August 13, 2011 Med - Mickey's Marauding Mates

[luke]

And we're done!!
Booked the Ohla Hotel for the post cruise night, £170 ($270). Maybe a bit more than I wanted to pay but frequent holidaying in the US has made me a hotel snob with the last few places I've stayed so it's all you American's fault

 

[luke]

This is our pre cruise hotel, down at the bottom end of the Rambla near the port

http://www.grandmarinahotel.com/en/hotel.html

And this is our post cruise hotel, at the top end of the Rambla near ish to the Plaça Catalunya

http://www.ohlahotel.com/en/hotel/

Sorry to ramble but I'm just so relieved to have actually finally booked

 

[SailingSeas]

hehehee Luke, you sound excited. Those hotels both look awesome. We need two rooms, so the cost factor is getting to me a bit. I"ll figure something out. I'm not adverse to stealing the kids ISAC's and hitting up a hostel.

Mon - La Spezia (Florence/Pisa), had the same idea as ( Sailing seas) Pisa and cinque terre on the same day but I think it migh be too much was planning on doing cinque terre with the boat

All i care about is that stupid picture. Isn't that sad? I know it's a holiday, so I may end up leaving Pisa out of it. I have totally fallen in love with Cinque Terre, especially the beach and restaurants at the furthest town.

Who needs a stupid falling building picture anyways, right?

 

[Goofygoof]

Loool. You're not the only one God I was thinking the same. Need to take that picture. Never mind maybe another time heard tt dcl might do a Venice sailing in 2013. Give us enough time to save.
Have a good weekend xx

 

[SailingSeas]

.... Never mind maybe another time heard tt dcl might do a Venice sailing in 2013...

ooohhhhh.... seriously? Do tell... Luke needs time to research the 1,248 hotels in the vicinity so he can make another last-minute booking.

Seriously - where did you hear this? that would be wunnnerful! I want them to go to Greece <3

 

[Goofygoof]

I think its all rumours abt 2013 sailing especially from returning med cruisers but I do think its a such a perfect choice if they do go for it.

 

[kerrykerr]

If they do Greece someday, I'll sign up for that! Venice would be great to see too!

 

[Kels Sem]

Hi All,

LeeAnn - I hope you have a great weekend.

Jeff- Hope you and your family have a great trip and I'll look forward to hearing about it. I hope you will post some pics of your DD dancing in Main Street. I would love to see it.

Luke - great choice in the Grand Marina - I would really like to have stayed there but having to book 2 rooms was just going to push the price up too much but you did get a great price. I had a look on Laterooms the other day and it was coming in at around £550 a night but maybe that was for 2 rooms.

Goofygoof/Sailing seas - i'm also toying with Pisa & cinque terre. I think I might just plan what I would need to do for each of them and then decide that morning
For Naples I think we are going to get the Hydrofoil to Capri. I'm not sure how much the kids will enjoy it but I know they will like going on the hydrofoil and the cable car.
Villefranche - we are planning on the train to Monaco and the little train tour as well. I was talking to a friend who was on the Med cruise last year and she told me to pack the kids swimming things and bring them to Monaco as there is an outdoor pool with slides down at the harbour. it might be some fun time for the kids.
Rome - I am really undecided at the moment.
Palma - We are spending the day with my cousin who lives in Palma.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I'll make sure I pop back tomorrow just to make sure we're not on page 3 or LeeAnn will kill us

 

[Goofygoof]

If they do Greece someday, I'll sign up for that! Venice would be great to see too!

Well the point is if they return again to the Med will would change their itinerary from west med ports to East med ports so if they sail from venice they would definitely include greece as other cruise line do . Will hv to wait and see

 

[mikki.young]

Well I got around to seeing how some outfits work for the dressier nights and realised I had more options than I thought. Think it will be black pants and glittery tops rather than a dress, although I will bring one of those too. Probably!

Working my way through the passporter guide. I suspect much of what it is telling me is known to you regular cruisers but I am finding it interesting.

 

[SailingSeas]

Mikki, i'm doing something similar, with a black skirt. We'll do laundry halfway through the trip. I'm trying to get our suitcases well under the 50lb limit so I don't have to worry about purchases for the ride home. We'll probably skip dinner a few nights, too.

Today is Barcelona HOtel day and i have a massive sinus infection parked on my face. Can I ask everyone what they are doing for the barcelona hotels, around the $100-$150 EU pricing? or am I pipe dreaming?

 

[luke]

As you know I found hotel booking difficult
For hotels around that price, the Hotel Murmuri and Praktik Ramble were on our shortlist.
Our stay at the Eurostars Grand Marina wasn't that much more (£160) but includes breakfast for too which is meant to be really nice (and includes champagne which apparently costs €20 per person) which made it a very good deal.
Not that I didn't trust Asda travel but never having booked with them and the price being about £90 less than expedia were charging I emailed the hotel direct to male sure the booking was ok. Within 5 mins they had replied telling me that it was all on their system, 1 night bed and breakfast.

The hotel is also right by the bus stop which takes you to the terminal for €2 which is great too, just in case I take too much of an advantage of the champagne at breakfast

 

[Anal Annie]

Hey everyone! GOOD JOB keeping the thread alive!! We were on page 1!! I LIKE it!! We're still in WV at my parents house & I got bored & fired up my Dad's PC...OY! Talk about S-L-O-W!! omg. iT'S killin' me! Dad & DH are out golfing. We will leave to head home to Maryland when they get back. Well, we will stop in town for some hotdogs for some lunch first! There is a great hotdog stand in town that I always have to get my "fix" from whenever we come here. Hotdogs are not all the rage in the DC area but here there's a lot of hotdog stands. Not sure why they're so popular but if they can make good chili to put on them then they do a whopping business here!! There is nothing like a good T & L dog!!

LUKE - DUDE!! Congrats! 'Bout time!! Ya had me worried (but then again I AM Anal Annie!!) You are lucky in that it's just you & Missus Luke...hotels for families are hard to find if you don't want to pay for 2 rooms! That's how we ended up booking where we did. But it looks like you made some swanky choices - I approve!

Sailing - we (along with Kelly) have booked our one night pre-cruise at the Novotel bcuz they have rooms that sleep 4 and they included children under 16 for free. I think it must be on the order of a Holiday Inn type of chain...so nothing fancy but a reasonable price! AND they have a pool on the rooftop that is supposed to be small but have amazing views! We booked it way back in January with a non-cancelable, non-refundable rate to include breakfast for only 109 euros which at this point seems like a steal!! It might be worth checking to see if they have any more rooms left that will sleep 4. The rate may have gone up since then but I doubt it would be more than booking TWO rooms somewhere. It gets fair reviews on TA. It's not in the top 25 or anything but I think it's acceptable for 1 night.

Post cruise we booked the Hotel Jazz which is near Placa Catalunya - they were in the top 10 on TA and had "triples" which is all we needed so even tho it was more cost per night we grabbed it so we wouldn't have to book 2 rooms somewhere. I wanted to be closer to Las Ramblas this time too. And again, they have a small rooftop pool. (I wanted that option as a way of relaxing at the end of the day if we felt like it.)

OK, off to see what other threads are active...I will check back in when we get home!!

 

[Anal Annie]

Hi peeps! Just checkin' in before bedtime!!

HEY!!! Did I tell ya'll that my friend sent me a link last week for a "Groupon" deal for parking out at Dulles airport?! I had priced several airport car services as well as parking at the airport lots and either were going to cost us between $160-180 for the duration of our trip! The Groupon deal was $20 for 14 days of parking at the Hampton Inn Dulles (I have parked there before but spent the night so got a park & fly package.) Anyway, it's like 2 miles from the airport & they have a 24/7 shuttle van that runs every 30 minutes between the hotel & the airport. I checked it out thoroughly - I called the hotel & verified the deal & there seems to be no catch. We're actually gone 15 days so at first I was going to buy 2 of the Groupon deals & they told me that we could just pay $10 per day for anything over the 14 days - so we now officially have parking for $30 for our trip! I was pretty happy to find the deal. Should I start packing yet?!

 

[mikki.young]

Mikki, i'm doing something similar, with a black skirt. We'll do laundry halfway through the trip. I'm trying to get our suitcases well under the 50lb limit so I don't have to worry about purchases for the ride home. We'll probably skip dinner a few nights, too.

Today is Barcelona HOtel day and i have a massive sinus infection parked on my face. Can I ask everyone what they are doing for the barcelona hotels, around the $100-$150 EU pricing? or am I pipe dreaming?

I have the Barcelo Raval at around 100 Eu a night. Near Ramblas.

 

[Kels Sem]

Hey LeeAnn,

I have finally managed to get some of the ebags packing cubes on amazon. The ones I have aren't the greatest and I had seen the ebags cubes on amazon.co.uk but they were out of stock and didn't know when they were coming back in. I had googled them but wasn't able to track them down.

I ordered 3 of the large ones to see what they are like and may order some medium ones. They should arrive tomorrow

I seen your pics on one of the other thread. Very impressive.

 

[mikki.young]

Oh Annie - if you haven't already ordered the beer mugs can you make it just one not two please? One of the bits of info in passporter was how many beers you needed to drink to make it worthwhile and I am not sure we will drink enough for us both to do it!

Hope your weekend away was good. Don't think I mentioned what we got up to yesterday - we went to a Christmas Dinner! The whole works of Turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes and parsnips etc etc. It was a trifle hot for it but it was great fun. the hosts had even put out Christmas cards, tinsel and a Christmas tree as well as crackers for the table. I suspect this will become a village tradition!

 

[ukwizard]

45 days to go!!

Has anyone with a GTY cabin got their room assignment yet? This is our first Disney cruise and we are still waiting for ours.

Andy

 

[janetfk]

45 days to go!!

Has anyone with a GTY cabin got their room assignment yet? This is our first Disney cruise and we are still waiting for ours.

Andy

We have had ours for a while. Basically, we got it when we booked (75 days out)

 

[Anal Annie]

45 days to go!!

Has anyone with a GTY cabin got their room assignment yet? This is our first Disney cruise and we are still waiting for ours.

Andy

Are you serious?! HOLY COW!! I need to start packing!!