cruisinsuzie
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2007
- Messages
- 32
Before I start let me just say that our whole traveling party agrees this was the best vacation ever! The Magic has not lost its magic (as I had feared from some other posts). The service was impeccable the ship clean and the food good! The childrens activities are still outstanding with the most patient counselors and the shows are still Broadway quality. It still has everything I love about it! And add to it wonderful interesting exciting ports of call WOW! Is all I can say!
The VAT was a bother though theres not much they could do about that.
I had two complaints which I reported to Disney via the comment cards, one was the smoking allowed on the state room verandas. One of the things I love about getting an outside room is enjoying coffee outside on the veranda in the morning, and a cocktail as we set sail in the afternoon. Unfortunately on this trip we had a neighbor that liked to smoke on his veranda
Unfortunately that prevented me from being able to enjoy the outside portion of our stateroom. I made a suggestion to Disney that they somehow segregate the rooms I know easier said than done I was just disappointed how infrequently I could enjoy the ocean air on my deck.
The other complaint was some of the behavior of *some* of the teenagers. There were more teenagers on this cruise than any other cruise I remember. And those that chose not to participate in the stack activities or find appropriate places to gather quite a few times were making nuisances of themselves in public areas such as hallways and stair wells. There were several parents I spoke to that had run-ins with teens, having to call security or having their sleep disturbed by the constant loud traffic in the wee hours of the morning. My husband even witnessed some violence between an older teen and a pre-teen for which security had to get involved. I guess thats not much of a Disney complaint - other than perhaps they could increase trafficking or policing the kids a little better. One would hope they wouldnt have to do that. But it is something I noticed and several other parents were complaining about, and some of them had teenagers themselves!
Ok so on to the trip report we left Saturday night out of Boston....
Sunday June 24th, 2007
When we got off the plane Air France representatives were waiting for us, since we left Boston 45 minutes late it cut into our 90 minute layover in France. They actually got all Barcelona passengers and escorted us through the airport, immigration and security so we could make our flight. I was very impressed we would never have made it on our own. The only problem was once we arrived in Barcelona we had 5 bags missing! Of course they were the bags with the clothes in them. After reporting the missing bags and exchanging our pounds from my last trip to Belfast to Euros we grabbed two taxis and headed to our hotel Icaria in Barcelona. It was about 30 euros for each cab for the 20 minute ride. It was 4:30 in the afternoon by the time we arrived, tired and hungry and unable to change into lighter clothes!! The hotel was very nice, modern and clean. It is a newer hotel built for the Olympics in 1992.
After unpacking what we could we ended up going to Port Olympic, walked along the pier and the beach. We ate at a nice little restaurant along the pier, La Menta. My son had a huge plate of local seafood with mussels and prawns and lobster.
My friend and I shared a lobster paella and a carafe of Sangria! When the waiter fed one of our children her food we knew we were truly on vacation.
After dinner we walked along the board walk towards Barconelatta. Somewhere along there we found a store where I purchased some lighter clothes for myself and a bathing suit for our son. The friends headed back to the hotel while we headed to the beach so we could have our first swim in the Mediterranean.
We crashed pretty early excited to start our real adventure the next day.
Monday June 25th, 2007
We used the Fodors Barcelona book as our guide to see the top sites of the city, so with cameras, a Spanish language book and a map we headed out to purchase tickets for the hop on/off bus, Barcelona Bus Touristic. For 19 Euro you had 3 bus routes to choose from. This was a great way to look around the first day and get the lay of the land. Plus we were prepared for jet lagged children so we tried to keep the walking to a minimum this first day! Sort of!
What a marvelous city! The architecture was beautiful. We decided to get off at the Museum of National Art even though it was closed on Mondays. The building itself and the view of the city from there was quite spectacular. The hop on/off bus ran quite frequently so we never had to wait long for a bus.
From there we rode to the Maritime Museum. That was interesting we all were impressed with the full sized replica inside the buildings. Note that while we enjoyed it unless you got the audio in English very few of the exhibits have English text.
After the museum we crossed through Columbus square and headed towards the water, the World Trade Center area, to find food. We tried a restaurant that had various tapas.
Feeling refreshed we hoofed it to another bus stop, cutting off some of the route that wed already seen in the morning. We hopped off at the Casa Passeig de Gracia La Peadra this is the apartment building designed by architect Gaudi.
The apartment rooms you could view were interesting furnished in the style of when the building was first constructed. The more interesting part was the museum in the attic covering most of Gaudis work with miniature replicas. A visit here is not complete without going up another flight for a great view of the roof top as well as the city below.
After our visit we changed to the Red Bus Route and got off at the Sagrada Familia. Fascinating cathedral from every angle! We took an elevator and then the stairs to the tower to get a close up view of all the spires each adorned with different food, fruits, nuts etc.
At this point it was about 7:00 in the evening, we decided to get back on the bus and do the rest of the red route. There were some interesting places to get off but at this hour everything was closed, such as the Park Guell. This part of the city isnt as interesting to view just from the bus, so if dont have time to explore the sites its not really worth taking the hour long route. We finally arrived at Las Ramblas and walked around looking for food. We picked a traditional tapas restaurant right next to McDonalds! Yes they have them everywhere! Our dinner was yummy though half the time we werent sure what we were eating! But my family is a bit adventurous when it comes to food. The more conservative eaters had pizza here and were quite pleased. We didnt make it back to the hotel til 11:00. Fortunately our bags were waiting for us when we got there!
Tuesday June 26th, 2007
Today was our day for walking around! We grabbed two taxis which brought us to the Bari Gotic Catedral. We took the elevator to the top for another great view of the city. From here we walked to the Museum of Cultural History where we saw the ancient roman ruins recently excavated under the city. This was very educational and one of our kids had just learned about a lot of this in school this past year so she found it especially interesting.
For lunch we went to the market with the fancy tiled roof (I forget the name of it!) my pasta with basil pesto and fresh diced tomatoes was excellent! After lunch we went to the Picasso museum. Though there was a 20 minute wait to get in, this seemed to be the highlight of the day for everyone, it was fascinating to see how his work changed and progressed through the years. We wanted to walk to the Cathederal del Mar but at this point we were pretty pooped. There were quite a few of us that wanted to go the chocolate museum as well but they are CLOSED on Tuesday. So we settled for stopping for pastries and ice cream around the Picasso area then walking through the shopping district and then finding the Hard Rock Café. This was a compromise for the pickier eaters in the crew that were already tired of Spanish food. The restaurant itself was unremarkable and the food was just ok, not as good as many of the other hard rock cafes in the US. So it was a poor imitation of American food!
After dinner the women went to a wine store to pick up a few bottles of wine. We are fussy about our wine so we were afraid to buy Spanish chardonnay. We picked up two random bottles and one bottle of Cava champagne. When we finally returned to the hotel we popped open a bottle of the Chardonnay it was WONDERFUL!
General travel notes for Spain the bus operators and museum attendees all spoke English . But the waiters in the little Spanish restaurants and the taxi drivers did not speak English at all so it was very helpful to have our language book. And when all else failed pen and paper to draw pictures helped!
Also very few places took Visa for admission (we found this true throughout our trip)! We ended up needing a lot more Euros than we anticipated even the hop on/off bus you needed cash.
Wednesday June 27th, 2007
We planned to get to the boat early for a day of relaxing by the pool we ordered two cabs for 10:30. It was a quick cab ride 20 Euros each. I have to say when I saw the boat as we rounded the corner I got teary eyed! What a site it is. Entering the terminal you get a boarding group number, but what we didnt realize after we checked in that you should move to another area to wait where they will announce what numbers are boarding. So we wasted a bit of time waiting in the wrong place. In the other room theres entertainment and characters posing for pictures. By the time we realized we were waiting in the wrong place, our # was already passed! We boarded quickly after posing for our picture. As we entered on the 9th floor at about 12:00 they announced our names and had a group of staff waiting and clapping and I got goosebumps! How many times have I done this and Im still getting goosebumps? We found our way quickly to Goofys Galley for some lunch as it was overcast and cloudy we stayed in the glassed in cove. Our room was supposed to be ready by 2:00 and our bags delivered by 5:30. Until then I read in the adult pool area and marveled on the journey we had started and all the great new places wed be visiting soon.
When we arrived at our room! There was our door decorated by our son! The trip was to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and our son worked with our friend to decorate the room and order an anniversary cake which was waiting for us with champagne!
At 5:00 we had our life boat drill which was painless and over quickly. This was my friends chance to escape to the wine store to buy more of that fabulous spanish chardonnay for our trip! She left the ship with no knowledge of the Spanish language and ventured off to the wine shop we had found the night before. As I was showering getting ready for our 8:30 Palo reservations, I started to panic that she might not make it back to the ship! Just as that thought ran through my mind I heard her knocking on the door. She had quite the adventure picking up a cab driver on the return that spoke no English she drew a picture of a boat and Mickey Mouse Mickey is truly a universal language he understood her immediately! So we had our wine for the trip!
The adults enjoyed a dinner at Palos that evening, I had rack of lamb . Our waitress was Ann Marie from South Africa and she was delightful. The food and service were impeccable as always.
The kids ate on their own at Animators Palate.
Thursday June 28th - Day at Sea
I started the day off right with a spa service! If youve never done Alone time I highly recommend it! I did it on the last cruise and could not wait to do it again. Its 90 minute service you start by soaking your feet as your therapists scrubs and rinses them, then you have 20 minutes alone in a hot tub oh did I mention you are on a balcony looking over the ocean?? Then you have a choice of services, I did a facial and a massage. After that you can lounge on your balcony again as you are served tea and fruit. I brought a book to read and enjoyed the views. I was starting out the cruise VERY relaxed.
Our character breakfast was scheduled for 10:30am. This has changed from the past breakfasts the characters put on more of a show and ask the kids to join them in some dancing and other silliness. The characters do not go from table to table for pictures though there are plenty of other opportunities for picture taking throughout the cruise.
After breakfast I went for a walk on the jogging track and then did a quick workout. Our son found his way to the Oceaneer lab for most of the morning. We quickly nick named him Dash after the Incredibles character as he was never still for a moment and was always dashing off to something!
Tonight was formal night we dressed and went to the golden Mickeys at 6:30! My son dressed in his tuxedo did the interview ahead of time. He and all the other kids were just adorable. The show as usual was not disappointing I really dont tire of those shows they get to me every time sentimental sap.
Our dinner was nice and we met our servers Alexander and Denis for the first time. Both of them were lovely and sweet. After our first dinner they had our habits down pat and knew exactly what to bring and what we liked to eat. Their recommendations (except for one wine choice) never failed us!
Friday June 28th, Palermo Sicily
We chose to do the Selinunte tour provided by Disney for this. I must say the hour and a half ride was actually a blessing on the way there though there was beautiful country side to see all of us slept! The Roman temple/ruins when we got there were just fascinating. I think we spent about 90 minutes there.
Our tour guide spoke perfect English it took me a while to detect her ever so slight accent. She had great knowledge of the history of the area and I enjoyed listening to her.
Afterwards we headed to the beach for the afternoon and some lunch. There were 3 tour buses doing this tour and I must say they handled it very well considering the number of people. Our lunch time was split in 3 groups and we had the 1:00 session. Prior to lunch we all had our own lounge chair and umbrella. Lunch was lovely with wine, antipasto, buffet, pastas, mini pizzas. Just when we thought we were done eating they brought out cantaloupe. Ok now were done no here comes the lemon ice! Followed by lovely almond cookies!
I must say for our first day this was a perfect combination of site seeing, relaxing on the beach and eating! We headed back with one more stop for a wine tasting at a local shop. The wines were not to my taste but several people bought bottles. They were very different and unique to the area one of them was an almond flavored wine! Nice to taste but not worth carrying home!
We headed back around 3:00 to return to the ship by 4:30. On the way back I managed to stay awake for the views of the country side, fields of grapes and olive trees. Truly beautiful country side one I would love to explore more!
As we headed back into the city of Palermo our tour guide pointed out more interesting sites so it was almost like a mini-city tour as well.
We made it back to the ship in time to enjoy lots of character pictures and the 6:30 show which was the Comedy and Ventriloquism of Taylor Mason. For those of you who made this show, my husband was the man in the front row who was being stared at by the pig!! Im staring at da man.
Saturday June 29th, Naples
Today we arrived in Naples! We chose a Disney excursion Pompei, Sorrento and Capri. We started off on a Hydrofoil that took us to the Island of Capri, after a 45 minute boat ride we were left in the little port with a ticket for free gelato. We spent a little time shopping here and sending off postcards. There wasnt enough time to really do anything here I think we were left on our own about 45 minutes. We then hopped on a boat and sailed around the island. This was spectacular! With incredible views of the island.
After our boat tour of the island we took a short hydrofoil ride to Sorrento. We took little mini-buses up the walled port to our restaurant. Just a note at this point wed been traveling with quite a few people maybe 7 or more tour groups. After we arrived at Sorrento we were back to just our tour group, so lunch and the afternoon spent in Pompeii were with a much smaller group.
Our lunch was the typical Italian fare with antipasto, pasta, salads, wine, bread and dessert. After lunch we had time to walk around the shopping area where we picked up souvenirs and postcards. After about 45 minutes we boarded the bus to head to Pompeii. This was truly the highlight of the day. The tour in Pompei last about 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes to walk around the "gifty" shops afterwards.
Sunday July 1st
After two busy tour days we were ready for an easy day. We arrived at Olbia around 8:00am. We took the opportunity to sleep in, have breakfast out on the deck at topsiders before heading into town. When you get off the boat there are complimentary buses to take you to the end of the working pier. There really didnt seem to be much to see or do here, and we arent big shoppers, so we decided to hire a taxi to the Costa Smeralda. For a 110Euro we hired a taxi to take us there leave us for an hour and drive us home. While it was BEAUTIFUL and the money oozing everywhere was impressive with the yachts and shopping I think going to a beach or staying on the boat to rest up would be a better alternative. The friends we were traveling with spent .80 to hop a public bus to a close by beach where they could rent umbrellas.
Regardless we had a nice time, and snapped lots of photos of impressive boats and the great views of the country side and of course the Disney magic. Our driver spoke virtually no English at all! So Dave struggled with his Italian but managed to communicate. We found words like mickey mouse and bill gates are universally understood.
Pen and paper was a must for communication however! Our driver was very pleasant and stopped at many scenic vistas for us so we could take pictures. And yes we saw Bill Gates yacht fully equipped with a helicopter!
We were back on the boat by 2:30 and took advantage of some relax time by the goofy pool before the 6:30 show of Art of the Story.
To be continued...
The VAT was a bother though theres not much they could do about that.
I had two complaints which I reported to Disney via the comment cards, one was the smoking allowed on the state room verandas. One of the things I love about getting an outside room is enjoying coffee outside on the veranda in the morning, and a cocktail as we set sail in the afternoon. Unfortunately on this trip we had a neighbor that liked to smoke on his veranda
Unfortunately that prevented me from being able to enjoy the outside portion of our stateroom. I made a suggestion to Disney that they somehow segregate the rooms I know easier said than done I was just disappointed how infrequently I could enjoy the ocean air on my deck.The other complaint was some of the behavior of *some* of the teenagers. There were more teenagers on this cruise than any other cruise I remember. And those that chose not to participate in the stack activities or find appropriate places to gather quite a few times were making nuisances of themselves in public areas such as hallways and stair wells. There were several parents I spoke to that had run-ins with teens, having to call security or having their sleep disturbed by the constant loud traffic in the wee hours of the morning. My husband even witnessed some violence between an older teen and a pre-teen for which security had to get involved. I guess thats not much of a Disney complaint - other than perhaps they could increase trafficking or policing the kids a little better. One would hope they wouldnt have to do that. But it is something I noticed and several other parents were complaining about, and some of them had teenagers themselves!
Ok so on to the trip report we left Saturday night out of Boston....
Sunday June 24th, 2007When we got off the plane Air France representatives were waiting for us, since we left Boston 45 minutes late it cut into our 90 minute layover in France. They actually got all Barcelona passengers and escorted us through the airport, immigration and security so we could make our flight. I was very impressed we would never have made it on our own. The only problem was once we arrived in Barcelona we had 5 bags missing! Of course they were the bags with the clothes in them. After reporting the missing bags and exchanging our pounds from my last trip to Belfast to Euros we grabbed two taxis and headed to our hotel Icaria in Barcelona. It was about 30 euros for each cab for the 20 minute ride. It was 4:30 in the afternoon by the time we arrived, tired and hungry and unable to change into lighter clothes!! The hotel was very nice, modern and clean. It is a newer hotel built for the Olympics in 1992.
After unpacking what we could we ended up going to Port Olympic, walked along the pier and the beach. We ate at a nice little restaurant along the pier, La Menta. My son had a huge plate of local seafood with mussels and prawns and lobster.
My friend and I shared a lobster paella and a carafe of Sangria! When the waiter fed one of our children her food we knew we were truly on vacation.
After dinner we walked along the board walk towards Barconelatta. Somewhere along there we found a store where I purchased some lighter clothes for myself and a bathing suit for our son. The friends headed back to the hotel while we headed to the beach so we could have our first swim in the Mediterranean.
We crashed pretty early excited to start our real adventure the next day.
Monday June 25th, 2007We used the Fodors Barcelona book as our guide to see the top sites of the city, so with cameras, a Spanish language book and a map we headed out to purchase tickets for the hop on/off bus, Barcelona Bus Touristic. For 19 Euro you had 3 bus routes to choose from. This was a great way to look around the first day and get the lay of the land. Plus we were prepared for jet lagged children so we tried to keep the walking to a minimum this first day! Sort of!
What a marvelous city! The architecture was beautiful. We decided to get off at the Museum of National Art even though it was closed on Mondays. The building itself and the view of the city from there was quite spectacular. The hop on/off bus ran quite frequently so we never had to wait long for a bus.
From there we rode to the Maritime Museum. That was interesting we all were impressed with the full sized replica inside the buildings. Note that while we enjoyed it unless you got the audio in English very few of the exhibits have English text.
After the museum we crossed through Columbus square and headed towards the water, the World Trade Center area, to find food. We tried a restaurant that had various tapas.
Feeling refreshed we hoofed it to another bus stop, cutting off some of the route that wed already seen in the morning. We hopped off at the Casa Passeig de Gracia La Peadra this is the apartment building designed by architect Gaudi.
The apartment rooms you could view were interesting furnished in the style of when the building was first constructed. The more interesting part was the museum in the attic covering most of Gaudis work with miniature replicas. A visit here is not complete without going up another flight for a great view of the roof top as well as the city below.
After our visit we changed to the Red Bus Route and got off at the Sagrada Familia. Fascinating cathedral from every angle! We took an elevator and then the stairs to the tower to get a close up view of all the spires each adorned with different food, fruits, nuts etc.
At this point it was about 7:00 in the evening, we decided to get back on the bus and do the rest of the red route. There were some interesting places to get off but at this hour everything was closed, such as the Park Guell. This part of the city isnt as interesting to view just from the bus, so if dont have time to explore the sites its not really worth taking the hour long route. We finally arrived at Las Ramblas and walked around looking for food. We picked a traditional tapas restaurant right next to McDonalds! Yes they have them everywhere! Our dinner was yummy though half the time we werent sure what we were eating! But my family is a bit adventurous when it comes to food. The more conservative eaters had pizza here and were quite pleased. We didnt make it back to the hotel til 11:00. Fortunately our bags were waiting for us when we got there!
Tuesday June 26th, 2007Today was our day for walking around! We grabbed two taxis which brought us to the Bari Gotic Catedral. We took the elevator to the top for another great view of the city. From here we walked to the Museum of Cultural History where we saw the ancient roman ruins recently excavated under the city. This was very educational and one of our kids had just learned about a lot of this in school this past year so she found it especially interesting.
For lunch we went to the market with the fancy tiled roof (I forget the name of it!) my pasta with basil pesto and fresh diced tomatoes was excellent! After lunch we went to the Picasso museum. Though there was a 20 minute wait to get in, this seemed to be the highlight of the day for everyone, it was fascinating to see how his work changed and progressed through the years. We wanted to walk to the Cathederal del Mar but at this point we were pretty pooped. There were quite a few of us that wanted to go the chocolate museum as well but they are CLOSED on Tuesday
. So we settled for stopping for pastries and ice cream around the Picasso area then walking through the shopping district and then finding the Hard Rock Café. This was a compromise for the pickier eaters in the crew that were already tired of Spanish food. The restaurant itself was unremarkable and the food was just ok, not as good as many of the other hard rock cafes in the US. So it was a poor imitation of American food!After dinner the women went to a wine store to pick up a few bottles of wine. We are fussy about our wine so we were afraid to buy Spanish chardonnay. We picked up two random bottles and one bottle of Cava champagne. When we finally returned to the hotel we popped open a bottle of the Chardonnay it was WONDERFUL!
General travel notes for Spain the bus operators and museum attendees all spoke English . But the waiters in the little Spanish restaurants and the taxi drivers did not speak English at all so it was very helpful to have our language book. And when all else failed pen and paper to draw pictures helped!
Also very few places took Visa for admission (we found this true throughout our trip)! We ended up needing a lot more Euros than we anticipated even the hop on/off bus you needed cash.
Wednesday June 27th, 2007We planned to get to the boat early for a day of relaxing by the pool we ordered two cabs for 10:30. It was a quick cab ride 20 Euros each. I have to say when I saw the boat as we rounded the corner I got teary eyed! What a site it is. Entering the terminal you get a boarding group number, but what we didnt realize after we checked in that you should move to another area to wait where they will announce what numbers are boarding. So we wasted a bit of time waiting in the wrong place. In the other room theres entertainment and characters posing for pictures. By the time we realized we were waiting in the wrong place, our # was already passed! We boarded quickly after posing for our picture. As we entered on the 9th floor at about 12:00 they announced our names and had a group of staff waiting and clapping and I got goosebumps! How many times have I done this and Im still getting goosebumps? We found our way quickly to Goofys Galley for some lunch as it was overcast and cloudy we stayed in the glassed in cove. Our room was supposed to be ready by 2:00 and our bags delivered by 5:30. Until then I read in the adult pool area and marveled on the journey we had started and all the great new places wed be visiting soon.
When we arrived at our room! There was our door decorated by our son! The trip was to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and our son worked with our friend to decorate the room and order an anniversary cake which was waiting for us with champagne!
At 5:00 we had our life boat drill which was painless and over quickly. This was my friends chance to escape to the wine store to buy more of that fabulous spanish chardonnay for our trip! She left the ship with no knowledge of the Spanish language and ventured off to the wine shop we had found the night before. As I was showering getting ready for our 8:30 Palo reservations, I started to panic that she might not make it back to the ship! Just as that thought ran through my mind I heard her knocking on the door. She had quite the adventure picking up a cab driver on the return that spoke no English she drew a picture of a boat and Mickey Mouse Mickey is truly a universal language he understood her immediately! So we had our wine for the trip!
The adults enjoyed a dinner at Palos that evening, I had rack of lamb . Our waitress was Ann Marie from South Africa and she was delightful. The food and service were impeccable as always.
The kids ate on their own at Animators Palate.
Thursday June 28th - Day at SeaI started the day off right with a spa service! If youve never done Alone time I highly recommend it! I did it on the last cruise and could not wait to do it again. Its 90 minute service you start by soaking your feet as your therapists scrubs and rinses them, then you have 20 minutes alone in a hot tub oh did I mention you are on a balcony looking over the ocean?? Then you have a choice of services, I did a facial and a massage. After that you can lounge on your balcony again as you are served tea and fruit. I brought a book to read and enjoyed the views. I was starting out the cruise VERY relaxed.
Our character breakfast was scheduled for 10:30am. This has changed from the past breakfasts the characters put on more of a show and ask the kids to join them in some dancing and other silliness. The characters do not go from table to table for pictures though there are plenty of other opportunities for picture taking throughout the cruise.
After breakfast I went for a walk on the jogging track and then did a quick workout. Our son found his way to the Oceaneer lab for most of the morning. We quickly nick named him Dash after the Incredibles character as he was never still for a moment and was always dashing off to something!
Tonight was formal night we dressed and went to the golden Mickeys at 6:30! My son dressed in his tuxedo did the interview ahead of time. He and all the other kids were just adorable. The show as usual was not disappointing I really dont tire of those shows they get to me every time sentimental sap.
Our dinner was nice and we met our servers Alexander and Denis for the first time. Both of them were lovely and sweet. After our first dinner they had our habits down pat and knew exactly what to bring and what we liked to eat. Their recommendations (except for one wine choice) never failed us!
Friday June 28th, Palermo SicilyWe chose to do the Selinunte tour provided by Disney for this. I must say the hour and a half ride was actually a blessing on the way there though there was beautiful country side to see all of us slept! The Roman temple/ruins when we got there were just fascinating. I think we spent about 90 minutes there.
Our tour guide spoke perfect English it took me a while to detect her ever so slight accent. She had great knowledge of the history of the area and I enjoyed listening to her.
Afterwards we headed to the beach for the afternoon and some lunch. There were 3 tour buses doing this tour and I must say they handled it very well considering the number of people. Our lunch time was split in 3 groups and we had the 1:00 session. Prior to lunch we all had our own lounge chair and umbrella. Lunch was lovely with wine, antipasto, buffet, pastas, mini pizzas. Just when we thought we were done eating they brought out cantaloupe. Ok now were done no here comes the lemon ice! Followed by lovely almond cookies!
I must say for our first day this was a perfect combination of site seeing, relaxing on the beach and eating! We headed back with one more stop for a wine tasting at a local shop. The wines were not to my taste but several people bought bottles. They were very different and unique to the area one of them was an almond flavored wine! Nice to taste but not worth carrying home!
We headed back around 3:00 to return to the ship by 4:30. On the way back I managed to stay awake for the views of the country side, fields of grapes and olive trees. Truly beautiful country side one I would love to explore more!
As we headed back into the city of Palermo our tour guide pointed out more interesting sites so it was almost like a mini-city tour as well.
We made it back to the ship in time to enjoy lots of character pictures and the 6:30 show which was the Comedy and Ventriloquism of Taylor Mason. For those of you who made this show, my husband was the man in the front row who was being stared at by the pig!! Im staring at da man.
Saturday June 29th, NaplesToday we arrived in Naples! We chose a Disney excursion Pompei, Sorrento and Capri. We started off on a Hydrofoil that took us to the Island of Capri, after a 45 minute boat ride we were left in the little port with a ticket for free gelato. We spent a little time shopping here and sending off postcards. There wasnt enough time to really do anything here I think we were left on our own about 45 minutes. We then hopped on a boat and sailed around the island. This was spectacular! With incredible views of the island.
After our boat tour of the island we took a short hydrofoil ride to Sorrento. We took little mini-buses up the walled port to our restaurant. Just a note at this point wed been traveling with quite a few people maybe 7 or more tour groups. After we arrived at Sorrento we were back to just our tour group, so lunch and the afternoon spent in Pompeii were with a much smaller group.
Our lunch was the typical Italian fare with antipasto, pasta, salads, wine, bread and dessert. After lunch we had time to walk around the shopping area where we picked up souvenirs and postcards. After about 45 minutes we boarded the bus to head to Pompeii. This was truly the highlight of the day. The tour in Pompei last about 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes to walk around the "gifty" shops afterwards.
Sunday July 1stAfter two busy tour days we were ready for an easy day. We arrived at Olbia around 8:00am. We took the opportunity to sleep in, have breakfast out on the deck at topsiders before heading into town. When you get off the boat there are complimentary buses to take you to the end of the working pier. There really didnt seem to be much to see or do here, and we arent big shoppers, so we decided to hire a taxi to the Costa Smeralda. For a 110Euro we hired a taxi to take us there leave us for an hour and drive us home. While it was BEAUTIFUL and the money oozing everywhere was impressive with the yachts and shopping I think going to a beach or staying on the boat to rest up would be a better alternative. The friends we were traveling with spent .80 to hop a public bus to a close by beach where they could rent umbrellas.
Regardless we had a nice time, and snapped lots of photos of impressive boats and the great views of the country side and of course the Disney magic. Our driver spoke virtually no English at all! So Dave struggled with his Italian but managed to communicate. We found words like mickey mouse and bill gates are universally understood.
Pen and paper was a must for communication however! Our driver was very pleasant and stopped at many scenic vistas for us so we could take pictures. And yes we saw Bill Gates yacht fully equipped with a helicopter!We were back on the boat by 2:30 and took advantage of some relax time by the goofy pool before the 6:30 show of Art of the Story.
To be continued...
(we booked 3 private tours, did two disney tours, and two days on our own). Antonio met us at the pier at about 8:20 for our 8:30 tour and he wasted no time whisking us off to Rome. Hed already made reservations for us at the Coliseum. The first site of the Coliseum was overwhelming (and yes we beat most of the disney buses there!!). Antonio left us there with instructions of how to avoid the line, and how the pictures with the dressed gladiators are fun but they will ask for money he told us not to give them more than 5 Euro if we wanted a picture. We spent about an hour wandering around in awe. 
clothes regardless of the weather conditions!
