The (pre) honeymoon of a lifetime: L.A. to Barcelona

Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2007 1:25 PM

It was like something out of an episode of the "Love Boat" – not the shorter ones where they went to Puerto Vallarta – but the two-parters where they went to Europe and Australia and China.
More than a year ago, when Adam and I first stumbled across an amazing deal on a Mediterranean cruise, we weren’t planning on making it a pre-honeymoon (we weren’t even engaged at that point). But it seemed like a natural idea to make our 10-day whirlwind European adventure into a pre-honeymoon 5 1/2 months before the wedding. (We're taking a minimoon cruise to Baja to weekend after the wedding).
The cruise was $700 per person for an outside cabin on a six-night repositioning cruise from Barcelona to Venice (we booked the day after they announced the itineraries). We were able to get free flights thanks to my miles on American (I love being a gold member). So the trip ended up costing very little – we even found some great deals on hotels in Barcelona and Venice on Expedia.
The only problem with going to Europe if you live in Los Angeles is that, unless you are going to a major European city, getting from point A to point B involves making stops at points C, D and E along the way. Using the miles also made it a little stickier as we were limited by when we could go and on which airlines.
The night before our flight, both of us decided – probably stupidly in retrospect – to stay awake all night so we would pass out when we got on the plane. I packed and headed over to Adam’s about 3 a.m. (we were leaving for the Van Nuys Flyaway at 4). Adam, sweetie that he is, made a run to 7-11 and grabbed me a Frappuccino, some gum and a Cosmopolitan magazine.
We packed up the car and drove to the Flyaway, which would take up directly to the terminal at LAX (much easier than driving).
We checked in at the First Class International desk (yea Gold flyer again), got all of our tickets for the day and said farewell to our luggage.
You don’t really know someone until you travel with them – I love Adam with all of my heart – but he is not good with security checkpoints. I’m the kind of person who takes of their shoes, makes sure they have no metal on, zips up my bag, makes it though no problem, grabs my stuff and heads out. Adam is the type that takes their time and always ends up leaving coins in their pocket (and then yells at me to slow down even though I tell him every time "I’ll be waiting RIGHT THERE!")
We had three flights to Europe and three flights back – plus every time we got back on the ship we had to go through security – so we are talking a dozen security lines.
Luckily the process getting there wasn’t too painful: we flew from L.A. to Miami to Madrid (amazingly, in Miami the gate we arrived at and the gate we departed from were right next to each other) to Barcelona.
However, it wasn’t so much fun when we reached Barcelona….