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

[MeeskaMooska13]

Quick question from a "first timer": do you have to complete the online check-in before you can book your excursions? Still have 2 weeks until it's my "turn"!

 

[vegasgo]

Hello fellow cruisers, glad to be back after a Disney Med cruise in 2010 - loved it.

Hoping to book for this one soon - has anyone got a good deal from UK sites? Cruise Direct appear the best option at the moment. We live in Southend and can get a flight from Southend Airport to Barcelona for £150 each - literally from leaving home to stepping on board the ship in about 4 hours!

Re internet connection, have read a lot about this on here. Last time on board the connection was slow and very expensive. From memory, there is free wifi at Vilefranche and Malta ports, plus a cheap internet cafe at Naples. There are probably others too.

Cheers guys.

 

[disneycrazy2004]

Quick question from a "first timer": do you have to complete the online check-in before you can book your excursions? Still have 2 weeks until it's my "turn"!

No, you don't . You can book excursions first and then do the check - in. If you want a certain Port Arrival Time you should check in first, but if excursions are more important then book those first And you can do both at 12 am ET
Good Luck

 

[Pavilion 2000]

Yay, got the two shore excursions we wanted. Couldn't get Palo brunch as no availability on any days for the 4 of us. Still some availability for the first 2 sea days for 2 people, but none left on last sea day. Happy booking

Well, I was up at 12am and was able to book some excursions (pizza making at Naples, and special vatican tour with rome on our own in Rome), and spa appointments. We're skipping Palo this time around.

I wasn't able to get the Doge Palace with Princess event after all, it was sold out. Oh well, I guess it wasn't meant to be, which meant I was able to book more spa appointments!

So, in Venice, we're going it alone... I booked a mask decorating class for 3pm and then a walking ghost tour at 8pm. Figured we'll decorate the masks, head back to the ship for dinner and drop off our daughter at the kids club before DH and I head to the ghost tour. I'm assuming the kids club will be open...

We plan to do the other ports on our own. But, I haven't booked anything yet. That'll be next on my list of to-dos.

 

[newfamilyman]

Just received this email from DCL:

"We noticed you had pre-reserved a Port Adventure in Dubrovnik, Croatia and wanted to let you know that recently we learned the ship will arrive in port earlier than planned that day. As such, some Port Adventure meeting and tour times have been adjusted to allow for a better flow and experience ashore."

I checked online and our Port Adventure has been moved one hour and 40 minutes earlier.

Do you know how much earlier? The Disney website says 11:15.

Thanks

 

[Pavilion 2000]

Do you know how much earlier? The Disney website says 11:15.

Thanks

That is the revised time. It used to say 1pm.

 

[Figment_Fan]

Ummm, Pavilion 2000, ghost tour. -- you have my attention . .WHAT GHOST tour???? I just looked again. Am I just missing it?:confused

 

[Celestine]

Well, I was up at 12am and was able to book some excursions (pizza making at Naples, and special vatican tour with rome on our own in Rome), and spa appointments. We're skipping Palo this time around.

I wasn't able to get the Doge Palace with Princess event after all, it was sold out. Oh well, I guess it wasn't meant to be, which meant I was able to book more spa appointments!

So, in Venice, we're going it alone... I booked a mask decorating class for 3pm and then a walking ghost tour at 8pm. Figured we'll decorate the masks, head back to the ship for dinner and drop off our daughter at the kids club before DH and I head to the ghost tour. I'm assuming the kids club will be open...

We plan to do the other ports on our own. But, I haven't booked anything yet. That'll be next on my list of to-dos.

Kids club will definitely be open. Just make sure they know you are going off ship & what time you expect to be back.

Walking ghost tour does sound interesting - please tell more!

Celestine

 

[thestewarts]

Hello fellow cruisers, glad to be back after a Disney Med cruise in 2010 - loved it.

Hoping to book for this one soon - has anyone got a good deal from UK sites? Cruise Direct appear the best option at the moment. We live in Southend and can get a flight from Southend Airport to Barcelona for £150 each - literally from leaving home to stepping on board the ship in about 4 hours!

Re internet connection, have read a lot about this on here. Last time on board the connection was slow and very expensive. From memory, there is free wifi at Vilefranche and Malta ports, plus a cheap internet cafe at Naples. There are probably others too.

Cheers guys.

Hi there and welcome aboard (almost). We are in Scotland and when we checked all prices Cruise Direct were almost the best price but were still more expensive than booking direct with Disney through their website. We've also booked our flights separately (BA being cheaper than Jet2!) and our Barcelona hotel.
Good luck and hope to see you back here soon confirming your booking.

 

[thestewarts]

Hello fellow cruisers, glad to be back after a Disney Med cruise in 2010 - loved it.

Hoping to book for this one soon - has anyone got a good deal from UK sites? Cruise Direct appear the best option at the moment. We live in Southend and can get a flight from Southend Airport to Barcelona for £150 each - literally from leaving home to stepping on board the ship in about 4 hours!

Re internet connection, have read a lot about this on here. Last time on board the connection was slow and very expensive. From memory, there is free wifi at Vilefranche and Malta ports, plus a cheap internet cafe at Naples. There are probably others too.

Cheers guys.

Oh and thanks for the wifi info too.

 

[Pavilion 2000]

Ummm, Pavilion 2000, ghost tour. -- you have my attention . .WHAT GHOST tour???? I just looked again. Am I just missing it?:confused

We booked this separate from Disney. Viator.com has a Venice Ghost Walking Tour excursion that we booked. Avventure Bellissime is the actual company giving the tour (Viator acts like a middle man).

If you're interested in seeing the description, go to Viator.com, select Venice as the destination and it's one of the tours on the first page.

DH is a huge fan of ghost walking tours at all the various cities we visit. He also loves watching 'Ghost Busters' on tv.

 

[mikeandmela]

Hello again everyone! We now have our flight booked and will be arriving in Barcelona on the 23rd at 2:45 PM which gives us time to adjust to Europe time (thanks again Celestine) I'd appreciate hearing hotel reccomendations, in particular hotels that have their own airport shuttles. Thanks!
Also I was looking at the Apple maps satellite view of Barcelona and there appeared to several cruise ships in port at that time, in case you're into that sort of thing.

 

[Figment_Fan]

Pavilion,thank you for the information. What about tenders and getting back to the ship? Also, my DD(12) is really interested in this tour. Any problems with her age group ona tour like this?

 

[thestewarts]

Pavilion,thank you for the information. What about tenders and getting back to the ship? Also, my DD(12) is really interested in this tour. Any problems with her age group ona tour like this?

I'm pretty sure the boat is docked overnight in Venice, there is a cruise line port so I take it thats where we'll be.

As far as getting on and off, on our last Med cruise we got back to Barcelona late the night before we disembarked and we were told we could get on and off all night so I don't know if Venice will be similar.

 

[Pavilion 2000]

Pavilion,thank you for the information. What about tenders and getting back to the ship? Also, my DD(12) is really interested in this tour. Any problems with her age group ona tour like this?

Ship is docked overnight at Venice so I'm assuming you can come and go as you please. I would defer to those who's been on a cruise with an overnight stay to provide more info on that. We arrive in Venice Wed afternoon and leave Thursday afternoon so I booked the tour for Wed night.

As for the tour itself, I think your 12 year old would love the tour, assuming she doesn't scare easily. My daughter's 8 and I know she would be scared so for both our sanities, we're going to leave her back at the ship.

 

[mikeandmela]

Re: telephone and Internet
Might be a good idea to check with your local cell phone company and see if they can fix you up for the trip. My phone is issued to me through my employer and the young lady that manages all the company phones told me I can buy iPhone service (voice and data) for Europe before we leave at a better price than otherwise. When I get more details I'll post them.

 

[Celestine]

Pavilion,thank you for the information. What about tenders and getting back to the ship? Also, my DD(12) is really interested in this tour. Any problems with her age group ona tour like this?

I didn't think this was a tender port. We overnighted in Russia on the Baltics cruise & you could come & go as you pleased (subject to Russian immigration of course). It made for a quiet evening & early dinner sitting on the ship as many people headed to the ballet etc.

Celestine

 

[Figment_Fan]

Sorry, I thought it was a tender port, but I was definitely wrong.

As to DD being scared, her eyes lit up and she asked if she could go. My DW and DS - not so much. Ghost tour?? are you kidding??? Have to skip dinner??? We have late seating and our afternoon tour that day is done at 7:00 p.m.

I'm looking at scheduling this for DD and I. It would be fun. She needs something right now. We scheduled this cruise so as not to interfere with summer theater that she has done every year. We found out yesterday that the performances this year are all on the weekend of July 26, 27, and 28th. DD was not in a good mood last night. I can't blame her. This is her big social thing. 7 weeks of fun with her friends working on a play, or show, or performance of some type. They set up 4 different shows and put them all on in one weekend. That way all the kids get a part in at least one show. So, the first half of her summer just got blown out of the water.

Every other year the shows were always done by the 3rd weekend in July. Figures that they'd change it up the year we decide to go on a big cruise.
Sorry for the rant.

 

[Bunless]

Wine/liquor question for those who have done the Med cruise before...

I know that we can bring wine on in Barcelona, but are we able to at the different ports? I'm just dreaming about getting a bottle of lemoncello in Sorrento and enjoying it up on deck. Of course, I'm also dreaming of wine from Croatia... and all the other ports.

 

[Kirsty_Lou]

As far as I remember from previous cruises any alcohol bought on board on departure day is fine, however any other alcohol bought in other ports will be confiscated and returned to you on last day or departure day. This was definitely the rule in the Caribbean and Bahamas and I would think the same for Europe. I've never tried in other ports though so can't say for definite, but it was always the rule before.