2020 13 day Mediterranean cruise

[jo128]

Has anyone taken the Magic for this cruise? starts in Rome, several stops in Greece, back to Italy, then Canne and finally Barcellona. I'm going with my daughter and 2 granddaughters 8 and 15 at time of sailing. Any tips? I'm excited about booking this trip, tho I want to make sure all our expectations are met...

 

[Ladybugx87]

It's bound to be a great trip - we are on this cruise with you with my parents, my husband, and our daughters (10 and almost 6 at time of sailing). There are a few of us over in the cruise meets group.

We have taken the Magic before but never this itinerary- it's been a few years since DCL has been in Greece.

 

[Marc D]

I don’t think Magic has been to Greece in the last 5 years, so any experience will not be up to date.

 

[lilsonicfan]

I bet it will be amazing!!! I wanted to book when the three Greek cruises were released but ended up going with NCL instead due to massive, massive savings. I am still interested in what everyone plans to do in the ports though, maybe I'll pop into the cruise meet thread.

 

[aggiedog]

I'm curious, what are your expectations? Hard to know if they'll be met if we don't know what they are.

I've been on the Magic for a Baltic cruise, and we used MSC for the Med due to the aforementioned "massive, massive" savings (ain't that the truth! lol ) Both were great family vacations.

 

[CM Dad]

My wife and I booked a DCL Mediterranean cruise for August 2016 that was round trip from Barcelona that was supposed to include Malta, Greece and Turkey. In December 2015, we were informed by DCL that they had dropped those ports and were staying in the western Mediterranean. We thought about cancelling, since Greece and Turkey were part of the reason we booked the cruise, but we had never been to the Med, so we decided to do the cruise anyway. Can't help with Greece part of the cruise. We did find that the weather was very hot, and my wife has mobility issues, and getting around some of the ports was not easy. Many of the excursions did require a long bus ride to get from the port to the city. Since many of these port days are long due to the extra transportation time, you might want to consider late dining.

 

[J1spike3]

Has anyone taken the Magic for this cruise? starts in Rome, several stops in Greece, back to Italy, then Canne and finally Barcellona. I'm going with my daughter and 2 granddaughters 8 and 15 at time of sailing. Any tips? I'm excited about booking this trip, tho I want to make sure all our expectations are met...

We are on this cruise as well. Been on many Disney cruises but never in Europe. Lived overseas many years ago and do know that you can expect a Great deal of walking and long days. Our boys will be 19,17 and 16 next summer. Plan a few half day tours and dont try to "do it all"

 

[tidefan]

We are on this cruise as well. Can’t wait!

I think the most interesting port is Sardinia as it doesn’t seem as though a lot of ships stop there...

 

[aggiedog]

What I learned from our Baltic DCL cruise - don't pay for ship's excursions. We did half DCL and half private vendors arranged thru research on TripAdvisor. Our family decided the non-DCL ones were hands down better - longer with better use of port time, more nimble in traffic in small vans and able to stop for a coffee or ice cream break if needed, and usually significantly cheaper. What I learned from our MSC Med cruise - it's HOT on the Med. Don't plan long days every day, and do plan on doing laundry.

FWIW, I loved Sardinia. We did a tour up to the interior of the island, had a traditional meal at a B&B, then went to a small pocket beach the locals use. Beautiful island!

 

[kiford]

We did the 2013 Med cruise which was 11 days: Barcelona->Villefranche->La Spezia (Florence/Pisa)->Civitavecchia (Rome)->Piraeus (Athens)->Kusadasi, Turkey->Mykonos->Malta->Barcelona. This was our second DCL Med cruise (first one was 10 day in 2010) and both were on the Magic which is our favourite ship. We loved it. All of the tours were fantastic. We did all DCL tours and for the most part booked those that were the longest so we'd have as much time in the ports as possible. The major drawback to a Med cruise is that the interesting things to see are typically 1-2 hours away by bus or train so they are long days with lots of travelling. If you are on your own, you have to make sure to give yourself a very good padding of time to get back to the ship as traffic, especially at the end of the day, can be insane, you can't anticipate accidents, late trains, etc. and even more time if you have to take a tender. A friend of mine nearly missed his ship in Livorno (not on Disney) because they mis-timed their train from Pisa, then got on the wrong bus and ended up having to get two taxis (he was with extended family) to get them to the port. They got there just in time - he still does excursions on his own but he is uber-conservative with his time calculations now and is constantly watching the clock.

Also, if you are going out on your own, make sure you purchase tickets to popular things online in advance. On our first Med cruise, we had booked a DCL tour to see David at the Accademia in Florence because I wanted to guarantee we'd see it (plus there were other parts of the tour I wanted). We were on the tender back to our ship in the evening and heard another passenger telling someone about how they had taken the very first tender that morning, took the train to Florence, went right to the Accademia to get tickets for David and were told that the first time she could get them was for 6 pm that night (last tender left at 7 pm). It never occurred to her that she could have arranged tickets online in advance. We purchased tickets for pretty much every major thing we wanted to see last year for our Italy trip. Granted it was 8 years later, but the ability to buy online wasn't new. Even last year, there were a lot of people in line to purchase tickets for every major museum we went to. I'm not sure they all got in.

Our first Med cruise had a day at sea at the beginning and end of the cruise and port days back to back in between. It was exhausting. The 2013 one had at sea days scattered throughout the time which was much better. There are fewer children on board which means there is more demand for the adult-only loungers and chairs in the adults-only pool area but we spent a lot of our free time in the Cove Cafe anyway so we were OK with that. We still managed some pool time. I'm not sure when your trip is, but our 2013 one was in early July and it was HOT! Temperatures in Turkey and Athens were 42C (108F) and other places were 35-40C (95-104F) often with little shade. Fortunately, the buses were air conditioned and the DCL tours we took they did provide water bottles. If you are on your own, make sure you take a refillable water bottle with you and fill up whenever possible.

I'm not sure what your expectations are, so I can't speak to whether they will be met or not but we thought both Med cruises were amazing. It was what led us to plan last year's Italy trip (which we ended up going with friends who we met as tablemates on our 2013 Med cruise). It gave us a chance to do reconnaissance on places we wanted to return to - several of which we included in last year's Italy trip - and places that I wanted to visit but had no interest in staying for a long period of time (e.g., Mykonos).

 

[Anna Chassereau]

I bet it will be amazing!!! I wanted to book when the three Greek cruises were released but ended up going with NCL instead due to massive, massive savings. I am still interested in what everyone plans to do in the ports though, maybe I'll pop into the cruise meet thread.

We booked a Mediterranean cruise with NCL as well for June 2020...I REALLY wanted to book the Magic but just couldn’t talk my husband into spending so much more to cruise with Disney! We got a great price with NCL ($4,500 for 2 adults, 1 child) for a 7 night western Mediterranean round trip out of Rome. I’m super excited but will also really miss all the Disney magic and special touches!! Hope you have a great cruise!

 

[PirateFrank]

we're sailing on this cruise as well. Looking forward to meeting everyone!