Back to the Med Greece/Turkey in 2013! Complete!

[mindelmouse]

Does your son play soccer? A group of them will spend the majority of their at sea days on the top deck playing soccer or dodgeball.

not a big soccer player, but he'll usually play whatever the other kids are playing.

 

[Tired mom of 3 boys]

Yes I actually booked my hotels as well and yes we won't be close, but the first one was sanctioned by Kim. We are staying pre cruise at Hispanios Siete Suiza.
Ok - am some point I'll figure out how to do this... We're also staying at Hispanos Siete Suiza pre-cruise. We get in Thursday morning. Tentative plan will be to do the Fat Tire bike tour on Thursday afternoon (trying to stay awake!), then touring Camp Nou (FC Barcelona) and the Picasso Museum on Friday. I'm sure we'll do more, but those seem to be the priorities right now...

Hope all of you are having a good Friday!

 

[mindelmouse]

Yes I actually booked my hotels as well and yes we won't be close, but the first one was sanctioned by Kim. We are staying pre cruise at Hispanios Siete Suiza.
Ok - am some point I'll figure out how to do this... We're also staying at Hispanos Siete Suiza pre-cruise. We get in Thursday morning. Tentative plan will be to do the Fat Tire bike tour on Thursday afternoon (trying to stay awake!), then touring Camp Nou (FC Barcelona) and the Picasso Museum on Friday. I'm sure we'll do more, but those seem to be the priorities right now...

Hope all of you are having a good Friday!

We get in Friday morning - and I think we're doing those car thingees...Kim knows more about that.

 

[MinnieDiva]

I have no idea what y'all are doing with the quoting! Lol!

Any chance there's going to be a soccer match (game?) going on while there? That would be sooooooo cool!

A car thingie? Is that the highly technical term? You sound like me at work today! After 3 days of 12/11-hue shifts back to back to back, my brain. Is fried.

 

[MinnieDiva]

Hour. 12/11 hours shifts. Sigh. I need to go to bed.

 

[MinnieDiva]

...but as I'm editing pics from our East Coast trip, I thought I'd post this one of me and Mindy!

And in looking at it I realize that the tank top I'm wearing went to the Med with us 2 summers ago. Sigh. I'm repeating outfits

 

[burma]

Is the a formal and semi formal night during this cruise?

 

[MinnieDiva]

Is the a formal and semi formal night during this cruise?

I would venture to say yes. Last time there was 1 formal (2nd nite, it was the first sea day)' and 2 semi formal nights. And Palo . I've been wondering how they'd work that this time around. Last year's Alaska cruise had formal nite on the first sea day as well (also the 2nd night), which makes me wonder....will they have it on the second night or wait for the 4th (?) night for the formal night?

Anyone going to have their husbands rent tuxes?

 

[Tired mom of 3 boys]

I think that they should always have the formal night the second night - gives you less time to eat your way out of your dresses! I was wondering if there would be more than one semi-formal night with the 12 nights.... Not sure if DH will rent a tux - he typically does the dark suit. I'm worried that we'll be purchasing two new suits for our older two boys by then as well.

Hope that everyone is having a great day!

 

[MinnieDiva]

I think that they should always have the formal night the second night - gives you less time to eat your way out of your dresses! I was wondering if there would be more than one semi-formal night with the 12 nights.... Not sure if DH will rent a tux - he typically does the dark suit. I'm worried that we'll be purchasing two new suits for our older two boys by then as well.

Hope that everyone is having a great day!

I Love your line of thinking!! The formal I wore on the last Med cruise was long and very fitted. It fit on day 2, but don't know if I could have gotten into it on the last night. With all the walking, though, I think I only put on a pound or 2...

I'm going to surf around a bit and see if I can find links to navigators for the Baltics. Maybe Hawaii, as well. See if those longer itineraries have more dressy nights. Panama Canal, too, I guess. I'll post if I find anything interesting.

 

[MinnieDiva]

For Hawaii, I saw 2 formal, 1 cruise casual, and 1 unknown day (day 9 was missing, so who knows...).

For last year's WB TA, there were 2 formal and 1 SF.

The 2010 11-nite navigators only had 1 formal and 1 SF listed, so I went back and looked at my navigators and there were only 1 of each listed as well. Hm. Must be going senile. Age? Probably just confusing Palo up with the additional imagined SF night.

Ok, and finally found some Baltic Navigators (this window has been open forever while I've been looking for this stuff. You mean you haven't been here waiting with me??

So the Baltics only had 1 formal and 1 SF as well. So this bears asking/wondering about: were there more formal days in Hawaii/TA because they were longer, or because the days were less busy?

Ok, and the only Panama Canal Navigators I could find were from 2005. There were 2 formal and 1 SF. I figure we'll get better info with this winter's PC crossing.

And, with the exception of the 2005 Panama, all the formal nights were on the 2nd night. (the first ones, anyway, if the cruise had more than one...). So the solution would be to bring a fitted dress for the 1st formal night and something stretchy for the 2nd...right?

 

[mindelmouse]

Our 8 day cruise that i just stepped off of had formal night on night 2 and semi formal night on night 7

 

[Tired mom of 3 boys]

Now that I have my Rome day squared away, I'm on to Athens.... Has anyone been looking at the available tours and...has anyone seen any prices for tours from the port? The Rick Steves book makes Athens seem very doable. TripAdvisor has some taxi tour services that seem to be very popular. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

[ldo]

we did a ship's RT bus only (no tour) to Plakta for $30 on Princess. If DCL offers that, I would do that. It is super easy to do PArthenon, museum, Platka, and park with columns and Zeus temple across the street on your own.
I also saw a HO-HO bus that picks up right at the port adn drops off right at Parthenon. I would do the HO-HO if a ship's transport was not avail.
IMHO, I found that area of Athens to be very safe and clean. I would definitely do HO-HO or ship's bus and do the rest DIY again. Elaine

 

[Tired mom of 3 boys]

we did a ship's RT bus only (no tour) to Plakta for $30 on Princess. If DCL offers that, I would do that. It is super easy to do PArthenon, museum, Platka, and park with columns and Zeus temple across the street on your own.
I also saw a HO-HO bus that picks up right at the port adn drops off right at Parthenon. I would do the HO-HO if a ship's transport was not avail.
IMHO, I found that area of Athens to be very safe and clean. I would definitely do HO-HO or ship's bus and do the rest DIY again. Elaine

Thank you! Sounds like I can wait for now. I appreciate the feedback.

 

[MinnieDiva]

we did a ship's RT bus only (no tour) to Plakta for $30 on Princess. If DCL offers that, I would do that. It is super easy to do PArthenon, museum, Platka, and park with columns and Zeus temple across the street on your own.
I also saw a HO-HO bus that picks up right at the port adn drops off right at Parthenon. I would do the HO-HO if a ship's transport was not avail.
IMHO, I found that area of Athens to be very safe and clean. I would definitely do HO-HO or ship's bus and do the rest DIY again. Elaine

Thanks for the input! I haven't really put any planning effort yet into Athens. How long was the bus ride into Athens form the port??

 

[MinnieDiva]

Out to Tired mom of 3 boys!!

She clued me into the fact that Rome in Limo is accepting reservations finally! I submitted my request earlier today that I tried to email 2 months ago .

 

[MinnieDiva]

Any words of advice for sailing on the Dream? T-minus 3 weeks and counting for a couples only getaway.

I've been busy with costume making for the MNSSHP; we're meeting friends there and are all going as Phineas and Ferb characters. Sean's going to be Doofenschmirtz and I'm going to be Isabella in Fireside girl uniform. Phineas, Ferb, and Candace are covered by our friends, and Perry will be represented by a plush. So far, I've made a yellow and orange striped Phineas shirt, purple Ferb pants, and Isabella's orange beret (although I have to go get red ribbon for the bow). I have the white fabric and pattern for a lab coat and more white fabric for Candace's skirt, so I've got tomorrow all planned out! I'll post some pics after we get back.

Does anyone own a point-and-shoot waterproof camera? Opinions??

 

[ldo]

ship's bus (called transfer only--don't know if DCL offeres this) took about 30 minutes. You can take subway, etc., but I didn't feel like figuring it out--plus there were taxis strikes a few weeks prior, so I wanted to make sure we had a good way to get there. You can find HO-Ho schedule online, I assume. You have to walk a bit to the edge of the port to get HO-HO (so elderly, persons with mobility issues might find it too far), but I would guess less than 10 minute walk from our ship and lots were doing it--seemed very safe. Ho-Ho might make more stops before Platka. We had very good luck with Ho-Ho's in other places--Rome, Stockholm, etc. have fun! Elaine

 

[MinnieDiva]

ship's bus (called transfer only--don't know if DCL offeres this) took about 30 minutes. You can take subway, etc., but I didn't feel like figuring it out--plus there were taxis strikes a few weeks prior, so I wanted to make sure we had a good way to get there. You can find HO-Ho schedule online, I assume. You have to walk a bit to the edge of the port to get HO-HO (so elderly, persons with mobility issues might find it too far), but I would guess less than 10 minute walk from our ship and lots were doing it--seemed very safe. Ho-Ho might make more stops before Platka. We had very good luck with Ho-Ho's in other places--Rome, Stockholm, etc. have fun! Elaine

Thanks! I gather that the ship's bus had an arranged pick up time in a specific location?