14-night Eastbound Transatlantic Cruise (May 14-28, 2011) Lots of pics! COMPLETED 9/8

[iloverags2]

GAH! You had to go and post close-up pictures of Peter, didn't you? He certainly is our least favorite cruise director also. My thoughts are the CD is supposed to be full of energy, and typically is one of the friendliest folks on board the ship. Peter is dry, boring, and the least bit even close to being remotely friendly. Outside of his droning on and on and on and on before shows, I don't think I heard the guy utter two words to anyone. (Off my soapbox now!)

I hear you on Beef Tenderloin Palo! Yumola, and the same here...it's what I always order. Noticed you opted for the gorgonzola too! Nothing beats that!

So sorry about your character breakfast snafu. But you did get that awesome photo of Goofy and Donald entering port. Wow, what a photo of a lifetime!

How cool you were able to get both Alton F. White's and Don "Ducky" Williams autographs. I think that alone would have been worth the cost of the cruise!

 

[KevieKev05]

GAH! You had to go and post close-up pictures of Peter, didn't you? He certainly is our least favorite cruise director also. My thoughts are the CD is supposed to be full of energy, and typically is one of the friendliest folks on board the ship. Peter is dry, boring, and the least bit even close to being remotely friendly. Outside of his droning on and on and on and on before shows, I don't think I heard the guy utter two words to anyone. (Off my soapbox now!)

I hear you on Beef Tenderloin Palo! Yumola, and the same here...it's what I always order. Noticed you opted for the gorgonzola too! Nothing beats that!

So sorry about your character breakfast snafu. But you did get that awesome photo of Goofy and Donald entering port. Wow, what a photo of a lifetime!

How cool you were able to get both Alton F. White's and Don "Ducky" Williams autographs. I think that alone would have been worth the cost of the cruise!

Thank you for all these comments! I'm happy you've been reading my trip report!

Glad to hear you share the same opinion on Peter. Blech! And yes, that photo was so unexpected! I was just snapping as many pictures as I could hoping for something good and there it was!


I'm working on the next installment now...I forgot how many beautiful pictures I got on our excursion and in Cadiz! You guys won't be disappointed!

 

[Pinkocto]

Absolutely helpful as always! Thank you for answering all of our questions, you are fabulous! Crossing my fingers we get some servers who love their jobs and hopefully we never have to encounter this Peter character. Let me ask something on a totally different subject. Do the cruises you take using DVC count towards your Castaway Cay status? I now have a mission to become Platinum, must go on the behind the scenes tours, and hoping that all cruises, no matter how you pay count.

 

[KevieKev05]

Absolutely helpful as always! Thank you for answering all of our questions, you are fabulous! Crossing my fingers we get some servers who love their jobs and hopefully we never have to encounter this Peter character. Let me ask something on a totally different subject. Do the cruises you take using DVC count towards your Castaway Cay status? I now have a mission to become Platinum, must go on the behind the scenes tours, and hoping that all cruises, no matter how you pay count.

You're most welcome!

And yes, cruises where DVC points are used DO count towards your Castaway Club status! Yahoo!

 

[Revan]

Would you say the cruise was at capacity? - there doesn't seem to be any real crowds in any of your pictures. I was on the Dream in April and it was crowded...

 

[Pinkocto]

Excellent! Thanks! Now I anxiously await the 2013 itineraries, want to get on the boat to Hawaii if they have another one! Would be just as excited to do a Transatlantic, can't wait to see what they're going to do

Of course looking forward to more of the TR! No pressure of course, I can't imagine how much time it takes to do one. I will try a feeble attempt for ours and find out first hand

 

[KevieKev05]

Would you say the cruise was at capacity? - there doesn't seem to be any real crowds in any of your pictures. I was on the Dream in April and it was crowded...

The cruise was definitely NOT at capacity. All the staterooms may have been filled, but the total number of passengers wasn't at the max. There were numerous empty tables around us at dinner!

Excellent! Thanks! Now I anxiously await the 2013 itineraries, want to get on the boat to Hawaii if they have another one! Would be just as excited to do a Transatlantic, can't wait to see what they're going to do

Of course looking forward to more of the TR! No pressure of course, I can't imagine how much time it takes to do one. I will try a feeble attempt for ours and find out first hand

We're excited for the 2013 itineraries as well! Writing a TR is definitely time consuming, but lots of fun. I get to relive my trip! Although, I also realize how much I forget! You think you write down enough to jog your memory...in reality, I find I forget many things as I'm writing and have to go back, or just forget things period! Whoops!

 

[KevieKev05]

DAY 11 - May 24th, 2011 - Cadiz, Spain (Part 1)

At 6:30, the alarm starts going off. WOW. It is WAY too early for my liking! Around the time we were getting up, a “Bright Star” announcement was made in our stateroom. I’m pretty sure this is a medical related thing, but can’t quite remember. I tell myself to ask Marianne at dinner.

The phone rings at 6:45 and it is room service! Within a minute they are outside our door. Now, we requested a delivery time of 7:00-7:30 so they were definitely early. I’m sure a lot of people requested the same time so they had to spread out the deliveries.

We make our way down to Rockin’ Bar D (the meeting place) for our “White Villages of Andalusia” excursion at 7:45. Cadiz was the only port I didn’t know what to do, so I figured doing a Disney excursion would be best. For Madeira and Gibraltar, I researched and found good taxi tour companies to use. For Barcelona, I knew we would just walk around and do the hop on/hop off bus. Cadiz? Didn’t find any good tour options on our own, but saw good reviews for this Disney excursion so we went with it! I asked my parents NUMEROUS time if this excursion would be okay for them while we were planning. The description said there was a lot of walking with hills, stairs, steep inclines, etc. They assured me they would be okay and would just sit down and rest if they had to. What can I say...I worry about them and their health!

Anyway, we checked in and at 8:00 we were being led to our bus. There were multiple busses for this excursion, so we had to make sure we stayed together and got on the appropriate bus. We were led by Ernesto (who worked in merchandise on the ship) to the deck 1 aft gangway. We got on the bus and were on our way shortly thereafter.

Now, at this point I realized why I was having a hard time finding things to do in Cadiz. This excursion (and a few others) led everyone AWAY from Cadiz. We drove a good 45 minutes to an hour to our first “white village” destination on our tour: Medina Sedonia. Our guide, Reinholt referred to them as “white willages” which made me chuckle a few times. And he said it A LOT. I know, I know...not nice. But, he was a wonderful guide and spoke MANY languages.

Anyway, once we arrived at Medina Sedonia, we were dropped off at one location, and then (with our guide) we would travel through the village and get picked up in another location. As we were exiting the bus, we noticed two children left behind, sleeping. After we were gathered outside the bus, the driver got off and talked to our tour guide. The tour guide asked who the parents were and told them that their children couldn’t stay sleeping on the bus. Are you serious?! Why would they leave their children unattended, in a foreign country, on a bus?! Wow. Some people. These are the same kids that were pushing and cutting in front of an older couple on the way to the bus from the ship just to be the first in line; and the parents were right there with them. Really?! They woke them up and got them off the bus, and then we were on our way to explore the village! PICTURES!

(See the wind generators in the distance? They have MANY of these throughout the countryside to generate energy!)

 

[KevieKev05]

DAY 11 - May 24th, 2011 - Cadiz, Spain (Part 2)

After traveling through some streets (with lots of uphill and downhill walking), we made it to the village “center” where we were then allowed to explore the area on our own for about 30 minutes:

(DISNEY merchandise! How funny!):

 

[KevieKev05]

DAY 11 - May 24th, 2011 - Cadiz, Spain (Part 3)

Then, we started making our way down a street to get to our bus again:

Our bus!


And so, we were then on our way two our second destination: Arcos de la Frontera (notice the Greek-ness of the name? More Grecian style architecture and design here).

En route to Arcos de la Frontera:

After about 30-45 minutes, we arrived. This time, the bus dropped us off in a busy traffic circle and was going to meet us in a parking area for busses. We had to be dropped off here because the streets become SO narrow en route to the village “center” area. Also, it is an uphill, half a mile to a mile walk to our destination! Eeeeeks! You can do it Mom and Dad!

Walking up to the village “center”:

 

[KevieKev05]

DAY 11 - May 24th, 2011 - Cadiz, Spain (Part 4)

We made it! We were allowed time to explore this area, and then we would be able to go into a little restaurant for our complimentary refreshments. (We had to wait our turn for it to clear out because all the Disney excursions were stopping here for refreshments). Anyway, here’s the village “center”!

Look at the bird I captured unknowingly!:

The restaurant where we got our refreshments (cold drinks, and little appetizer-type foods):




View from patio area:

 

[KevieKev05]

DAY 11 - May 24th, 2011 - Cadiz, Spain (Part 5)

Details of the restaurant:

Back outside in the “center”:

Two more of my FAVORITE pictures from the whole trip!:

Making our way back to the bus:

 

[KevieKev05]

DAY 11 - May 24th, 2011 - Cadiz, Spain (Part 6)

Getting to the bus involved going down a HUGE staircase to the parking area. We all made it safe and sound and then we were on our way back to the ship. On the way back, we hit some traffic. I forgot to mention...this bus was narrower than what we’re familiar with in the United States. Also, it was a manual transmission! It was weird seeing the drift change gears, haha.

Pictures on the way back:

(Traffic light at scooter level!)

Royal Caribbean ship docked with us:

We arrived back at about 1:30 (15 minutes later than planned). We got on the ship, dropped off our stuff in our rooms, and then went up top for lunch! I then took pictures of Cadiz from the top of the ship:

After a quick lunch, we went to the Promenade Lounge to get on the Internet real quick and to take a picture of the dinner menu!

We sat around for about 10 minutes, and then James and I decided we wanted to head back out and see Cadiz! It was siesta time, which was a bummer, so no shopping for us. Looks like we would just go exploring! Mom and Dad were on the fence about going out, but ended up not joining us (which was fine because we walked. A LOT. A LOT, A LOT).

Stay tuned for our adventures in Cadiz and dinner!

 

[chiefdragon]

I am just loving your report. The pictures are amazing. Please keep going....since I will never be able to go on a 14 day curise I can have a great time reading all about yours.

I noticed in your signature line that you will be on the Dream on December 8th....it is such a small world my family will also be on the same cruise. DD (age 6) is so excited to go that she is counting down the days.

 

[iloverags2]

The wind generators are so cool! There is a stretch of I-65 in northern Indiana where you can see those for miles (found that out on a drive up to Chicago this summer). And I can’t get over how blue the skies are…beautiful!

So, in the village center of your first stop, did you purposely take the picture of “Hercules”?

Are those orange trees in the village center of the last stop? Love the view from the restaurant! Nice picture window.

Looking forward to your Cadiz exploration!

 

[Pinkocto]

Loved all the old iron work, especially the street lamps, so cool! Can't wait to hear about your Cadiz walking adventure! Now that menu looks absolutely delicious, I hope it was

 

[dvcspain]

i'm from andalusia so i know that they are orange trees, they are very common to find in the streets of our twons in the south of spain.....

 

[KevieKev05]

I am just loving your report. The pictures are amazing. Please keep going....since I will never be able to go on a 14 day curise I can have a great time reading all about yours.

I noticed in your signature line that you will be on the Dream on December 8th....it is such a small world my family will also be on the same cruise. DD (age 6) is so excited to go that she is counting down the days.

Thank you! I'm enjoying writing the report for everyone! We can't wait until the Dream cruise in December!

The wind generators are so cool! There is a stretch of I-65 in northern Indiana where you can see those for miles (found that out on a drive up to Chicago this summer). And I can’t get over how blue the skies are…beautiful!

So, in the village center of your first stop, did you purposely take the picture of “Hercules”?

Are those orange trees in the village center of the last stop? Love the view from the restaurant! Nice picture window.

Looking forward to your Cadiz exploration!

Thank you for noticing that...I forgot to explain that picture! Yes, I purposely took that picture because of "Hercules". It's a double meaning for me...one, DISNEY! Two, I named my dog "Hercules Kuzco"!

That restaurant was pretty awesome...a nice refreshment break and a nice view!

Loved all the old iron work, especially the street lamps, so cool! Can't wait to hear about your Cadiz walking adventure! Now that menu looks absolutely delicious, I hope it was

It definitely was cool! I was trying to capture as much as I could and I'm glad you enjoyed the photos with the iron work!

 

[LuvEeyore]

I am loving your report and pictures. They are beautiful and show the flavor of the port you are visiting. Cant wait for more!!

 

[KevieKev05]

I am loving your report and pictures. They are beautiful and show the flavor of the port you are visiting. Cant wait for more!!

Thank you!


I'm working on the next update...it should be up by tonight!