What was The Love Boat?
Those of us of a certain age will surely remember the series The Love Boat, an American series that was translated into Spanish as Vacaciones en el mar. The series was quite successful, aimed at a family audience and aired between 1977 and 1986.
In each chapter several stories were told, usually of love, with a rather cheesy touch, of the passengers on board of a real cruise ship, the now-defunct The Pacific Princess. In those years, traveling by cruise was not as common as it is today, it was a luxury reserved for few, and the series was very successful: 9 seasons were shot with a total of 245 episodes.
Barcelona at The Love Boat
The ship’s crew were the protagonists that appeared in all the chapters, the captain, the bartender, the director of the cruise, among others. In each episode, famous artists, actors and actresses, usually Americans, appeared among the passengers. We can name a few acquaintances such as Andy Warhol, Tom Hanks, Michael J. Fox, Jaime Lee Curtis, Tim Robbins, Janet Jackson.
Barcelona appeared almost at the end of the series, in chapter 242, along with Ibiza and Malaga. In the second part of this chapter the cruise was traveling from Malaga to Lisbon. Lorenzo Lamas appeared in the Barcelona chapter, let’s see if you recognize him.
This chapter shows a still pre-Olympic Barcelona, in which the replica of the Caravel Santa María still existed, which was a tourist attraction for 40 years until it sank in 1991. Places such as Park Güell, Montjuïc, the sculpture of the Sardana, the cable car, the Ramblas with the now-disappeared animal stalls, Plaza Cataluña and Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia.
At the end of the chapter in the flamenco show, the Spanish artist Chiquito de la Calzada appears doing palmas (flamenco hand clapping)
Chapter of The Love Boat in Barcelona
For the nostalgic ones: Enjoy now the fragment of the 8-minute chapter shot in Barcelona in 1985.