June 18, 2011 - 11 Night Mediterranean Sailing from Barcelona

[shruti]

Hi all-

Our family of three is booked for the June 18th trip as well. I just discovered this DIS forum and am so thrilled. We are from California:

me- Age 40
DH- age 40
DS- Age 10 (at time of cruise)

We've booked our tickets and hotel stay at The W arriving in Barcelona on 6-16. I am trying to read all the past posts now since I'm such a latecomer to the group

 

[JulieWent]

lmb -- We're using Limoinrome. (So confusing, I know, but I've heard that both companies are very good.) The prices are about the same as Romeinlimo. We're springing for the private tour of the Vatican, too. We figured, probably won't be back in Rome again for a long time, and we'd like to make the most of our short time there.

Julie

 

[hygienist999]

Hey everyone, can't wait for our cruise. Here's what I think we will be doing for excursions.

1)Valleta, Malta - Blue Grotto Boat trip
2)Palermo, Sicily - don't know
3)Naples, Italy - Mt. Vesuvius Hike and Pompeii
4)Rome - The Best of Rome - Adult only
5)La Spezia - Discovering Florence
6)Ajaccio - either stay on boat or Beach break
7)Villefranche - Monaco, Monte Carlo, Eze

All of our excursions will be thru DCL.

Big shout out to the newbies, Makaylee and Shurti. Welcome, welcome!!!!!!

 

[hygienist999]

Updated List

Updated list. Please review and let me know of any changes.

 

[makaylee]

Hi all-

Our family of three is booked for the June 18th trip as well. I just discovered this DIS forum and am so thrilled. We are from California:

me- Age 40
DH- age 40
DS- Age 10 (at time of cruise)

We've booked our tickets and hotel stay at The W arriving in Barcelona on 6-16. I am trying to read all the past posts now since I'm such a latecomer to the group

Welcome! I am new also, booked this cruise quite late. better late than never though.

me- 38 (at time of cruise...yes I'm a cradle robber )
dh- 35
dd -13
ds- 5

 

[makaylee]

Big shout out to the newbies, Makaylee and Shurti. Welcome, welcome!!!!!!

Thanks!

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Welcome to the new families from me, too!

BTW, an update on the excursions for us. We will be using a private tour company for Rome as well. Checked with Disney Signature on their private tour rates and it is extremely expensive.

 

[shruti]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Makaylee I see that you were on this cruise last year?! Would love to hear some of your best tips! Feel free to email me directly as well.

 

[MadHatterMom2]

I'll add my welcome to the new folks just joining. We have an FE List started and a Cruise Meet scheduled for this sailing. Info. is on this thread - just a few pages back.

I also wanted to let everyone know that there's a great thread in the regular cruise forum entitled "Ports On Your Own - Med 2011". So far, it has some great information on port excursions. Check it out if you have a chance.

At this point, I am leaning towards doing Rome on our own. Sounds like it's not that bad. Hard to believe we can book excursions in less than 30 days . . .

 

[jns]

Hi all-

Our family of three is booked for the June 18th trip as well. I just discovered this DIS forum and am so thrilled. We are from California:

me- Age 40
DH- age 40
DS- Age 10 (at time of cruise)

We've booked our tickets and hotel stay at The W arriving in Barcelona on 6-16. I am trying to read all the past posts now since I'm such a latecomer to the group

Just wanted to stop in and say Hello!! We just booked this cruise last week and are very excited. We did the same one last year and it was a blast!

If anyone has any questions I can try to answer them for you, I don't have a great memory, but my dh does.

Welcome aboard
please let me know if you would like to join the Fish exchange i'm the keeper of the list
List Here

 

[jns]

I also wanted to let everyone know that there's a great thread in the regular cruise forum entitled "Ports On Your Own - Med 2011". So far, it has some great information on port excursions. Check it out if you have a chance.

.

Here the link to the thread

 

[Docswatson]

We are staying pre cruise at the Meridian. We should arrive on the 16th . So far ive seen WDGroupie and 2princessesintoe at the Meridian too. Maybe we can meet for Tapas ? Anyone I missed at Meridian? Anyone else signed up for the ABD?
Amy

 

[makaylee]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Makaylee I see that you were on this cruise last year?! Would love to hear some of your best tips! Feel free to email me directly as well.

My best tip are probably to do excursions on your own, saved us a ton and it was quite simple. It looks like everyone has posted losts of info on this already.

Another good tip is to bring those all in one laundry sheets so you can do some laundry on the ship. 11 days would be a lot of clothes to bring if not.

Oh, and the taxi drivers in Barcelona are scandelous! Make sure you negotiate a rate BEFORE you get in. I would do this in every port.

If you have any questions let me know and I will try my best to answer them.

 

[rach7]

Sorry to be so behind on the posts, but we are staying at Casp74 & would be interested in sharing a bus with everyone if it works out.

Port excursions...we haven't even started to think about them , but will probably do most on our own. Will definitely be visiting Pompeii - we went about 6 yrs ago & it's one of the most amazing places I've ever seen, can't wait to show my 10 yr old around the ancient town.

Better go and look at some of the other excursions....

 

[Angie_Ohio]

We have a snow day today in Ohio so I have time to plan and dream about this trip. I can't believe it's almost here!
I have been reading trip reports and planning for a looooong time. If only the air transportation would fall into place.
With the price of air being about $250 more per person than I thought, we will definitely do most ports on our own. Plus... I am all about the adventure.
Hopefully, my DS16 is up for it!
Can't wait.

 

[Calfan]

Here are our current first choices for port excursions. I can't believe we are so close to being able to reserve these. How exciting!

Malta - Blue Grotto and then explore Valleta on our own
Palermo - We'll most likely do this one on our own by walking around the historic district, but it depends on the excursions offered and if any "grab us"
Naples - Private tour of Pompeii and Capri with CaliforniaGirl
Civitavecchia - Jumping Back into Eternal Rome or private tour
La Spezia - Lucca and Pisa
Corsica - Most likely on our own
Villefranche - Monaco, Monte Carlo & Eze

For those still trying to figure out what to do in La Spezia, I can offer up that my husband and I went to Italy on our honeymoon. We started out in Rome and drove up the coast. The Cinque Terre and Portofino are beautiful. Having seen them before and trying to make sure the kids don't get too bored, we are opting for an excursion that includes Pisa, but they are both worth seeing. Not sure a one-day excursion can do proper justice to the Cinque Terre though. We stayed in Monterroso for several days and hiked between the villages.

 

[makaylee]

Here are our current first choices for port excursions. I can't believe we are so close to being able to reserve these. How exciting!

Malta - Blue Grotto and then explore Valleta on our own
Palermo - We'll most likely do this one on our own by walking around the historic district, but it depends on the excursions offered and if any "grab us"
Naples - Private tour of Pompeii and Capri with CaliforniaGirl
Civitavecchia - Jumping Back into Eternal Rome or private tour
La Spezia - Lucca and Pisa
Corsica - Most likely on our own
Villefranche - Monaco, Monte Carlo & Eze

For those still trying to figure out what to do in La Spezia, I can offer up that my husband and I went to Italy on our honeymoon. We started out in Rome and drove up the coast. The Cinque Terre and Portofino are beautiful. Having seen them before and trying to make sure the kids don't get too bored, we are opting for an excursion that includes Pisa, but they are both worth seeing. Not sure a one-day excursion can do proper justice to the Cinque Terre though. We stayed in Monterroso for several days and hiked between the villages.

We we able to walk a few trails and take the train to the others in one day. We didn't stroll through each town's every nook and cranny, but I think we were able to see enough. We still got back on the ship pretty early. I guess it just depends on how much you want to explore each one. We loved it so much we are doing it again though.

 

[jns]

Only 108 days until your cruise sets sail!

 

[MadHatterMom2]

Update on Casp74 transportation. It looks like we had two families cancel that were going to be staying at our hotel, so we're down to 15 people. I emailed the hotel to see if there is a smaller vehicle to take us to port. Unfortunately, our only option is the bus (again, it holds 50 people). The hotel is suggesting we get taxis, which are only 25-30 Euro to the port. Unless anyone else joins between now and then, that's probably the best thing to do. Let me know what you guys (gals) think.

Thanks.

 

[JulieWent]

That's a bummer, but it's probably do-able. I was worried that if there were 30 or so of us that it would be difficult to get that many cabs. With only half that, we'll be good, don't you think?

Thanks so much for doing the leg-work on this. It was really kind of you. Looking forward to meeting!

Julie