7/25/2013 Med. Mickey's 12 Night Italian Job - with Nice, Valletta and Dubrov !

[helenreed]

Yes we certainly will be. We did 2 days per and 3 post cruise last year. Barcelona was a real highlight of the trip, there is so much to do and see!

 

[Melcatfish]

Helen where did you stay in Barcelona?

Mel
x

 

[Figment_Fan]

GarakDS9, glad you answered Melcatfish's question. I haven't used a TA in years. Generally go straight through Disney for any reservations.

Okay, I must admit I'm nervous about language barriers. I only speak English - yeah, the US Midwestern version. Took 2 years of Spanish, 2 years of French, 3 years of Latin and 4 years of piano. Can't speak Spanish, French, and who ever speaks Latin, and I can't even play chopsticks.

How much of a problem would this be for staying extra in Barcelona??

Went to Italy ~30 years ago. Did not have any real problems with language barriers. Picked up a functional amount of Italian as well. All gone now. My nervousness has come with age and teaching old dogs like me any new tricks. I was much younger and more fearless back then. Also, the brain was much more flexible.

 

[GarakDS9]

How much of a problem would this be for staying extra in Barcelona??

We stayed 2 days prior and 1 day post cruise. We do not speak Spanish and DW can get very anxious over language barriers and we were fine. Generally on a cruise she prefers to only use Disney excursions (working on changing this aspect of her personality) In Barcelona we roamed all over on our own with DS 11 at time. It is a really great city. My research indicated to be very aware of pick-pockets but we never even felt threatened by that while we were there. All menus have pictures to point at and most vendors tried to accommodate or outright speak English.

 

[helenreed]

We stayed at the Hotel Diagonal Zero pre-cruise and an apartment in Eixample post cruise. We have 3 kids so it is really difficult finding anywhere without having to book 3 rooms! The apartment option is great but generally has to be booked for a min of 3 nights. I booked a year in advance last time but for next year I am going to wing it and try and get a last minute deal.
Language was not a problem at all, kids pick it up really quickly, just get them to order everything!

 

[GarakDS9]

I've been busy trying to iron out the details of this summer's vacation. However, I just realized that I should iron out the pre/post days of Med. 2013 relatively soon. The legacy airlines will be releasing July 2013 schedule in about 3 months.

Domestically I like to fly JB and SW. With them you usually have to pounce on flights when their schedule is released or watch the prices soar. Does anyone know/feel that it will be the same for trips to Europe? My Med. in 2010 was last minute and I was just thrilled to just catch a flight.

 

[starmaker]

Hi GarakDS9

We live in the UK so it's a short hop for us to Barcelona, we will however book these flights as soon as they become available. Whenever we travel to the USA we also tend to book the flights as soon as we can. The reason for this is we always travel in UK school holiday time, flights at this time are always expensive and very rarely, if ever go down in price the longer you leave it. School hols in the UK run from mid July to beginning of September approx and from June to August in Scotland. It's always "peak season" during these dates and prices will reflect this My advice (for what it's worth!) is to get those flights booked asap!

 

[GarakDS9]

Hi GarakDS9

We live in the UK so it's a short hop for us to Barcelona, we will however book these flights as soon as they become available. Whenever we travel to the USA we also tend to book the flights as soon as we can. The reason for this is we always travel in UK school holiday time, flights at this time are always expensive and very rarely, if ever go down in price the longer you leave it. School hols in the UK run from mid July to beginning of September approx and from June to August in Scotland. It's always "peak season" during these dates and prices will reflect this My advice (for what it's worth!) is to get those flights booked asap!

Thanks for the information on holiday time in the UK. It looks like I'll be planning 2 trips this month. Next year and this year.

 

[K8T]

I agree, book the flights sooner rather than later, they rarely go down!!

Just for info. we stayed in the Novotel City twice, which is a good hotel, modern and clean, but a metro ride into town. There is however a shopping mall over the road - with a Disney shop and a large supermarket and wine specialist - which was handy.

Third time we stayed down towards the centre of town at AC Diplomat, which was very convenient. The rooms were a bit dated, but clean and there was a free minibar. DCL also used this hotel, but we booked direct and it was half their price. Again, booking well ahead, will usually give good 'early booking' discounts. I think we will probably go for this again. We got a taxi to the port, which was around 30euros.

This week I am trying to sort out a holiday for this year, but not sure what to do, any help would be appreciated!!

Booked WDW Beach Club (with free dining) for 10 days mid July, but worried it will be far too hot and busy, so thinking about moving it to October!

Or.... doing the Magic out of New York, spending a couple of days pre-cruise in the city, before sailing down to Cape Canaveral for day in WDW and then onto Nassu and Castaway Cay.

Or..... Princess cruise - 12 nights, from Venice sailing Greek islands, plus a few other places, back to Rome. Bearing in mind we have done all the stops before - several times - and will be doing Venice yet again next year.

They will all be similar prices, maybe the Princess cruise will be slightly cheaper, but worried it will be a bit middle aged and won't compare to DCL!!!

Any ideas/thoughts?

Kate

 

[GarakDS9]

Any ideas/thoughts?

Kate

Check out DCL to Alaska. We did this last August and it was just as great as our Med. cruise but for different reasons. The only problem with this year is they leave from Seattle instead of Vancouver and you miss a little of the inside passage. Next year they are back in Vancouver but we will be in the Med. together. We had several UK residents on our trip last year in fact we sat with wonderful table mates from the UK.

 

[jdybnsn]

Sorry to say we have decided since our B2B cruise in February, to jump this particular ship...

We have reluctantly concluded that the price is just unrealistic for us ......especially when I've been watching bargains appear elsewhere this year ; just yesterday I saw a deal for 16th nights from Southhampton (so no flights !) on the Azura (including Venice & Dubrovnik and Korcula amongst others) 30th March for £1099 for a balcony cabin, over the school holidays.. ...just a pity DH has zero holiday entitlement left that is not already committed and/or taken.

However, I will be keeping a close eye on this DCL cruise price... in the event of any substancial discounting over the next 16 months I could be tempted to rebook...so you never know.

I thought I'd leave you, with my recommendations or Dubrovnik having spent a week there a couple of years back;

- Walk the old town city walls, and be sure to take first the challenge of finding (!), and then visiting, the Buza bar (there's Buza1 and Buza 2, but 1 is best) whilst doing so !!!
Visiting the Buza bar (especially to see the sun setting over the sea, if you get the chance) is 'the' trendy and "hip" thing to say you did whilst in Dubrovnik !
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attrac...rovnik_Dubrovnik_Neretva_County_Dalmatia.html

-Take the cable car up the mountain above the town, for some breath taking views.

- Visit the pretty island /town of Korcula, the birth place of Marco Polo (if there is a DCL excursion - as doing it on your own may be a little risky, as its 1 to 2 hours away by boat ) ....but not at the expense of not spending time in Dubrovnik Old Town.

Dubrovnik Old Town is beautiful - a bit like a mini Venice without the canals - you will see that there are very similar influences in both places as they were both part of the old trading routes.

Hope you all have a really great cruise !!!

 

[Figment_Fan]

Sorry you won't be with us Jdybnsn. But, keep looking, you may be back. We're still debating on scheduling the flights and travel through Disney. I know it's more expensive, but, like you wife, I'm leaning a little on the cautious side with the trip and excursions.

One of my co-workers just got back from Italy 2 days ago. She had problems with 2 of her excursions. Both in Rome. She cruise a lot, and stated she was lucky that they were on their own on a land trip, as she might have missed the boat not once, but twice, had it been a cruise. She has witnessed people missing the boat before.

She even saw the ship she was on back up, only to find out, the person was stopping the wrong ship. I can't even believe they stopped the ship! I thought they weren't supposed to do that. Then again, she goes on 1 to 3 cruises a year. She finds the best deals. And, yes, I have been watching closely. It appears to be a combination of luck, timing, and searching on a daily basis.

 

[DukeBombay]

Hello all,

We booked this cruise while on the Dream March 9-12 for the four nighter to the Bahamas. I have always wanted to do the Med and we now feel our youngest will be old enough to remember the experience. On the cruise will be me (Chris), DW (Kelly), and at the time DD14 (Maeve) and DD7 (Moira).

Shore excursions look like they will take some more planning than the usual Caribbean island. More expensive as well! Thankfully we have 16 months to figure all of that out. I am also looking forward to the sea days crusing on the Med hopefully in sight of land (but not too close).

Can't wait to follow this thread as we get closer to the cruise.

Chris.

 

[GarakDS9]

Welcome DukeBombay

I am pretty anxious to get involved in some of the planning already as well. Just tonight I was playing around with this year's airfare prices as a point of comparison for next year.

 

[DukeBombay]

GarakDS9,

Yes planning needs to start soon. We have to figure out how much walking a 7 year old can do because that will impact on our excursions.

How did you enjoy the Mexican Riveria cruise? We did it last year on the Wonder and had a great time.

 

[starmaker]

Hi DukeBombay -Welcome aboard!

We did the 10 night med last year and had a fantastic time. We did book our excursions through Disney and actually waited until we boarded to do so and I'm glad we did. As a family we don't normally do early mornings whilst on holiday but when we talked to the cast member about various trips - quite a few came back very, very close to the all aboard time. She did say the ship will of course wait for us if we were delayed for any reason as it was a DCL excursion but I would've worried too much, so decided to go for the earlier options, which was probably better anyway with the heat etc. We too have a dd who will be 14 when we sail next summer - she had a fantastic time with Helenreed's dd who is also on this sailing too. Your girls will have amazing time on this trip

 

[GarakDS9]

GarakDS9,

Yes planning needs to start soon. We have to figure out how much walking a 7 year old can do because that will impact on our excursions.

How did you enjoy the Mexican Riveria cruise? We did it last year on the Wonder and had a great time.

MR cruise was awesome. I still can't get over how nice Cabo was. Images of Land's End and the Arch are still stuck in my head. Another thing that was great was seeing all the whales from the ship. It saved on paying for an excursion. I am glad that we "snuck" it in because it looks like DCL is ending it after this year.

 

[DisneyDadFla]

Hello Everyone,

My family will be going on our first Disney cruise on May 14th. My daughter is 6, and look forward to making new friends. We are Disney fanatics, if you want to hears some Disney tunes such as music you will hear while on the boat go to d-cot.com. Look forward to meeting everyone.

 

[Figment_Fan]

Welcome!

A, 16 months, it was seventeen, umm, a, umm, another month slipped by????

On the one hand that is very good, on the other, the planning/saving to pay for it hand, oh boy.

This should be a very fun trip. I can't wait to spend 12 days cruising!

 

[GarakDS9]

I just heard from the family that was our dining room mates on our very first cruise (ironically in the Med.). They are on their way to the Fantasy inaugural this weekend. They think that they may book this itinerary OB. That would be neat.