and Legends on slow days where your excursion gets in early, or if you have no port stops before you get on the cruise” - We hope to do that. I’ve read they can be done 45 days in advance.</p>
<p>We’ve heard that wine and champagne can be taken on board. Evidentally the corking fee is just if you bring it to restaurants? We plan to drink ours on the balcony, weather permitting.</p>
<p>I like the sound of walkoff debarking option. We’ll look into that. </p>
<p>Relaxed clothes sounds grand to me. I’m the kind of person that plans the wardrobe from the shoes (usually comfy ones) up. </p>
<p>We are getting excited about the trip. I worry about it being so busy (on ship and off), but we’re looking forward to it all. There is even a thread on CruiseCritic website dedicated to just our ship/trip/dates. Hint - if anybody does similar trip, that site gather groups for cheaper and smaller shore excursions.</p>
<p>As far as the wine goes, I’ve heard many different stories. But I can tell you that last time we carried it with us onboard, in our carryon baggage, and fessed up to it. They charged us $15 per bottle for the pleasure of bringing it onboard, immediately onto our bill. And we kept it in our room the entire time, never brought it to dinner. I suspect that the reality is, if you declare it, they charge you the fee. If you put it in your suitcase and it makes it through with the other 3,000 suitcases loaded onboard without detection, you don’t pay. We actually weren’t trying to sneak it onboard, we assumed they scanned all those bags and would charge us as such. But realistically, it’s probably impossible for them to do that much of the time. To do it again, I’d just put it in my checked suitcase, and if they decide to charge us, fine. I’m certain that if you bring it to dinner, they will charge you, like you say.</p>
<p>I’ll look into that cruisecritic site closer next time, I didn’t know about the cheaper/smaller shore excursions. We paid a ripoff $89 for 1 hour segway trip on a crowded boardwalk, definitely not worth the price!</p>
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<p>I am not sure where that Internet plan for five bucks might come from, but it surely won’t be from AT&T. There is only one qualifier for using an iPhone abroad legally … And that term is ripoff. The cheapest plan per MB is 25 cents but it costs 200 bucks. 25 bucks get you 50 MB. If you could use a local sim data card, you might spen 15 dollars for 2,000 MB. Again, using an IPhone overseas is asking for trouble unless you remove the SIM. /smile.</p>
<p>Consider yourself lucky to have a charge of only 110 bucks for your trip. If you connected with your US phone, you might have a heart attack when the bill shows up in a few months.</p>
<p>I was looking as fast as I could at those AT&T plans, because I was paying $.55 a minute for internet, so I must have misread it. Glad I didn’t purchase a plan and use it, I would have been in big trouble! Let’s hope I bought the right text plan and won’t get a $500 phone bill. I wish we would have investigated before we left, but it sounds like I didn’t totally waste the $110 anyways.</p>