Tight flight

Most cruises start getting people off around 8:00 a.m. but they take the disembarkations in stages. Often ships' elevators are crowded, and they try to usher people out of their rooms and into restaurants and other places until their group is called to leave.

If the young lady can physically carry her own luggage off the ship, she could get out of the port quicker.

The Barcelona airport is down on the Mediterranean coast so the ride to the airport may not be far. But there are so many uncontrollables in travel today--including airport security lines.

I usually try to catch a flight around 1:00 p.m. when coming off a cruise. But when I'm in a great European city, I'll fly out the next day or later.

She may already have the flight reservation made, and cannot change her flight time.

The only way she can make this connection is to talk to the cruise person in charge of disembarking and asking to be let off as one of the first passengers and to have a taxi waiting to take her to the airport. Her luggage will be a issue if she cannot carry it by herself. She would be much better off to change her flight to the next day and stay in Barcelona, go see the sites and start out fresh the next morning with a early ride to the airport.

And even if the cruise line lets her off first that doesn’t mean she’s getting off at 6:30 . You can’t be let off the ship until the cruise has cleared customs whatever it has to go through.

On our trip to Barcelona they didn’t start letting people off the cruise ship till nine. We were staying in Barcelona so we weren’t upset but we watch people power eating breakfast starting to panic because they hadn’t opened up the departure gates.

They’ll be a lot of taxis there so that shouldn’t be a problem

She may need to do some running. Seriously. That's saved me on more than a few occasions.

I was flying past people on the people mover.

As for a taxi look for a younger driver. I got an old guy in London last year and he was slow as molasses in January.

Did she purchase her air through the cruise line? I’d like to think the ship would bear some responsibility if they sold her the ticket but who knows these days. The arrive at 6:30, disembarking around 8 or 9 sounds familiar. The ships often will not sell early departure tickets but if she purchased her own air it could be a different story. What time does the airline suggest arriving at the airport for the flight? It sounds like a tight schedule to me. I’d investigate Plan B just for the record if it were me. Good luck.