August 10, 2015 - 5 day Mediterranean Cruise

[rachelsmom97]

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would start a thread for this cruise. We are on this cruise - doing a B2B with the Dover to Barcelona cruise.

It will be me (Diane), DH (Perry) and DD (Rachel) age 17.

This is going to be our last big family trip before DD goes to college. She will be starting her senior year of high school after the cruise.

So Excited

 

[socababy]

We are also doing a back to back, the 7 night Dover to Barcelona before this cruise! How fun it will be that many of us are doing this!

It will be me, my boyfriend Rob, my three kids who will be 12, 10 and 7 at sail time.

I am already loving reading all the tips other cruisers have!

My in laws are joining us on the 7 night cruise but decided to go off and do their own thing instead of going on this cruise since they did these ports last year on a cruise!

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

The thread for this cruise looks familiar.

Sean(48), Crystal (38), Daytona (12), Geoffrey (9) and my mother Shelagh.

Also doing the back to back.

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

We did a 12 day cruise in 2013 and did all of these ports.

Port Guide - Villefranche

Easy of Self Guiding - Very Easy. The train station is about 1/4 mile from where the tender lets you off. The train was very quick even though it was Bastille Day(like the 4th of July) and on schedule all day. Roads are clogged in the Mediterranean. We arrived in Monaco at the same time as the Disney tour even though they got to tender first.

Rating of fellow cruisers of Disney Tours - epic fail. On our Caribbean and Alaska tours people were very pleased with Disney's tours as was I. That was not the feeling in Europe and Villefranche was the worst. People felt the tour guides were rude. Also, at least two tours left people behind. One was the fault of the tour guide who gave the wrong meeting point. The guy who was in charge of the tours ended up contacting me when he found out I had self guided most ports and that my worst experience was the one day I took a Disney Tour. That was in Athens because we were scared of the possibility of a wildcat transit strike. He had been hired from NCI just before the cruise season and Disney got the last pick of tour guides as they started so late. Hopefully, two years later they will be better.

2013 Touring - The first couple of cruises had major problems organizing the tendering. By our cruise in July it was sorted out and all went very smoothlY. We went to Monaco as I wanted to see part of the Monaco street course and the kids wanted to go to the aquarium. We also walked by the palace on the way. The aquarium was good but the Monterey, CA aquarium is far better. The kids loved the playground on top of the aquarium and the views are spectacular from the roof. It is a bit of a walk down from the train station to the palace and the aquarium but the views are fantastic. There are also elevators and escalators that shortened the distance. There are also buses that go down there - the red and blue buses I believe. After the aquarium, we headed back to Nice. We took the train and then a tram down to the main part of town. Trains were a breeze. We are Canadian and have a basic understanding of French but could not figure out the tram ticket machine. Needed some help but it was easy to find.

My wife and daughter are celiac so we researched where to eat in advance and went and had crepes(they called them something different) at a place called Lou Phila. Really good. We were going to climb Castle Hill but still were not fully acclimatized to the time change so we just went down to the beach. We went to Fenochio for some excellent gelato as recommended by Rick Steves.

We then walked back up to the train station as people began to celebrate Bastille day.

2015 Plan - go to Nice and visit the Matisse museum and climb Castle Hill. Eat at Lou Phila and Fenochio again.

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

Just found out we are in 2098 and 2105.

Hey I just became a Dis Veteran.

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

Port Guide La Spezia

Ease of Self Guiding - Medium. The train station was a fair distance from the cruise ship dock so we took a cab. There are two train stations in La Spezia and you want to make sure you go to Centrale. La Spezia has limited docking space so it could be a tender port or a docking port. Disney did both in 2013.

Rating of Disney Tours - people seemed generally satisfied in La Spezia. Although, we did self guided for Lucca and Pisa and actually tagged along a bit in both places with the Disney tour as we had friends on the tour. Got some free tour guiding. Was a lot more impressed with that tour guide than the one we had in Athens.

2013 Touring - We did Lucca and Pisa. Trains were easy. We had to transfer once to get to Lucca then take a direct train from Lucca to Pisa and a direct train back from Pisa to La Spezia. Every tour book I read told you to go back to Pisa Centrale to get the train back but there is an unmanned train station right beside the Leaning Tower. We used that one and it went fine. We went for a bike ride in Lucca and it was an absolutely charming little city. Beautiful, great architecture, very friendly people, great people watching. Wish I had spent the whole day there. We had researched a place to eat but we found a very nice little square with a pizza place advertising medium gluten free pizzas for $5 and were not going to pass that up. Pizzeria Fuori di Piazza. Both of our celiacs agreed it was the best gluten free pizza they had ever had. We felt ripped off on some of our meals in Europe so this was a great find. We did some shopping and then headed off to Pisa. Pisa was a complete tourist trap although we expected that. We pre-bought tickets to climb the tower. It was a lot of fun, kids loved it and a great view from the top. The Duomo was not the nicest church I was in in Europe. Very dark, hard to see the interior architecture. Pisa was fun to do once but I would not do it again. I would go to Lucca again. Those who went to Florence said it was not a good choice. They said the travel from La Spezia was too far and they could not do Florence justice with the little time they had there. I think it was over three hours of travel round trip. Our Lucca/Pisa trip was about two hours of travel and that only gave us an overview of both places.

2014 Plan - The Cinque Terre. Very close by train to La Spezia. The Disney tours by boat were very well received so may do that. We will leave a return to Lucca or Florence for a trip we dock in Livorno.

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

Port Guide - Civitavechia

Ease of Self Touring - Easy in Civitavechia, Medium in Rome. The train station in Civit. is a little under a mile from the train station. All cruise ships dock at Civit. Be careful of your train into Rome. Not all trains stop at all stations. Also make sure you validate your train ticket after buying it.

Disney Tour ratings - people seemed happy aside from the Vatican. At the Vatican you are only allowed to get off in the parking garage. The tours waited 90 minutes after arriving to disembark the bus. This would have been an issue for all cruise lines not just Disney. This severely limited their time at the Vatican.

2013 Touring - We hired an archeologist. We could have done it ourselves but wanted the insight for the Forum and Coliseum. We went to the Forum, Palantine Hill, Coliseum, Lunch and the Pantheon. We had additional time but it was our third straight day it was hot. The wife and kids wilted. The Forum, Palentine and Coliseum were absolutely amazing. We went to the Forum first. We pre bought Combo tickets for the three sites. The Forum was absolutely amazing and the archeologist added greatly to it. Looking upon the site where Julius Caesar was cremated is incredible. Some very well preserved sites. We then did Palentine Hill and the Coliseum. The Coliseum entrance is confusing as to which line to get into. The archeologist saved us a lot of time in getting us in very quickly. Again absolutely amazing. We went to Lunch about two blocks away at a place called Luzzi. Prices were way better than the places immediately surrounding the Coliseum. Lunch was a little slow but it was lunch time at the height of tourist season and the Pizza was good. It was hard to eat a lot of it in the heat though. We then took a walking tour of a mile or two up to the Pantheon. Pantheon is really well preserved but it was small. We then had some Gelato close by. We were supposed to go to Trevi Fountain at that point but my 9 or 6 year olds were done so we headed back to the pools at the cruise ship around 2:30. More could have been accomplished though.

2015 Plan - Probably the Vatican and Trevi Fountain.

 

[Sailorgirl32489]

Hi all! DH and I just bit the bullet and will be joining in also! We've never been to Europe before, so I'm excited we have so much time to plan.

Sadly we won't be doing the B2B like a lot of y'all are. But we're tossing around the idea of extending our stay pre/post cruise in order to see a few more countries. Husband really wants to go to England (specifically London) while I'd love to visit Greece. Any advice you frequent travelers to Europe have is greatly appreciated!

 

[jaygerland]

Holy cow. We're actually planning to go London after our cruise. Thinking about doing 4 days there.

Anyone have recommendations for hotels in Barcelona? Is it best to stay by the port?

Jay

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

Holy cow. We're actually planning to go London after our cruise. Thinking about doing 4 days there.

Anyone have recommendations for hotels in Barcelona? Is it best to stay by the port?

Jay

Jay,

There really didn't seem to be any hotels close to port. There were some in the Ramblas area but they either seemed to sleep 2 or were very expensive. We stayed out in the burbs but it was a good deal and it was on the metro.

 

[IrishCowboy]

I have added your thread to the cruise meet list
Have a great cruise!

 

[ILovePixieDust]

Hello all!

Joining in! It will be me, DH, DS (8) and DS (6) for this cruise. We are also doing the cruise immediately before this one.

Thank you for all the information shared already about the ports. I can't wait to start researching and planning the excursions in more detail.

 

[TronkoMouse]

Hi All,

We too are booked for the cruise. Our party will be me (Kevin), DW (Karen), DS (Ethan, 15 @ time of cruise) and DD (Emma, 12 @ time of cruise).

This will be our second cruise (only previous was a 4 night on the Dream last spring) and first time to Europe as a family. I have been to Spain, Austria, and Germany as a kids and my wife and I have been to England, Scotland, and France before kids.

We are looking to arrive in Barcelona a couple days ahead of embarkation to do some touring, as we have to head right back home after the cruise for MS/HS sports seasons.

Since we are just beginning to think about our Barcelona touring and port excursion we are excited to see all the port information and ideas from other DISers.

 

[ILovePixieDust]

459 days to go!!! Way too long!!

 

[rachelsmom97]

Thanks ILovePixieDust for letting me know there is an app to download that gives us the countdown. I did not know the DCL Navigator app had the countdown. Although the number makes this cruise seem too far away!

 

[ILovePixieDust]

Thanks ILovePixieDust for letting me know there is an app to download that gives us the countdown. I did not know the DCL Navigator app had the countdown. Although the number makes this cruise seem too far away!

You're welcome! It is a big number right now still. I like having that little icon on my phone though. Not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing to keep feeding my obsession!

 

[TronkoMouse]

Hi All,

We too are booked for the cruise. Our party will be me (Kevin), DW (Karen), DS (Ethan, 15 @ time of cruise) and DD (Emma, 12 @ time of cruise).

This will be our second cruise (only previous was a 4 night on the Dream last spring) and first time to Europe as a family. I have been to Spain, Austria, and Germany as a kids and my wife and I have been to England, Scotland, and France before kids.

We are looking to arrive in Barcelona a couple days ahead of embarkation to do some touring, as we have to head right back home after the cruise for MS/HS sports seasons.

Since we are just beginning to think about our Barcelona touring and port excursion we are excited to see all the port information and ideas from other DISers.

Unfortunately, school schedules have forced us to change our plans and not head to the Med next August. We have replaced the cruise with a 7 day on the Fantasy during spring break April. Hopefully DCL continues to head to the Med and we can take the trip in the future.

 

[JimmyJackJunior]

We are out too. We have decided to do a 12 Day NCL cruise preceeding the London to Barcelona cruise rather than the 5 day Disney cruise after because they are almost the same price. We will get to see Naples, Istanbul and Venice for the first time on NCL. Have a great time all.

 

[ILovePixieDust]

Oh no, we are out too! We have decided to change our plans to something more economical for 2015 (Aulani and DCL Alaska cruise!) which ended up being more comfortable for our pocket books than the mediterranean from Canada. We are hoping it will work out better for us in 2016 if DCL still heads to Europe then!

Have a wonderful cruise everyone!

 

[Disnylvr77]

We purchased a while ago but finally able to put somethings down on paper.

We are doing the B2B. It's 3 of us Stephanie (me) 37, Alex 47 and Sidney DD 12.

This will be our 10th cruise with Disney we've done all caribbean except one Alaska in 2012 which was FABULOUS!!!!!

We've not been to Europe yet so no time like the present, right. We are trying to go as inexpensive as possible so we booked no verandah this time, hoping we don't regret it. We didn't use it much in Alaska and it was EXPENSIVE! We are going to use that EXTRA money for excursions.
Can't wait! Look forward to meeting everyone!
Stephanie