Questions for past Med cruisers....

[simbasmom2]

Great hotel suggestions. I like the Marriott Renaissance & how close it is to airport. We are a family of 4 so I will book something early & keep checking.

Do you automatically get an airport hotel, or any hotel for that matter, just by booking airfare through DCL? I know it includes ground transfers and that sounds like our best bet.
I have been to Europe 2x and know we'll eventually adjust to the new time zone but of course back then I was in my early 20's and did 3 hrs/week of aerobics. Seems like a lifetime ago. I did a 14 nt. Perillo tour of Italy with a college friend & we did stay awake but mentally dragging.

Dh & I did 12 nts in Ireland for our honeymoon & we slept once we got there.
Both times worked out fine but neither time did we have kids so that's my concern.
I like the idea of waking up extra early every day so we're a little closer to Barcelona time by the time we fly.

Dh's big concern is that no one will speak English. Is it hard to find English speaking hotel employees? I worry about email the hotel & if they'll be able to read my emails. I recall very few that spoke English at hotels in Italy but we had a tour guide to simply hand out hotel keys to the group, help us get cold medicine at a pharmacy, etc. We always had someone taking care of things for us.
I just don't want to feel totally lost once we arrive and have dh say I told you so.
I'm a Disboards planner; I will win!

I am curious about this, too

 

[tufbuf]

Great hotel suggestions. I like the Marriott Renaissance & how close it is to airport. We are a family of 4 so I will book something early & keep checking.

Do you automatically get an airport hotel, or any hotel for that matter, just by booking airfare through DCL? I know it includes ground transfers and that sounds like our best bet.
I have been to Europe 2x and know we'll eventually adjust to the new time zone but of course back then I was in my early 20's and did 3 hrs/week of aerobics. Seems like a lifetime ago. I did a 14 nt. Perillo tour of Italy with a college friend & we did stay awake but mentally dragging.

Dh & I did 12 nts in Ireland for our honeymoon & we slept once we got there.
Both times worked out fine but neither time did we have kids so that's my concern.
I like the idea of waking up extra early every day so we're a little closer to Barcelona time by the time we fly.

Dh's big concern is that no one will speak English. Is it hard to find English speaking hotel employees? I worry about email the hotel & if they'll be able to read my emails. I recall very few that spoke English at hotels in Italy but we had a tour guide to simply hand out hotel keys to the group, help us get cold medicine at a pharmacy, etc. We always had someone taking care of things for us.
I just don't want to feel totally lost once we arrive and have dh say I told you so.
I'm a Disboards planner; I will win!

Hotel employees where we stayed speak English and quite well. The local vendors probably speak little or no English. We can get by with the Spanish we know so it's all good.

 

[uncw89]

These are all great tips!! Keep them coming!

 

[tufbuf]

This is good advice Actually I have travelled to Europe quite a bit to visit family. What I do is a few days before I leave is wake up earlier and earlier. So on the day of the trip I am up around 3am. Then on the plane you are exhausted. You should sleep at least 5 hours. Once you hit the ground keep going! DO NOT STOP! If you do you will get jet lag. Then go to bet a an early but reasonable time, like 9, 10 pm and get a great nights sleep for like 9 hours and you will be great fro the vacation!

We stayed at the AC diplomatic. We got a book in advance rate for 120E and the hotel was amazing! So keep shopping and book in advance because if you don't mind prepaying you'll see you can find some reasonable deals.

That is a great idea but I guess it will work (waking up early) if you live in the east since BCN is just 6 hours ahead time wise. Here in the west, they are 9 hours ahead, we would have to sleep through the afternoon and up by midnight to make it work.

 

[shoes99]

We did the Baltics in 2010 with Princess (Disney was $2000 more). We are over 65, took the red eye into Copenhagen from Newark via SAS Economy Plus. Arrived in the AM and checked into an airport hotel around 10AM local time, upgraded to club level at check-in at a reduced rate, went to the lounge as our room was not ready. DH collapsed on the couch and I had some breakfast. Waited about an hour and got a room. DH wanted to sleep so he slept from 12 noon local time until 6PM. We ate in the hotel and then went back to the room still tired. We went to sleep at a reasonable local time and in the am we were OK and took the cruiseline transfers to the ship. I was disappointed that we did not see Copenhagen but in the long run, DH was ready for the port intensive Baltics cruise. We are booked for the 12 night med with Venice in June 2013 so at our age I'm not sure what we will do pre or post cruise yet.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

One more question, kinda silly....

For those of you who used DCL transportation, was it a real DCL bus? Or did they hire a company in Spain to run their buses? I'm just curious if it will be our ol familiar buses.

I explained the flight times to our boys, 15 & 11.5. They are so excited they don't care if it feels like 2:30am when we arrive. They want to tour Barcelona.

It will all work out. I just worry too much.

 

[tufbuf]

It's a chartered bus but DCL employees are ever present to send us off and receive us at the port.

It will take a while before your luggage get to your room though since the porter system is probably not as streamlined as in the DCL port in PC. At least in our Med cruise, it took a while before our luggage was dropped off in our room and we left the port of BCN later than I thought we would.

 

[mindelmouse]

We'll be looking for a hotel in BCN that will accommodate the four of us in a single room. When we went in 2007, we booked the air/hotel portion through DCL late and all of their available accommodations for 4 in a room were long gone - so our price doubled for hotel. But if we end up having to do two rooms, well, I guess that's what we'll do.

As for the dining question, we had main seating in 2007 and found that on the days that the ship was in port later, they adjusted the seating time... so instead of seating at 6 p.m., they moved it to 6:30. We found the same thing on the Baltic - or if the time didn't change, they would still seat you later than seating time (it's like they knew what excursions you were booked on and that you'd be late getting back). We also found that on both the Med and Baltic that dress was a lot more casual - they were absolutely happy to seat and feed you in the dining room even if you literally got on the ship, washed your hands, and came on in straight from your excursion. It was a completely different vibe than on the Caribbean cruises we've done. We also found that being a longer cruise, dining seemed so much more relaxed.

The normal hotels don't sleep 4 in a room. When we did the med last time.. we found the hotel porta marina. The rooms were large and modern and slept 4 comfortably and it was very affordable. My only comment is that it was in an area that was being regentrified and wasn't close to the "action". We were 4 blocks from the beach though, but were really too tired to go. We liked the hotel, not the location so much. Also many stayed at the novotel. If you want to be in the heart of the action in Barcelona, it will be more expensive.

 

[wrennies]

To the question of english speaking employees....the marriott concierge spoke extremely good english and most of the employees did speak pretty good english. We did not have any problems at the hotel. Our problems came in the cities looking for the train stations...

 

[abdmom]

We did the Baltics in 2010. We are over 65, took the red eye into Copenhagen from Newark via SAS Economy Plus. Arrived in the AM and checked into an airport hotel around 10AM local time, upgraded to club level at check-in at a reduced rate, went to the lounge as our room was not ready. DH collapsed on the couch and I had some breakfast. Waited about an hour and got a room. DH wanted to sleep so he slept from 12 noon local time until 6PM. We ate in the hotel and then went back to the room still tired. We went to sleep at a reasonable local time and in the am we were OK and took the cruiseline transfers to the ship. I was disappointed that we did not see Copenhagen but in the long run, DH was ready for the port intensive Baltics cruise. We are booked for the 12 night med with Venice in June 2013 so at our age I'm not sure what we will do pre or post cruise yet.

We did something similar. We arrived at the hotel around 2 pm after a long stopover at CDG. We ordered room service at 3:30 pm. I hit the sack at 6 pm and woke up the next morning at 8 a.m., ready to go. Two of the kids went to bed at 8 pm and woke up shortly after me. DS14 went to bed even later - around 11 pm and had problems with jet lag.

 

[lmb]

We flew in with 2 young children and my mom from philly last year and arrived just 1 day early. They had our room ready and we slept for several hours when we arrived (well before noon). This was enough to let us catch up on sleep and get used to the new time zone.We stayed at the Hesperia Ramblas which was highly rated on trip advisor (now it's #33) but it was affordable and in a good location to walk around if you want to see some sight but not do heavy duty sight-seeing the day you arrive. Also, someone gave us the tip to walk to the cruise ship bus at the end of the ramblas which we did so we saved on a taxi for 5.