Help please for first timers and old timers

Assuming you don’t want to spend the rest of the time in Spain, I would do the week in Paris and surroundings.

The perception ( mis-perception?) is that folks going on a cruise do not pack lightly. If you tend to fulfill the cliche view of going on a cruise with lots of baggage, you may want to consider how many stops you want to make on the way from your 'landing spot' and the cruise departure in Barcelona. Dragging bags onto and off of trains is more work than fun.

Be mindful of how much you pack and consider how many times you want to get on/off a train.

Happy travels

Paris + Barcelona together call for more than a week by themselves for the members of your group who haven't been there before.

Well on a cruise you are only going to see port cities for one day or less. So why not see something with that extra week. But, not hopping on and off a train several times. A group of six to organize like that is to me a problem. A cruise with its one day stops is totally unlike staying somewhere.

A night or two gives you almost no time at your stops. Your group will move at the speed of the slowest person. You say a week or so. How much time you have matters. Let’s say you have a week (7 nights) to play with. Since you will have little time in each location on your cruise stops you might want to consider spending some time beforehand where you can get to know the place. I suggest you fly into Paris and spend 5 nights there, giving you 4 full days to explore. Train to Avignon and spend 2 nights. Train to Barcelona. If there’s another stop in Provence you would prefer besides Avignon choose that instead.

Madrid seems like such an obvious answer. Including a couple of day trips, a week is a good allotment there. You could stop at Zaragoza for a night or two on your way to Barcelona, or 2-4 nights in Valencia.

And I hope you're planning some time in Barcelona before or after the cruise.

We did this a few years ago and chose our destinations based on the cheapest flights on Delta. We flew into Barcelona, did the cruise, and then, when it was done, we flew from Barcelona to Geneva on easyJet and spent time in Switzerland (which I highly recommend) before flying home from Zurich.

Hi, our advice might help more if we know where your cruise will be stopping, so we could give you fuller variety/experiences for your overall trip. There’s also inexpensive European flights, such as EasyJet that open up more possibilities and could be easier to reach Barcelona than by train. For instance, I’m flying to/from Europe on Delta. But I also have EasyJet tickets on different days than my transatlantic flights to also see Slovenia.

If you’re okay with an EasyJet flight or similar, these are a few options to Barcelona:
Paris (2 hours) - Loire Valley chateaus, Normandy Beach
Rome (2 hours) - Orvieto, Florence
Nice, France (90 minutes) - many day trips by train or bus along the riviera

You say you want to arrive somewhere in Europe, then take a couple of train rides for a couple of nights in a couple more cities -- or something like that. Too much moving around in too little time, imho. I agree with Scudder, start with Madrid, lots to see and do there, good time of year, easy train to Barcelona. Get to Barcelona a few days before you sail, or spend a few days there after the cruise (assuming that's where it ends).

We once did the same thing. We research cheap airlines in Europe and found $5 tickets to Malta. We stayed there the whole week. It is different and fabulous. We stayed right in Valletta.

I like the France idea. Fly in to Paris, and then one destination along the way, maybe the Loire. Some people will tell you that you can't go to Paris for less than a week. But it depends what you want out of Paris. If you want to do a couple of tourist activities and just spend a couple days soaking up the atmosphere, then three nights can be quite a good time.