First Trip to the Med (Complete)

[Flossbolna]

Thank you for the great trip report! I am already looking forward to reading about your Norway cruise. Hopefully I will have finished our trip report before you start yours...

The 2 hour check-in limit seems to vary by airport and airline. For example, the first place I ever encountered it was at London Heathrow. Here at my local airport in Nuremberg Lufthansa will take your luggage any time, but Air France indeed only opens up 2 hours in advance. I think it depends on how much people they have working there.

I also wanted to mention that when you were talking about missing out on visiting Avignon, that if you are based in Spain, a vacation in Southern France should be really easy to do. It is a region that is really wonderful with many sights. Find a vacation rental somewhere central and explore from there. Besides Avignon I love Arles (amazing Roman ruins), St Remy (where Van Gogh was in the mental hospital), the Alpilles (a small mountain range) with Lex Beaux (a mountain top village with castle ruins and the place where bauxite, the mineral which gives us aluminum got its name from), the Luberon villages, Aix en Provence and so much more. I have been trying to get back there for a number of years now, but always get distracted by other travel plans... Knowing French is helpful, but not necessary.

 

[m3owbox]

Thank you for the great trip report! I am already looking forward to reading about your Norway cruise. Hopefully I will have finished our trip report before you start yours...

The 2 hour check-in limit seems to vary by airport and airline. For example, the first place I ever encountered it was at London Heathrow. Here at my local airport in Nuremberg Lufthansa will take your luggage any time, but Air France indeed only opens up 2 hours in advance. I think it depends on how much people they have working there.

I also wanted to mention that when you were talking about missing out on visiting Avignon, that if you are based in Spain, a vacation in Southern France should be really easy to do. It is a region that is really wonderful with many sights. Find a vacation rental somewhere central and explore from there. Besides Avignon I love Arles (amazing Roman ruins), St Remy (where Van Gogh was in the mental hospital), the Alpilles (a small mountain range) with Lex Beaux (a mountain top village with castle ruins and the place where bauxite, the mineral which gives us aluminum got its name from), the Luberon villages, Aix en Provence and so much more. I have been trying to get back there for a number of years now, but always get distracted by other travel plans... Knowing French is helpful, but not necessary.

Thank you! I can't wait to read more of your report!
I didn't know that it varies by airport and line.
These sound like some amazing places that I will have to look into for some smaller trips. They sound really nice. I will be looking into them for sure!

 

[BadPinkTink]

thank you so much for the detailed trip report and photos. Im going to book mark it so that I can find it easily to come back and read it again when I get to the planning stage of my cruise

 

[m3owbox]

thank you so much for the detailed trip report and photos. Im going to book mark it so that I can find it easily to come back and read it again when I get to the planning stage of my cruise

Awesome! I'm so glad that you liked it. And really glad it will help you when it comes to planning!

 

[remlap]

Thank you for the great report. We are going on the same cruise in September 2017. I had fun reading along.

 

[westcoastfldisneygirl]

I just found your report, and I'm so glad I did! This is definitely a bucket list cruise. Thank you for sharing!

 

[cheermom2four]

Now originally we were not going to book an excursion for this day and we were going to wing it (I know silly right?!). But eventually I decided that we needed to see Rome! I'm really glad I did. We booked Imperial Renaissance Rome. I think it was about $90 per person.

What booking window did you have when you booked this? I'm wondering if I will have trouble booking my oldest and her hubby as their booking window doesnt open till later (I'm silver, they are first timers). We have decided we really want to do this exact excursion (and your trip report with pics made the final decision LOL).

 

[m3owbox]

What booking window did you have when you booked this? I'm wondering if I will have trouble booking my oldest and her hubby as their booking window doesnt open till later (I'm silver, they are first timers). We have decided we really want to do this exact excursion (and your trip report with pics made the final decision LOL).

We were silver, but a lot of the activities were still available closer to the sail date

 

[cheermom2four]

We were silver, but a lot of the activities were still available closer to the sail date

Oh great to hear! We are silver but our oldest daughter and her husband are newbies and we really wanted this specific excursion since it included the Basilica tour. Thanks for your TR and all your info you posted here!

 

[tlprice]

I'm a little late to your report, but really enjoyed it. I just booked the Med. from Barcelona to Rome for summer 2018. Your Rome report helped me realize that I definitely booked the right cruise. I just didn't think my daughter and I could do Rome in a day. This way, we will end in Rome and take a few extra days there so we won't be so exhausted. Our cruise goes to Villefranche and Marseille, so if one of those ends up being a sea day, I won't be too disappointed since we only have one sea day. We also go to Genoa and I am very excited about that.

 

[m3owbox]

I'm a little late to your report, but really enjoyed it. I just booked the Med. from Barcelona to Rome for summer 2018. Your Rome report helped me realize that I definitely booked the right cruise. I just didn't think my daughter and I could do Rome in a day. This way, we will end in Rome and take a few extra days there so we won't be so exhausted. Our cruise goes to Villefranche and Marseille, so if one of those ends up being a sea day, I won't be too disappointed since we only have one sea day. We also go to Genoa and I am very excited about that.

That sounds like a really cool itinerary. Rome was amazing, I would like to go back and get more time there one day. Marseille was really cool, I just wished I knew more about it so I knew of things to do. But then again I didn't know we would be going haha! I have heard Villefranche is very beautiful. Barcelona is beautiful as well, there is a lot to do there. We loved the city.

 

[GuardMusic]

Hello everyone! A little background. My name is Brittany, I'm 26. Very big Disney fan, as I'm sure most people who are reading this are as well! Been to Disney World many many times. My husband Lance (29), who is also now a big Disney fan (since the honeymoon almost 3 years ago) came on this trip to the Mediterranean with me. This is my 5th cruise and DH's 2nd. I have been on the Wonder way back for a DVC member cruise with my parents and the Magic 2x for the Caribbean. Just recently I introduced DH to Disney cruising on the Dream back in November. We have never been to Europe before but we are currently/newly living in southern Spain so we decided it was time and we booked the Sept 10th 7night out of Barcelona.

Sept 9

So to start things off we got up at 3am to catch our 6:35 am flight! We drug our tired selves to the airport and we were there about 45 minutes before the Ryanair counter even opened. Everything went very well, we got on our flight and arrived in Barcelona quite early at 835. By 9 am we were into a taxi and on our way to the Hotel!

We booked the Barcelo Raval about two months prior to the stay. We were worried about the location because a lot of people said the location was in a sketchy area. We didn't think so at all! It was actually nice not being in the touristy area because I didn't have to immediately worry about pick pockets the second I walked outside. It was about a 5 min walk from Las Ramblas which was very easy to get to. We checked in but our room wasn't going to be ready. They were able to hold our bags and we checked our bags in then we went to do some exploring. Here's the inside of the hotel.

First things first, we walked down to Las Ramblas. And went right into a Starbucks (yes I know I know "you're American why are you getting Starbucks in Spain" Well because we can't get it where we live in Spain, we have to drive quite a bit!). And we got some pumpkin spice lattes! Yum! Afterwards we kept walking, North I think. We made it to a large square, which was actually pretty unexciting. Here's a very cheesy picture of us (we were tired but quite caffeinated, an interesting thing to be).

Afterwards we continued walking and came across Casa Batlló. It was a lot cooler in person. It was something we had on our list to visit. Wish we would have went inside and got a tour though.

We stared to walk back. Went in a few stores. Bought some things from Kiehls. Here's another cool building we saw on the way back.

On the way back we made it to the large square we were in before. And what did we do? Went to the Hard Rock Cafe. Here are our drinks. Lance got a mojito (this will become a recurring theme for him) and I got something with curaçao and pineapple juice. I forget the name.

Both drinks were perfect and refreshing as it was 90 degrees and very humid this day. For lunch DH got a pulled pork and I got a chicken arugula salad. Both were very good and hit the spot. Service was very very good, which is something we noticed throughout Barcelona. Everyone was friendly, and everyone we talked to spoke English (in case anyone was curious). Barcelona is also very easy to get around.

That's it for now. To be continued!

Really wish your photos were available....

 

[m3owbox]

Really wish your photos were available....

The pictures are back!