7/13/13 ~~ Eastern Mediterranean Mouseketeers!

[tajz90]

Although... one time on British Airways, my DH's luggage didn't arrive to his destination (he was traveling on Business to London). British Airways told him to go out and buy everything he needed to get him by for his trip (so it was all business clothes, and in London, that is not cheap), and send them the receipts, and they would reimburse him! So, in 4 hours of quick shopping, he bought a weeks worth of business clothes and spent quite a bit, and British reimbursed him 100%. But, here is the funny thing.... at the end of his trip, his luggage showed up at his hotel room!! Turns out they "misplaced" his luggage (ie, lost track of it), but they still told him to send him all his receipts and they reimbursed him for his clothes. Not sure if all airlines will do that, but we thought that was pretty good customer service!

Air France would only reimburse 50 euro per person per day when they lost very single piece of our luggage. Geez.

I wish we could have just pre purchased a weeks worth of clothing. Lucky for your husband

 

[LovesToRun]

I don't think St. John will be crowded. Not many people know about it as far as cruisers go. Even if the resort is full they can only allow so many people. In any event it will be far better than the crowded public beaches.

There were times on the Fantasy/Dream where I felt like there was no difference in crowd size compared to the Classics, but other times it felt way more packed. Cabanas buffet is an absolute zoo of people. Its much larger, but way more people. Also a zoo is the atrium in the evenings- live music, tons of pictures, characters- all this stuff going on at once its insane. The dining rooms are also much louder and larger. But other areas like the adult parts felt no more crowded to me. For me having sailed the classics 4 times and the new ones 3 times, I have pros/cons about each and now pick based on itinerary.

I thought of that, that the resort would only give out so many day passes, so you are right... even if the resort is full, it won't be crazy with crowds.

Thanks for the info on the Fantasy. I'm sure we'll find less crowded spots that will become our favorite places to hang out! It'll be a great experience all together, I'm sure. We are the same... we choose cruises for the itinerary (we just tend choose the classic ships over the big ships even if they both have itineraries we like), but we decided it wouldn't hurt to try out the Fantasy (and we'll be going to San Juan, Puerto Rico, so that is a new port, which will be fun.)

I wish Disney would come out with even more diverse itineraries. I was pretty disappointed when they moved the Wonder from LA to Miami only to sail to the same ports as the other ships. I'd love it if they did an itinerary that sailed down to Central or South America! Maybe one year! I also wish they would have sailed to Hawaii sometime that worked with our kid's school schedule, but they are at an age where it's too hard to pull them out of school for a 15 day cruise. We pulled them out of school for the January 2010 Panama Canal cruise on the Wonder, but they were in 3rd and 4th grades, so it was easier then to pull them out. But, in the fall, they will both be in Middle School, so it's just too hard to pull them out of school for any extended period of time. But, I'd LOVE to sail to Hawaii, if it worked.... and ALSO would LOOOOOVE to do the Transatlantic Crossing (my dream cruise!!) but unless they do that in August, we will have to wait until our boys are in college (at least to go with Disney).

But, we are super excited about the Med, and just the cruises we are able to do...

Air France would only reimburse 50 euro per person per day when they lost very single piece of our luggage. Geez.

I wish we could have just pre purchased a weeks worth of clothing. Lucky for your husband

I don't know if British Airways does that for all passengers whose luggage is lost, but my husband racks up a lot of miles with them, so it might be because he is the Gold tier with BA, that is why they told him to just go buy a whole weeks worth of clothes and they'd reimburse him. I have no idea.... but it was above and beyond for sure! We were really surprised they did this.

What a bummer about your luggage with Air France!!! Did they ever find it and return it to you? Hopefully they did!!!

Ok, so here's to EVERYONE in this Dis Group having *NO* luggage problems from beginning to end for this Med cruise!!

 

[LovesToRun]

Ok...based on the suggestions I bought some ebags for DS and I. DH would just complain about me spending month on something he doesn't need. He "knows" how to pack since he travels most weeks for work...blah, blah, blah.

I got one color set for me, another set for DS plus some extra slims for misc stuff and a set of 3 large in yet another color for the overnights.

DS and DH are going to Colombia for 10 days in June so that will be the perfect opportunity to try them out for DS. Also to see how many he really needs for the trip. Will plan to pack similar to our trip in July. Colors won't really matter and I'll just mix and match to get the right number for him. Then I can estimate mine too and get the rest of what I need.

As soon as I get this project for DS's school done (hopefully tonight) and then our taxes, I'll be able to get back to focusing on this trip!

Yay! You will love the cubes, I'm certain of it. If it's any consolation, when I first started talking about getting the cubes, and when my DH saw how they just add up in price, he also said he didn't need any for the same reasons... he travels a lot, has a packing system that works for him, etc.

But, when he saw how incredibly organized things we were when did our first family trip with the cubes, he changed his mind. He now loves them.

 

[WDW Princess 71]

I wish Disney would come out with even more diverse itineraries. I was pretty disappointed when they moved the Wonder from LA to Miami only to sail to the same ports as the other ships. I'd love it if they did an itinerary that sailed down to Central or South America! Maybe one year! I also wish they would have sailed to Hawaii sometime that worked with our kid's school schedule, but they are at an age where it's too hard to pull them out of school for a 15 day cruise. ALSO would LOOOOOVE to do the Transatlantic Crossing (my dream cruise!!) but unless they do that in August, we will have to wait until our boys are in college (at least to go with Disney).

I am totally on the same page with you wishing that DCL would come out with more diverse itineraries. I also would love Central or South America! Even more southern caribbean would be nice to the lesser known islands. They are doing only a few of them in Fall 2014 but they are only 7 nighters- I'd want to do at least a 10 night so it could still leave from Florida and get Castaway Cay in, plus a good number of sea days, plus the southern islands. I booked the Westbound Transatlantic for September 2014 which is 14 nights. It has a lot of new port of calls (Tenerife, Malaga, St. Kitts, Antigua) plus some repeats for me (Barcelona, St. Maarten). Doesn't stop at CC which is a bummer but does end in San Juan so overall the weather should be warmer for the crossing than on their past TAs because its ending much further south than Florida. But yea in general I definitely want more itinerary diversity. Asia would be so cool- combine with Tokyo or Shanghai Disneyland!

 

[Stimpy]

I totally agree about new itineraries! We really wanted to do Hawaii but DS is in middle school, starting high school next year and there is just no way we can take him out for that long. A transatlantic or Panama Canal cruise is also a dream trip but again, always during our school year. They also plan the DVC member cruises right at the start of the school terms so we miss out on those. I've almost been tempted to start home schooling just to make vacationing easier!

Have fun on the Fantasy! Can't wait to hear about it! I've been nervous about trying it too because of crowds. I love the Magic. We almost went on the inaugural cruise for the Fantasy with an amazing rate but backed out just because DH & I couldn't get the thought of all those people on the sea days out of our heads! I'm so glad reports have said it isn't that bad for the most part. We may break down some day

 

[LovesToRun]

I totally agree about new itineraries! We really wanted to do Hawaii but DS is in middle school, starting high school next year and there is just no way we can take him out for that long. A transatlantic or Panama Canal cruise is also a dream trip but again, always during our school year. They also plan the DVC member cruises right at the start of the school terms so we miss out on those. I've almost been tempted to start home schooling just to make vacationing easier!

Have fun on the Fantasy! Can't wait to hear about it! I've been nervous about trying it too because of crowds. I love the Magic. We almost went on the inaugural cruise for the Fantasy with an amazing rate but backed out just because DH & I couldn't get the thought of all those people on the sea days out of our heads! I'm so glad reports have said it isn't that bad for the most part. We may break down some day

I hear you on all your points on the not being able to go on the fun and different itineraries because they only have them during school. I keep holding on that they will announce some really great new itinerary in a totally different part of the world (when school is not in session!). I know... the people who home-school are lucky because they have the ability to do some of these longer more unique itineraries... On the Panama Canal cruise, there was a large group of home-schoolers that I saw get together each day and their kids all did homework. It was pretty cool. My kids brought homework from school with them, so they did homework, too. But, the homeschoolers kind of formed a bond.

I will let you all know about how our Fantasy cruise was. In all honesty, I've been SO consumed with planning the Med cruise that I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the Fantasy cruise. But, I did book an excursion, and we are going Ziplining in Puerto Rico, so that will be a ton of fun!! We did that in Mexico (on the Disney Mexican Riviera cruise), and it was awesome! I'm also just excited to see the new ship and see how it compares to the classic ships, and also the Aqua Duck will be fun. We did not book the French restaurant on the Fantasy (I think it's called, Remy?). It is SO expensive!! I figured it out that with dinner and wine & gratuity, we'd be paying over $200 for that dinner... so we're just doing Palo and the MDR's for dinner.

Well, I'll get to come back and get all caught up on all the latest Mediterranean Cruise discussions here, so that will be fun!

 

[tajz90]

Anyone else getting random cruise confirmations? I keep getting an email from Disney saying congrats for booking this cruise. It's weird.

 

[CaptainandTennille]

Anyone else getting random cruise confirmations? I keep getting an email from Disney saying congrats for booking this cruise. It's weird.

I got one too! Do you have a GTY? Maybe they are assigning cabins? I'm sure they have people placed long before they let us know!

 

[tajz90]

I got one too! Do you have a GTY? Maybe they are assigning cabins? I'm sure they have people placed long before they let us know!

Nope. We have a cabin booked since opening day. We haven't made changes or been on the website adding excursions, nothing. It's weird and scares me every time. haha. I keep thinking somehow the reservations been changed (even canceled) and we are just out of luck.

 

[WDW Princess 71]

We did not book the French restaurant on the Fantasy (I think it's called, Remy?). It is SO expensive!! I figured it out that with dinner and wine & gratuity, we'd be paying over $200 for that dinner... so we're just doing Palo and the MDR's for dinner.

I would reconsider skipping Remy. It is so incredibly fantastic. Its really the one feature of the Dream/Fantasy that I'm seriously bummed that the classic ships don't have- I've had dinner there twice now and both have been some of the best meals of my life. I am a total foodie, love trying new things and multiple tasting courses, so for me it was a dream. And the $75 price tag is really a bargain if you compare it to a similar experience on land--similar to Victoria and Albert's which I've done and I believe is now at least $125/pp, and multi-course tasting menus like Remy in big cities around the world that I've done are easily $150-$200 pp. For these reasons I will do it on every cruise that is at least 4 nights or longer from now on. I also tried the Remy brunch on my last cruise and that was also fantastic, dinner is still my favorite but I would do brunch again in a heartbeat as well.

 

[Stimpy]

I got the email today too. I was wondering why. Very strange!

 

[buddwaur]

Nope. We have a cabin booked since opening day. We haven't made changes or been on the website adding excursions, nothing. It's weird and scares me every time. haha. I keep thinking somehow the reservations been changed (even canceled) and we are just out of luck.

In the last two days, I've gotten two emails from Disney also congratulating us on our cruise reservations also!! I did get a little paranoid myself thinking that somehow our cruise was cancelled! Phew! Was so relieved when that wasn't the case!

Those emails though made me realize that I need to start finalizing some of our port excursions! So many choices but I'm worried about overdoing it too early in the cruise and having crabby children. I also tend to get migraines and being overtired is not good for me! Just wished I could fastforward and see how quickly everyone gets over the jetlag! It would make planning less stressful! At this time, I only have Rome and Turkey private excursions booked.

 

[Amy Fran]

There were times on the Fantasy/Dream where I felt like there was no difference in crowd size compared to the Classics, but other times it felt way more packed. Cabanas buffet is an absolute zoo of people. Its much larger, but way more people. Also a zoo is the atrium in the evenings- live music, tons of pictures, characters- all this stuff going on at once its insane. The dining rooms are also much louder and larger. But other areas like the adult parts felt no more crowded to me. For me having sailed the classics 4 times and the new ones 3 times, I have pros/cons about each and now pick based on itinerary.

When we sailed the Fantasy last spring, the adult areas were packed in the evenings! Several times we had to sit in a neighboring area (which was also crowded) & watch the performers via satellite TV. Maybe our sailing had more adults than normal or better performers than normal, but it was horrible.

 

[WDW Princess 71]

When we sailed the Fantasy last spring, the adult areas were packed in the evenings! Several times we had to sit in a neighboring area (which was also crowded) & watch the performers via satellite TV. Maybe our sailing had more adults than normal or better performers than normal, but it was horrible.

On our Fantasy cruise I think they anticipated having so many adults that all but the first night's adult shows were scheduled for the big theater instead of the Tube. They did that on my Panama Canal Wonder cruise a few years ago also. It seems to be hit or miss how many adults are on each cruise- on my 2 Dream cruises, I had plenty of lounge chairs to choose from but on my Fantasy cruise, it was hard to find one in the sun for just myself, can't imagine even finding 2 chairs together.

My worst experience with disproportional adults was definitely the 2011 Panama cruise. There were only like 200 kids on board because it was in January post holiday season and no one wanted to take their kids out of school. I really loved this cruise, amazing PC experience and wonderful ports and excursions, but the only downside was definitely the number of adults. You had to get up at 7:00 AM to go save a pool chair with your stuff on it. If you didnt and came down later in the morning, you were out of luck. I know saving is not allowed and I didnt do it for the first 2 days and then realized if I didnt join the game, i'd never get a seat at the pool the whole trip, so I gave in. All of the adult areas were always crowded. Plus many of them were "psycho DISers" taking obsession with DCL to a whole new level. I'm all for being Disney passionate- I totally describe myself that way- but many of these people took it way too far. Specifically with pin collecting. On this cruise there were special port pins for each of the 6 ports as a matching Panama cruise set. DCL should have made sure that each person had the chance to buy at least one set for himself, but of course they didnt do it that way- they did the "limited edition" thing and didnt factor in the greedy people buying multiples for themselves to sell back at home. So the lines for "camping out" for the pins literally would be HOURS long. it would stretch from the stores, back to the theaters, then around the other way all the way to the atrium. This went on for each of the ports, average waiting in line for 2 hours each time on my vacation and still I barely was able to get them all--thankfully we had an awesome dinner table and between the 8 of us, we were able to trade with each other the ones we may have gotten extra for the ones we may have missed and vice versa. Because apparently waiting in line for "only" 2 hours wasn't enough- there were many DISers who literally camped outside the store ALL NIGHT. Hopefully DCL has learned from this disaster and won't do this again, because I'm on the 14 night Transatlantic next Fall and I'm sure that one is also going to be disproportionately full of adults due to falling at the beginning of the school year.

 

[CaptainandTennille]

On our Fantasy cruise I think they anticipated having so many adults that all but the first night's adult shows were scheduled for the big theater instead of the Tube. They did that on my Panama Canal Wonder cruise a few years ago also. It seems to be hit or miss how many adults are on each cruise- on my 2 Dream cruises, I had plenty of lounge chairs to choose from but on my Fantasy cruise, it was hard to find one in the sun for just myself, can't imagine even finding 2 chairs together.

My worst experience with disproportional adults was definitely the 2011 Panama cruise. There were only like 200 kids on board because it was in January post holiday season and no one wanted to take their kids out of school. I really loved this cruise, amazing PC experience and wonderful ports and excursions, but the only downside was definitely the number of adults. You had to get up at 7:00 AM to go save a pool chair with your stuff on it. If you didnt and came down later in the morning, you were out of luck. I know saving is not allowed and I didnt do it for the first 2 days and then realized if I didnt join the game, i'd never get a seat at the pool the whole trip, so I gave in. All of the adult areas were always crowded. Plus many of them were "psycho DISers" taking obsession with DCL to a whole new level. I'm all for being Disney passionate- I totally describe myself that way- but many of these people took it way too far. Specifically with pin collecting. On this cruise there were special port pins for each of the 6 ports as a matching Panama cruise set. DCL should have made sure that each person had the chance to buy at least one set for himself, but of course they didnt do it that way- they did the "limited edition" thing and didnt factor in the greedy people buying multiples for themselves to sell back at home. So the lines for "camping out" for the pins literally would be HOURS long. it would stretch from the stores, back to the theaters, then around the other way all the way to the atrium. This went on for each of the ports, average waiting in line for 2 hours each time on my vacation and still I barely was able to get them all--thankfully we had an awesome dinner table and between the 8 of us, we were able to trade with each other the ones we may have gotten extra for the ones we may have missed and vice versa. Because apparently waiting in line for "only" 2 hours wasn't enough- there were many DISers who literally camped outside the store ALL NIGHT. Hopefully DCL has learned from this disaster and won't do this again, because I'm on the 14 night Transatlantic next Fall and I'm sure that one is also going to be disproportionately full of adults due to falling at the beginning of the school year.

I did the Dec 2012 Panama Cruise. There were a lot more adults than children, I think we had about 300 kids which was great for my three! They got a lot more attention. I think DCL might have learned from your cruise because I didn't see anything like that on this sailing. We did have more of a mature crowd, your Transatlantic will probably be similar

 

[FloridaMom3461]

Just booked our last port....after so many months of planning - what a relief! Now I'm really excited!
Randi

 

[ynspire]

Just starting our excursion planning and loving all the great information here - thanks everyone! Please add us to the roll-call.

ynspire (Yvonne), with DH Blair, DS (Blake, 9), and DD (Ariane, 9) from British Columbia, Canada, First Seating, Stateroom 7094, yes to Fish Extender.

 

[tinkerbelltwins]

Just starting our excursion planning and loving all the great information here - thanks everyone! Please add us to the roll-call.

ynspire (Yvonne), with DH Blair, DS (Blake, 9), and DD (Ariane, 9) from British Columbia, Canada, First Seating, Stateroom 7094, yes to Fish Extender.

Welcome Aboard! You've been added to the Roll Call!

 

[buddwaur]

Our party consists of 7: Buddwaur - (Sophia), DH (Robert), DS (Nikos, age 16), DS (Zack, age 14), DS (Mikey, age 12). Also traveling with us will be my twin sister (Tia) and my mom (Eleni). We are from the Raleigh area. Two staterooms on deck 2 and Second seating.

Hi Tinkerbelltwins!

I'm not sure we have been added to the rollcall. When you have a chance, could you please add us! Thank you!

 

[drlaurafsu]

Did a little shopping this weekend for the cruise. Got a really cute linen tunic top (marine blue and white) and an eyelet beach coverup. Talking to the sales person gave me an idea...a tank and capris with the eyelet top might be perfect for church excursions and keep me from having to pack something extra.

Just wanted to pass along the fashion idea.