June 16th Med Cruise Report

[WVMD]

Just imagine those on the 10 night cruise not having the extra sea day that we did.

I definitely would not have liked that!!!

Virgil

 

[skibum]

Did you guys carry your passports off the ship, or just leave them in your safe? I have heard conflciting ideas.
Enjoying your various reports, and a quick education before our 07/07/07 11-nighter.

 

[bartty]

It was an amazing cruise! Ports were perfect, disney was perfect, and meeting new friends...perfect!! It was really nice to be able to put faces to names here. Hopefully we will all cruise together again someday We rebooked western for Nov 08 - couldn't resist.

 

[bmr12]

Did you guys carry your passports off the ship, or just leave them in your safe? I have heard conflciting ideas.

We left ours on the ship every day and took our scanned/copies of them. The only people that ever wanted to look at them were the Disney security folks to get back on the ship. We also carried our driver's licenses as backup. We also made no credit card purchases ashore nor won lots at the Monte Carlo casino.

 

[taysmom]

I only took my drivers license and a copy of my passport. Never the real one.
We rebooked our "dummy date" while waiting for the summer of 09 itin.
Lauren..pm me your email and I'll send you the pic.

BTW..we're home now. AND I'm exhausted. It was fun all around, but I am GLAD to be home.

Now to catch up on the blogging and disboards...and laundry and work and ..well you get the drift!

 

[smillingjack]

All we carried were a copy of our passport. Never had a problem with that at any time. At the airports, different story, they want the real thing. Good luck and enjoy.

smillingjack

 

[smillingjack]

Steph,
Glad your back home safely. We certainly enjoyed our time together. I have some group photos of the Friday night dinner at the La Poma. I don't have an idea how to PM or a way of sharing. Can you help?

Cheers,

Smillingjack

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Same here. We used our DL as our photo ID to reboard the ship. The only time we needed the copies of our passports was when Susan and daughter Katy bought expensive purses in Florence. The actual passports weren't required.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Anyone have any regrets or thoughts about tours/dining/stateroom/etc. you wished you'd have done differently on the cruise?

For me, in no particular order:

1) I wish that we would have planned Olbia as like another "Sea Day". I added the La Madallena tour at the last minute and it was a waste. We'd spent two full days previously touring in Palermo and Naples so a day off would have helped recharge the batteries.

2) I regret not being able to spend more time with "Airbuspilot" and his family during the cruise. Michael and his family were really nice and my daughter Katy and his daughter Kristine had been emailing each other and planned to hang out but it just didn't work. They were on the early seating dining and we were on late seating so we basically had two different ship schedules with little opportunity to get together.

3) Related to #1, if we'd treated Olbia as a sea day, it would be nice if Disney's schedule moved the 2nd sea day from before La Spezia to after La Spezia where we could do two ports then have a break, two ports, have a break, etc.

4) Regarding La Spezia, it's out of our control but I regret that Disney chose to have us dock there versus Livorno. It REALLY stretches the ability of cruisers to get to Florence as it adds another 40 to 45 minutes each way.

What about the rest of you?

 

[Disney Lover Linda]

We were on the 6/16 cruise also. We had a hellish trip to the boat. First flight took off late from Pittsburgh so we missed the next flight in Philadelphia. Unfortunately for us, the flights the day before also had problems so all the flights were overbooked with people on standby (for our cruise also) from the day before. We didn't get on the boat until the first port, Palermo. We're still talking with DCL about the extremely short time between flights we were given (I called and told them 55 min. between a domestic and international flight was not enough when we got our itinerary but they said it was a legal connection). So the first thing I would change would be to arrive the day before and relax at a hotel. That way you have a day to play with if problems do occur. My magic moment on the cruise was when our van pulled into the port in Palermo and we saw the boat! Once on board we had a wonderful time! I would definitely do it again if I had the chance. The second thing I would change was my room. We were in room 2618 which I had heard was a little noisy on port days. While usually noises don't bother me, this room was noisy 8-9 nights. Even at 2 a.m. they were moving and scraping things across the floor of the deck above us. It was extremely convenient to the Aft elevator which we loved. We enjoyed all the excursions but I would definately take water with you plus some small euro to buy drinks. When in Naples we suffered because we had no euros (lost them with our travel problems) and the Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri for families did not provide water. By the way, Pompeii was WONDERFUL! It was the hottest day on our cruise, around 94-96 F.

 

[Disney Lover Linda]

Pretty much I agree with Linda but...

1. I wish we could have done Pompeii first. I know it said the order of events on this excursion could change, but I could still wish we had Pompeii first. It was HOT!

2. Seen more of Barcelona. Because of our missing the first 2 days of the cruise we only saw Barcelona from the bus ride from the ship to the airport. Bummer!

We REALLY enjoyed our cruise & would do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks to all the dis boarders who made it so special by having friendly faces to meet or just a shoulder to whine on. I can't tell you enough how special it was when we did get to the ship in Palermo to receive that note that said "Glad you made it! Your Dis Board friends!" & the bag of gifts. That made us cry because it was such a terrible ordeal to reach the ship.

Thanks again!
Sue

 

[PrincessJasmine08]

Did you guys carry your passports off the ship, or just leave them in your safe? I have heard conflciting ideas.
Enjoying your various reports, and a quick education before our 07/07/07 11-nighter.

Maybe we were stupid but we just left them in the room at all times. We used our Driver's License to get back on the ship. I didn't know we were supposed to take them off the ship.

 

[PrincessJasmine08]

Jeff...totally agree with you about Olbia which we found to be entirely lame. We did the Costa Smeralda and I would NOT recommend it. In retrospect we said we should have either treated it as another day at sea or gone to a beach.

 

[taysmom]

My changes for this cruise....
1. Make it longer and go around to venice or greece. It really needed to be 14 days. I'd cut palermo altogether.
2. I'd have put the sea day before rome and have the ship go to livorno. Docking in the middle of the med was stupid. C'mon disney, you can't pony up the port fees to have 2 days in rome...that was crazy! And couldn't pony up for livorno? Geez, whadya charge so much for?
3. Excursions...they should have been fixed by the time we got on board. Trumpy tours, which was the main company in italy, should have been changed. We did not have tours worth the cost charged.
4. MORE WASHING MACHINES...if you're going to do these longer trips in the future, you need more machines!
5. "Non Tipped" employees, should be able to receive tips and not have to give them to their managers. If someone provides excellent service and they are not a "tipped" employee according to disney, they should be able to accept them from the passengers. If I want to give someone a bonus for doing a good job (kids club employees) then I should expect that THEY will receive my money, not go to a manager to dish out or hold for something else.
6. Shore excursion should be available...ALL THE TIME..not 1 hour a day when everyone is off the ship...(as was my perception)
7. Freestyle dining. nuff said

But other than that, I enjoyed my first disney cruise. We had alot of fun and met great people. We are excited to go again in May.

Steph

 

[PrincessJasmine08]

1. Make it longer and go around to venice or greece. It really needed to be 14 days. I'd cut palermo altogether.

See, we really liked Palermo. I do think I would have liked Venice better though. I sort of feel like I travelled a really far way to a place I may never be back to and I didn't even see that much. So, I agree that they should have gone over to Venice or Greece. And no Olbia!

And couldn't pony up for livorno? Geez, whadya charge so much for?

I was kind of confused about this...is this the La Spezia port you're talking about? Was the deal that it was so far to Florence because we didn't dock in Livorno because it was too expensive? I did think it seemed unusual that there were no other cruise ships in such a major port but maybe they were all in Livorno!

Excursions...they should have been fixed by the time we got on board. Trumpy tours, which was the main company in italy, should have been changed. We did not have tours worth the cost charged.

Okay, aside from the fact that some of the tours were unacceptable and too expensive I feel like a problem was that the people at the shore excursions desk were completely unwilling to talk to us!!! They were so rude and not at all helpful in listening to/resolving our issues. The shore excursions are the main thing I would have done differently if I had it to do over again. They weren't all bad but there were some that were awful.

Good suggestions, Steph!

 

[Worktoplay]

It's funny how everyone has different takes on the port based on their excursions. I personally would have skipped Palermo but I loved Olbia! We did one of the beach excursions and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it was a nice break between all the hussle and bussle of the other ports. I also think traveling in Europe with kids is very different than being with adults. As far as Livorno vs LaSpezia, I'm sure Livorno only allows so many ships each day into their port and since Disney has no prior contracts with that port they certainly wouldn't send Royal Carribbean away for a one time deal with Disney. I had the opportunity to talk to other cruisers at the airport who were on RC cruise and they had the same complaints about no time to shop etc. I think that's the difference between cruising those ports vs a land tour. All in all, I wouldn't have done anything different except maybe booked a tour in Palermo rather than wandering around aimlessly on my own.

Marie

 

[mickeyteachers]

Steph,
I agree with you about the excurssion desk. I complained about the excurssion we did in Naples. It was called Magnificient Naples. It was really bad. When I explained to the Disney rep. they said sorry. And that was it. When we went on the Olive Oil tour the bus driver drank three glasses of wine at lunch and then drove the bus. He almost hit the bus in front of us. I explained this to Disney. They told me in Europe it is ok to drink wine and drive. I almost died when they told me this. I am writing a letter to Disney and explaining my concerns.
I have my next cruise booked for October 6th and then for next summer. The week of July 4th. I am so excited.
It was nice meeting so many disboards members.
Kathy

 

[Lqqieee]

Hello Fellow Cruisers!

It was so nice meeting all of you at LeiLani's Roy Suite! What a nice place that was! Jeff thank you so much for giving me a NASA shuttle pin, that was such a sweet gesture! I'm sorry we didn't bring anything to exchange. I was very lax on the meet thread....sorry again!

All I have to say is WOW what a trip it was! I thoroughly enjoyed all the ports. My husband Lou blogged and basically wrote novels about our experience each day with pictures, http://www.largelyignored.com. Enjoy!

I have to think more about what I enjoyed the most, regretted doing or wished I did:
One thing off the bat, we did Olbia as treated it as a "sea day." We went to Coda Covallo beach and what a ice place it was. Not touristy, full of locals which was nice to see. The owner was nothing but warm and welcoming of us. The food and treats were delicious and the set up with chairs and umbrellas away from the beach on grass was very pleasant.

More to come as I reflect more!

We also went to Disney Land Paris for a few days afterwards and it definitely was an enjoyable experience as well. Read Lou's blog (above link) for more stories....hope you enjoy it!

 

[kmitchel]

I LOVED Olbia. It was my favorite place! We took the tour to Madellana and thought it was beautiful. I really enjoyed lounging on the beach with my family instead of going to see ruins of some sort.

The biggest recommendation that I have is to make SURE you get there a couple of days early. I can't count the number of people whose luggage was lost and NEVER got it the entire cruise! Make sure you swap clothes between bags so at least if one bag shows up, you have a few days of clothes instead of NONE.

I did not have any problems with the tours, I enjoyed them all. I agree that there was not much time to shop, but I really didn't go there to shop so I was not disappointed. I felt like we would get back at a reasonable hour in time to relax before the late seating and have a swim. My son enjoyed the camp so much we could never get him out of it!

My biggest disappointment was Pisa. Skip it and stay in Florence longer!

 

[Pixie Dust II]

Which beach did you go to in Olbia and was it bug infested as I have read in other reports? Please PM me. Thank you!