July 18, 2007 07-18-07 Med Cruise

[Vailcruiser]

Well, we were until today (just kidding about the today part.) They ran out of Vanilla Soft Serve Ice Cream on the ship and all they have left is Chocolate. I don't like plain chocloate. What to do??????? Guess I'll have to get my vanilla at dinner. Oh, terrible days, having to wait for dinner.....

Weather has been absolutely fabulous here but hot and humid. Amost 100 in Rome yesterday. Showered a little today at La Spezia but it's now sunny, about 80 with humidity but a great breeze.

If you take the Rome trips, make sure you take a bottle of water with you. You will need it to keep yourself hydrated which is very important at any of the tours. You will also be able to refill with "mountain spring mineral water" at any of the Rome fountains (this is the only city where you want to do this.)

Hope you have as great a time on your August trip as we have been having on our July trip.

Thanks for the weather posting! Excellent news! Too bad about the ice cream!!! Can you tell us what you found in Naples, how is the garbage situation?

Thanks for your time!! ENJOY!!!

 

[LVTravel]

Thanks for the weather posting! Excellent news! Too bad about the ice cream!!! Can you tell us what you found in Naples, how is the garbage situation?

Thanks for your time!! ENJOY!!!

We walked the streets of Napoli and didn't find anything out of the ordinary in reference to garbage. Didn't see any piled up in the streets we walked on. We were there on Saturday the 21st. Ship docked about 7:00 am with ashore at 7:30 and all aboard at 7:30 PM. We were on shore from about 11:00 until 3:00 PM.

They showed Pirates - At World's End for the evening show however YMMV on what they do.

Today we did the train from Villefranche to Monte Carlo. Did enjoy the approximately 20 minute ride after about a 1/2 mile walk to the train after the tender in to the shore.

Saw the Casino, but because we were there early in the day, there were only slots open and no table games in the casinos. Shucks.

 

[sharper_fin]

We got home late last night (saturday). The house is still standing, and it's stopped raining! Still cloudy though... I can't believe that only a couple of days ago we were in 100 degree heat!

It was great to meet so many of you, nice people all. Are we planning to keep this board going?

Take care, and thanks for making my great Med adventure so much fun.

Shaun
shaun.finnie@btinternet.com

 

[scottishwee35]

Hello Everybody

We got home at very late night after long day at Airports!! When we arrived at Edinburgh Airport and find out that three luggages had been missing!!

We glad that three missing at end, not on first day, cannot imaged that happened

Hopeful, we get it back today. British Airway will sort it out as only us, as more cases/luggages had been missing at Edinburgh Airport. We flight out from Barcelona to London then London to Edinburgh. We were very shattered after long day at Airport. We were so tired after leaving the Dinsey Cruise

My family and I like to saying many thanks for meet up on first day and get know together while on the disney Cruise as we had a FABULOUS times as the weather was so beautiful but very HOT HOT at Rome!!

I think everybody had enjoyed themselves.

My son was emitional on last day at the show which was farewell!

Also we had two WONDERFUL interpreters from USA and they were sharing with us at meals and signing on the shows also they came with us to some excursions which we had a great FUN with them too.

Many thanks for gifts too and hope keep touch with you all.


Scottishwee35

 

[scottishwee35]

We got home late last night (saturday). The house is still standing, and it's stopped raining! Still cloudy though... I can't believe that only a couple of days ago we were in 100 degree heat!

It was great to meet so many of you, nice people all. Are we planning to keep this board going?

Take care, and thanks for making my great Med adventure so much fun.

Shaun
shaun.finnie@btinternet.com

Hello Shaun

Same with us as we got home very late last night. Glad to hear that it's stopping raining!! Maybe we brought the warm Sunny over to UK from Europe lol.

Hope so we keep up the board going.

and it was very nice to meet you both and had a good chat also had a very good times on the lovely Cruise.

Now start on and the weather is sunny today but still a bit cold not like the europe weather.

Scottishwee35

 

[shortkathleen]

Hi ya all! We made it back to Oklahoma at midnight with two very tired parents and kids. We are actually feeling pretty good this morning, I think the No Jet Lag pills worked. It was a great cruise, we had a blast. My six year old asked me when we were leaving if we have season passes for the disney magic. I wish!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Unfortunately we had the trip from you know where on the way home. Plus, all 9 pieces of ours and my inlaws luggage are missing, so no laundry to do here yet. Iberia airlines was a disaster. I was so happy to get back to the good old USA. You can read about it on my blog if you want. www.mammacakes.blogspot.com I will be adding pictures later today hopefully.

Have an awesome day!!!!!!!!!!!! Kathleen

 

[nzdisneymom]

We made it home this afternoon (spent the night in Atlanta - a 22-hour day by the time we got up at 6 a.m. BCN time and to bed by 10 p.m. ATL time). DH is mowing the lawn and I have the first load of laundry ready for the dryer. I'm bleary-eyed and thinking about how someone else is sleeping in my bed on the Magic, and wondering if our servers have already forgotten us.

We had an amazing trip and enjoyed meeting so many of you. Can't wait to share trip reports and experiences. But for now, I have to figure out what I'm doing at home.............

As Mickey says, "See Ya Real Soon."

Did anyone else re-book? We did for a 3-night Wonder April 3, 2008.

 

[ariel39]

Hi ya all! We made it back to Oklahoma at midnight with two very tired parents and kids. We are actually feeling pretty good this morning, I think the No Jet Lag pills worked. It was a great cruise, we had a blast. My six year old asked me when we were leaving if we have season passes for the disney magic. I wish!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Unfortunately we had the trip from you know where on the way home. Plus, all 9 pieces of ours and my inlaws luggage are missing, so no laundry to do here yet. Iberia airlines was a disaster. I was so happy to get back to the good old USA. You can read about it on my blog if you want. www.mammacakes.blogspot.com I will be adding pictures later today hopefully.

Have an awesome day!!!!!!!!!!!! Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,

Oh my god!!! I can't believe you went through all of that. When I have a chance, I am going to read all of your blog.

My trip experience:

We got home about 130am this morning. We started at about 7am getting off the ship, which is 10pm Friday night here. Our total travel time from leaving the boat til walking in the house was about 27hours.

Barcelona airport wasn't that bad for us. I checked in with US Airways very quickly, did my VAT refund and still had time to do some duty free shopping. Our flight didn't leave until 1210p and our boarding time was 1139a. We had to board off of the runway and had to take a bus to the plane. We had boarded the bus, stood there for about 10 mins and they said they had to take us off of the bus, the plane had to be cleared by the fire department. My first thought was OH MY GOD!! - We went back to the terminal and waited for about 15 mins and boarded the bus again. When we got to the plane, there was gasoline everywhere. I told someone on the bus, I sure hope that came from the pump and not the plane. We had to walk thru the watered down gasoline to get on the plane.

Once we were up in the air, I was fine, but I truly was a little scared.

We got into Philadelphia. 3 hour layover and then on to Washington DC. When we boarded the plane to DC, they didn't load our luggage, so we sat on the plane and watched them load the luggage. I counted 6 of our 8 bags. The girls told me that they may have put the other 2 on first and not to be too concerned. After about an hour delay we were off to DC. Arrived DC about 32mins later and got right on our plane to Vegas.

On the plane to Vegas, we were just exhausted. They changed our seats at the gate. Even though we had first class, they had the 4 of us all over first class. I finally convinced them to let Breanna (11) sit with Nishelle (17) and I sat by myself and Jennifer (15) sat by herself.

About 3/4 of the way through, I developed leg pain. I got up and almost fell. I walked up to Nishelle and showed her my legs. My left was about 3x the normal size and the right was about 2x. I thought I would need to get a wheelchair to get off of the plane. I managed to walk off and meet up with my DH at baggage. The girls ran up to him as I walked extremely slow behind them.

When our baggage finally came up, guesswhat, only 6 of the 8 arrived. I told the girls that it was left in Philadelphia. So off to US Airways I went and just outside the office, there were rows and rows of luggage. I looked over and there were our 2 missing pieces. YES I CAN GO HOME.

We had about an hour drive home, took a shower and jumped into bed.

My legs are still swollen even after keeping them up all night long. I am hoping they will go down. I have never had that happen to me on an airplane. I have heard about it before, but never to me.

My sister, BIN, nieces and parents are on their flight from Barcelona to Atlanta right now. Should be getting to atlanta in 30 mins or so. Can't wait to talk to her to find out if she had any problems.

It was great meeting all of you and I would love to keep the board going too. I hope you had a great time like we did. Breanna was extremely sad to leave and she wants to go back again!!!

 

[Dayub]

We made it home last night after about a 24 hour trip, we did make our connection in London even tho we were an hour late leaving Barcelona. Hope I never have to go to that airport again. We spent 2 hours in the wrong line until my husband saw a British Airways line for our flight only, so we started standing in that line and luckily we had printed our boarding passes on the ship, so we were told to get into the Business Class and On-line check-in line which was short. There were about 30 people from our plane trying to make the same connection into Phoenix running thru the London airport. We got home about 02:00am Barcelona time and were exhausted.

It was great meeting everyone and a special thanks to nzdisneymom for starting this thread and yes, we booked a 7 night Mexico Cruise for June 15, 2008 on the Magic.

Deb

 

[nzdisneymom]

Our experience in Barcelona was something else... we disembarked the Magic by 7:30 and were at BCN in about 20 minutes. Found the Delta counter and queued for check in. The Delta sign said Delta New York, but I figured like here at home, we could check in early and just wait. So we were in the queue for 35 minutes, had our bags weighed by the bag-weigher-dude (all under - whew!), and when we got to the counter they told us we could not check in for Atlanta until after 9:15 a.m. because they couldn't "mix the bags" for international flights.

So we went to the back of the line as it was 8:35 then and figured by 9:15, we'd be back at the front. We took turns going to the restroom (Shaun, that's when I saw you) and had a nice visit in line with the others who were also waiting for ATL check-in. The kids did great with the wait and didn't complain once.

We finally got checked-in and then went to the VAT refund line for my 20 Euro. So we stood in the one line for about 20 minutes to get the stamp - and again, enjoyed visiting with other DCL cruisers, hearing stories about their excursions and various experiences on the ship. Then over to the Banque to get the 20 Euro (that was another 20 minutes) and then a very short wait to exchange our paper Euro into US dollars.

We made it to the boarding area with plenty of time to spare and our flight started boarding on time.

The flight home was uneventful (always the best) and the only "problem" was that the movies / music didn't work in our row (or a few other rows) on our seat-back entertainment system -- I was counting on watching a couple of movies and listening to music but instead spent most of the 9+ hours playing "Big Money" and "In Flight Trivia"... although I did get 4 chapters into Harry Potter.

The kids did great again on the flight. The woman next to Zachary is/was a 4th grade teacher and she engaged him for much of the trip - they played chess and some other games on the system together.

We landed in ATL early but had to wait for a gate, so we got off the plane at the time we were scheduled to land. Passport control / customs is so much easier when there are designated queue lines that are clearly defined for arriving passengers rather than the "cattle call" experience we had in Barcelona. We retrieved our 5 bags and followed the signs that said Atlanta Final Destination, thinking we were good to go - only to find out we had to re-check our checked luggage to go through whatever they do and also through security again with our carry-on bags and taking our shoes off, etc. and then to the regular baggage claim area where my brother was waiting for us. We got two bags almost immediately off the carousel and then waited another 40 minutes or so for the other 3 to make it.

My brother scored a great parking spot so the walk to the car was minimal and we were leaving the airport at 7 p.m.

And now it's Monday and the last load of is in the dryer. DH is back at work and I'm heading in around 11:30. Our a/c was working yesterday afternoon but by last night, the outside motor has stopped so we're back to muggy north Florida with no air conditioning. Makes me long so much for the 79 degrees in the French Riviera.

I hope you all will share your trip reports here on the DIS or at least post links to blogs / photos. I've looked at our over 1,400 pictures already and am excited to go through them again and work on our trip report.

Also, be sure to do a cabin-review -- I'll see if I can find the link for where you can do that - it's so helpful to future cruisers to be able to read about their cabin assignments. We had 6116 and loved it so much that we are scheduled to stay in 6116 on the Wonder in April and in 6116 again on the Magic in December 2008. Love it love it love it.

Again, it was so wonderful to meet so many of you!

 

[nzdisneymom]

Here's the link: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruise-new/cr-staterooms.htm

 

[sharper_fin]

...We took turns going to the restroom (Shaun, that's when I saw you)...

I'd just like to point out that Cindy & I didn't actually see each other in the restroom....



I'm so not in the mood for being at work today!

 

[Crissup]

Hello Everyone!! We arrived home last night (Sunday) around 6pm Chicago time (1am, Barcelona time). After disembarking the ship, our "YourTransfer" driver was waiting with our name printed on a sign in large letters, easy to spot. He ran and got his minivan and loaded up our 12 pieces of luggage and off we headed for the Renaisance Barcelona Airport Hotel. We got there in the nick of time. No line at the check in. As we finished checking in, the buses from the the cruise terminal were arriving and the line was long for at least the next hour. We ran into smilis and her DH there, who had already arrived earlier and checked in also.

We hailed a cab over to the Catalunya Plaza to kill some time, and then headed down a side alley to the Santa Anna Cafe. We had found this place before the cruise and loved it. It's about a half a block off from Las Rambla, so it's easy to get to and the food and service were both top notch. As we walked in, the waiter immediately recognized us and told us our same table was ready for us.

We enjoyed another great meal with great service and then headed up to El Cortez de Ingles to do some quick last minute shopping. Afterwards, we hailed another cab and headed back to the hotel for a bit of pool time and napping. We ultimately ended up in the lounge for a bit to eat and smilis and DH joined us.

Sunday morning, we grabbed the free airport shuttle and were whisked off to terminal A. After loading our luggage up on a cart, we found smilis just finishing up at the tax refund window and they pointed where we needed to go. There were only two people in front of us in line, so our processing was quick and prompt. We then walked up to the bank window just as smilis was finishing up there and we asked for our refund in American dollars. We actually got a good exchange rate in the process and we were off to the flight check-in.

Fortunately, the line was short for our flight and we were checked in quickly. My carry on was 2KG overweight, but when the woman saw my notebook computer in it, she told me to not worry about it since I would be pulling it out at security anyway. Whew, no shifting around. At this point, I was feeling pretty good about how easy things were going. The rest of the flight home was really just as uneventful.

We did learn that if purchasing *anything* in the duty free shops in the Barcelona airport, they need to scan your boarding pass. This was a minor inconvenience for us since Carol was sitting back at the gate with all our boarding passes, but we retrieved them and made a few small purchases.

We had a very short layover in Zurich and made it to our gate as the plane was boarding. CarolAnnC was a bit worried as we were passing through security, but I knew we'd make it with time to spare.

As for the rest of the updates, I leave all that to Carol.

 

[scottishwee35]

Hi

My three luggages have not been arrive here yet

I phoned this morning with typetalk and spend aged talking about the luggages. They said that British Airway have my two luggages and couldn't find one luggage

I am off to Amsterdam in Holland on this Friday for my friend 40th and wonder which cases will be arriving tom at my house!!

Looking like I have to wear old clothes for this weekend

Scottishwee35

 

[tinkerbell_29]

Hi everyone!
We made it back late Saturday almost all of our luggage found us except one bag is still sitting in atlanta for some reason. Of course that would be the bag with most of the souveniors and all of the camera equipment. So I can't put any of the video onto anything yet. At least we did get our clothes which are now all clean and put away. We had such a great time that we booked a cruise for Easter on the Magic. I still can't believe the trip is over it feels like only yesterday that the adventure started. Like Cindy our inseat tv didn't work except for games it was a long flight with only inflight trivia to keep you occupied. I was able to finish my trip journal though. Can't believe i filled a whole notebook. And yes I got teary eyed when we got off the ship and at the show the night before. Matt made fun of me. It was great to meet most of ya'll! Keep in touch.

Lissa

 

[buck4568]

We hailed a cab over to the Catalunya Plaza to kill some time, and then headed down a side alley to the Santa Anna Cafe. We had found this place before the cruise and loved it. It's about a half a block off from Las Rambla, so it's easy to get to and the food and service were both top notch. As we walked in, the waiter immediately recognized us and told us our same table was ready for us.

Wow, that is so funny! We ate at the Santa Anna while we were in Barcelona too. The food was good! We stayed at the Hotel Gran Via which was a couple of blocks up from Las Ramblas. We were in early and just one waiter was on duty. The liitle grey haired guy who seemed to be more Italian to me than Spanish! Anyway, that was a month ago and it still seems like yesterday! It was a wonderful trip that will forever be in our memories no matter which cruise you were on!

Found a Dunkin Dounuts just a short walk from Santa Anna too!!

 

[ButterbearUK]

Hello Everyone

We are all back home safe and sound, and thankfully with all our bags, although the carousels at Heathrow were an absolute nightmare!!! We spent a couple of nights in Barcelona after disembarking the magic before heading to BCN this morning fo the short trip home. Flight was uneventful, although my ears have still not popped since I caught a cold on friday...

We have rebooked- my parents for october 2008 and Pete and I for december 2008, although we will probably swap that to a 2009 date when they are released.

It was really nice to meet you all finally, after so many months of planning, and I shall be posting pictures of the dismeet once we download everything.

Hope everyone else gets home safely- we saw another dis family at LHR, but at a distance... I am missing the Magic already!

Milia

 

[Crissup]

Found a Dunkin Donuts just a short walk from Santa Anna too!!

Yes, Carol spotted that Dunkin Donuts also. Personally, I hate Dunkin Donuts, so I tend to overlook them, but Carol, being from Boston, spots them immediately. I understand they're better in Boston, but they're horrible in Chicago. I think it's like McDonalds. Being a Chicago based company, I find most McDonalds to be consistant and efficient, but when I travel, I find them to be more disorganized than they are around here.

I've always figured that the closer to corp HQ a place is, the more consistant it is.

 

[DisTeach]

We are home, finally! As Crissup said, everything went surprisingly smoothly; that 12 hour flight is still a killer for me. It was so great meeting everyone! The trip went by quickly, and it is so weird to think of other people staying in our stateroom. There were many people on board who live just a few miles away from our house; that was a coincidence! Well I am still exhausted so I will post again soon.

PS
I hope you all get your missing luggage soon!

 

[scottishwee35]

Hi

I phoned British Airway and they got my two luggages but cannot find one more luggage

I got a letter from Kid's club that it will be closing down on 14 August, that our kids are going back to school and I am working in two afternoon. Lucky, my father in law is retiring so he will collect the kids. NO MORE KIDS CLUB.

Another bad news that my husband's good friend Peter died last night and we don't know what it cause as he is only around 40. As he lives in Sunderland, in England. I think must be heart attack?

Very sad news.

Today I am back to work and hopeful no more bad news this week!!

Scottishwee35