July 18, 2007 07-18-07 Med Cruise

[CarolAnnC]

Well I am bleary eyed and exhausted today but it was worth it.

I was able to book all the excursions we wanted and that is an excellent thing. We have two staterooms so it was difficult with two windows open going back and forth trying to book both rooms at once, but I managed to do it.

Not so good luck with Palo High Tea. I was able to book my girls into it, but it was sold out by the time I got our room going. Oh well, at least the girls can attend.

I reserved Palo Brunch but we have two different times for each room. Hoping I can somehow get that to work so we can all go together.

Here are the excursions we booked:

Jumping Back Into Eternal Rome
Portofino and Santa Margherita
Marseille City Tour
Timeless Pompeii and the Flavor of Sorrento
Costa Smeralda
Mondello Beach
Monaco, Monte Carlo and Eze

Hope everyone had good luck and got their first choices!

 

[tinkerbell_29]

Hi everybody,
Hope everybody is having good luck while booking your excursions. Sorry about yesterdays post. My glucose levels were high and when that happens normally perky me turns into whine me. Everything is back to normal today. I can't believe only three moths left until we go. Even if I sit on the ship the whole time I just excited that I'm getting to do something like this.
Lissa

 

[todds34]

Great to hear that everyone got all the excursions they wanted I got mine also,

Jummping Back into Eternal Rome
Mount Vesuvius Hike and Pompeii
Chocolate Museum
Create your own Perfume
Lucca Treasure Hunt
Palermo for Kids

I also managed to book the SPA Alone Time twice although I did not get a great time on the 2nd one but we can't have it all.

Glad to hear you are feeling better Tinkerbell 29 and I send you lots of luck and pixie dust for your excursions on the 4th of May . You must post and let us know how you get on.

Iam so excited at the moment not only have we just booked our excursions and only have 90 days to go but also my Brother and Sister in Law have just had a new baby girl and I have become an Aunt again. Isn't life wonderful .

 

[CarolAnnC]

Lissa - Do not worry I am sure you will get some great excursions when you are able to book. I would make a plan - use the Wish List on the DCL website, it really helped speed up my booking process last night.

Also, make up a list of first choices, and then a list of second choices. Just in case while booking something is not available, you can quickly book the second choice at least.

I have to believe they hold back spots for each booking window. DCL would NOT want their first time cruisers to have a negative experience missing out on excursions.

Glad you are feeling better today. Take care...

 

[misbel]

I just discovered this board!! I will traveling on the July18th med cruise too!! This is our 3rd disney cruise!! I am not too familiar with your lingo, but here goes.. I am traveling with DH and 3 sons ages 9, 15, 17. We are traveling with extended family memebers for a total of 8 cabins.

I am not doing any excursions with disney. We are doing it all on our own!! It's part of the adventure!! We do have a guide reserved for Rome from "Through Eternity". I've been doing lots of research. Hope I don't miss the ship at one of the ports!!

I didn't get up at 3am but I did reserve Palo dinner for Sunday night (olbia). By 8 am they had no brunch or tea available

Love all the ideas that I have been reading!!

 

[nzdisneymom]

I'm going to echo what Carol said about DCL not putting all the excursion (or even all the Palo) slots available right now - and even at 75 days, I'm sure they will have some held back for those who cannot book online and will need to do it at the Shore Excursions desk.

I also wanted to say that folks will book now but their plans may change - especially for the Palo times. So Carol, I'd keep checking back every few days to see if you can pick up the High Tea time for you.

We were able to get all of the ones we wanted - and I have to agree with a previous poster - make your Wish List because it's so much easier to book that way, and then if you have a particular port you want to do things at more so than others, you can book that port first. Here's what we have:

Jumping Back Into Eternal Rome Civitavecchia
Palermo For Kids Palermo
Costa Smeralda Olbia
Florence and Pisa La Spezia
Marseille and Little Train Marseille
Nice and Train Tour Villefranche
Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri For Families Naples

For those that are not all day, we chose the mornings.

I also got the boys registered for the Lab.

And then I couldn't go back to sleep for about an hour!

 

[CarolAnnC]

Welcome to the DIS Misbel and welcome to our cruise thread as well!

We are a pretty excited bunch here now as we are drawing in under 90 days to cruise.

You will find lots of info on these boards. Pretty soon it will be time to start planning our onboard dismeet! I think it might have been discussed earlier on this thread, but usually on sailaway day the dis folks try to get together to meet each other in person.

What are the age ranges of your extended family? My girls are 21 and 24 and I am crusing with them and my husband.

 

[nzdisneymom]

Misbel - welcome! I'm Cindy D., and I'll be traveling with DH and two DS's (ages 11 and 9 3/4 when we go). We booked every excursion through Disney so we won't have to worry about missing the ship at Port (my boys asked me this morning again to make sure that doing it through DCL means they'll wait the ship for us). When we sailed in Dec. 05 on the Western Caribbean itinerary, that was our older son's biggest worry - so the one excursion we did was through DCL (we did Key West on our own and also Costa Maya, but didn't wander far). Peace of mind is more important for the boys right now. If it were just me and DH, we would likely have booked through private tour companies - I did a lot of reading early on over at cruisecritic and there were some highly reputable companies recommended.

Anyway, welcome! I guess I need to go back and update our who's who list from ages ago.

And it's probably time to start talking about a DisBoards Meet on the ship for embarkation day.............. I know the Promenade Lounge is usually a good place to meet - but I don't know about times. What time is the safety drill?

Oh, I just realized - several of our tours aren't scheduled to be back until 6:15 and we have 6:00 dinner - guess DH lucks out because if we get back late like that, we'll get to eat at Topsiders and not have to "dress" for dinner those nights. The rest of the time, though, I do want to go to the dining rooms - love that special way they make you feel when they put the napkin in your lap and bring you extra plates just so you can try things out.

And in other news, I'm on day 3 of my weight-loss efforts - I'm thinking about how getting some of my extra weight off will make participation in the excursions easier!

 

[nzdisneymom]

Carol - funny - we posted at the same time about planning a meet!

 

[CarolAnnC]

Oh NZ, you reminded me to add - the tours that had a choice of morning or afternoon, we took the afternoons. With our family all 20 somethings and up, sleeping in a bit later is appealing for us.

We have late dining, so coming back late afternoon was not a problem for us either.

I am so excited today!

 

[DLRPfan.be]

Glad to hear DCL reserves spaces for the first time cruisers... we also can start booking on 04 may...
We really hope we can spend an evening at Palo's !

 

[misbel]

Hi Carol and Cindy D!!

My extended family includes mother in law, 2 sister in laws with DH's, 2 nieces (26 & 30) with DH's and 3 baby grandnieces ages 1,2 & 3 years old!! Also 1 newphew (28) with girlfriend (24)!!

Can't wait!!

 

[nzdisneymom]

Carol - we did mornings because that will give us the afternoons on the ship or at least the kids can be on the ship if DH and I want to walk around the immediate port area. And the boys can fit some naps in if necessary (DH, too). We have at least two days that are full-days back-to-back - I know i'll be glad for that last Sea day to sleep in after getting up EARLY for excursions for 7 days in a row. Definitely needing a wake-up call. But at least on DCL, we won't be staying up late every night - we'll do the shows and then probably head back for zzz'ing pretty early. We have a verandah room so we can get the boys settled and enjoy a little time outside relaxing before sleeping.

I expect to come back fully exhausted! With a full-exhausted family! But we also expect the trip to be so full of new stuff, seeing places we've never been before. How much more can we ask?

 

[CarolAnnC]

I hear you Cindy. When my girls were younger I definitely would have done the early excursion choices. We'd be up early anyway and then would have afternoons free. Now though, we have morphed into late night owls who like to sleep in, lol.

Are most of us staying on board embarkation day? We arrive a couple days early in Barcelona so will have done all our touring then. Will be anxious to get on board ship, unpack and get settled. Then will enjoy the ship's amenities the rest of the day.

So a meet almost anytime will be fine with us. Perhaps before the dinner hours start?

Sounds like sailaway party will be late, and drill around 5 pm from what I have read? Will be watching the earlier med cruises so we have a good feel for the schedule then.

 

[nzdisneymom]

We're flying out on Monday / arriving Tuesday. We don't have anything scheduled for Tuesday, and I think on Wednesday, we mostly just want to get to the ship and get settled in. We'll likely do something on Tuesday afternoon for a bit and then go to bed on time... not sure yet but I didn't like any of the excursions listed for Barcelona. A friend sent me some info about the bus tours but I have to go dig that out. I'll be following the threads of other sailings to see what folks do and their experiences.

I'd say we set a meet for either embarkation day about 45 minutes before the safety drill (we can meet for 20 min and then still have time to get our life jackets and get to our muster stations. Or on the first Sea Day at some point........ I know not everyone will be able to make it or may not even be interested, but I'd love to have faces to go with the names I've come to know over the last many many months!

 

[misbel]

I'd love to meet everyone. Just let me know. We will be touring Spain for about 7 days and will be driving into Barcelona from Zaragosa the same day we depart. Plan to be in Barcelona around noon.

We then have 3 days in Barcelona after the cruise

 

[todds34]

Welcome to this thread Misbel, I hope you are as excited as the rest of us. Only 90 days to go

Yes I would love to meet everyone too (if possible). We are staying in Barcelona for 3 nights before the cruise and 1 night after. We have booked the chocolate museum for embarkation day (my DD could not pass this one up). this excursion is from 13.30 to 17.30 and Iam treating myself to a morning in the SPA the next day , so just tell me where and when and if I can i will be there.

I have a question, has anyone every used the DCL Bon Voyage Stateroom Celebration package? If so is it any good and is it worth the $39. I thought it might be a special touch for my DD to start this amazing holiday.


Andrea

 

[tinkerbell_29]

Welcome Misbel!
Just got off the phone with DCL. They do save some spots in the excursions and what not for first time cruisers. This being Disney I should have known that they would do that don't know what I was worried about. I also would love to meet ya'll it would be nice to put faces with names.
Lissa

 

[CarolAnnC]

Good morning everyone! I have heard from another cruiser who will be joining us on this exciting Med voyage. Hoping they come on and post here so we can all welcome them, too.

Still recovering from the excursion excitement lol. I was going to go back over the list again, but am afraid I will second guess myself on a couple of them.

I have started a to do and semi packing list. So afraid of overpacking for this trip. Plus must save room for souvenirs lol.

Have a great day all...

 

[smilis]

Hi Everybody,
We are so excited about our upcoming cruise in July. Hoping to learn lots from all of you here on the board. Choosing excursions is overwhelming, so much to choose from, so much to see.
Even though we've cruised Disney before, we've never been to Palo. Just made reservations for the 18th at 7PM. Do you think that's a mistake even though we don't sail til 9PM? Don't want to miss the sail-away party.

Is anybody trying to squeeze in two excursions in one day, when time allows?

Looking forward to your help

Sandy