June 8, 2011 – Mediterranean

[jedipup]

Hello everyone! My wife (Jill) and I (Michael) just booked the cruise. It will be our 5th cruise to the MED, but our first Disney Cruise. We will be bringing our 5yr. old son (Tommy) with us for his first cruise. We have been to many of the ports, but not all of them, so hopefully we can help with questions about the ports of call.

 

[chris44]

We're so excited to have you on board! It's great to know you've got info on some of the ports, and I'm sure we'll be "picking your brain" about that.

Have you ever stayed in Barcelona and, if so, can you recommend a hotel or area in which to stay? We're coming in a couple of days before the cruise, and I've read lots of stuff on this board and on TripAdvisor and am working on finding a hotel for those two nights.

Glad you'll be a part of this cruise!

 

[Kaleigh]

Hi all! I did the 10 day Med cruise this year and created a website with lots of info. I have also recently begun my trip report. If you have any questions, or would like me to look for anything in my navigators for you, just let me know! BTW, we are planning on doing it again next year, just now sure which sail date yet.

 

[chris44]

Great, I look forward to reading your trip report!

 

[jedipup]

Hi all! I did the 10 day Med cruise this year and created a website with lots of info. I have also recently begun my trip report. If you have any questions, or would like me to look for anything in my navigators for you, just let me know! BTW, we are planning on doing it again next year, just now sure which sail date yet.

Make sure you read this post/link it is excellent... with lost of pictures! I learned a lot about the ports I have not been to yet!

 

[pxlbarrel]

Bleh, I just took a gander at the airfare. First, I discovered that direct flights to and from Barcelona don't seem to exist from here...even though I swear I saw some a few months ago. Second, the airfare seems more expensive than going to the far east which is really strange. I'm hoping they'll drop by January or so...

 

[mickymania]

Just booked It will be my my husband and I and this is our third Disney cruise. I have spent some time along parts of Italy and Cannes and it is beautiful. I am excited to go back!!!

 

[chris44]

Yay, we are glad to have you on board!

 

[pxlbarrel]

I'm hoping to do research into doing some private excursion tours in some of the cities and was wondering if there were others who might want to join us or something. I'd love to do the Disney excursions but I've heard they all return to the ship in time for the first dinner seating and we picked the second seating just to stay out longer. LOL

I'm going to look into private tours and/or tour companies that specialize in cruise ship tourists.

We're a family of 4 adults (me, brother, father and mother) who are probably more interested in historical stuff than most. My dad's almost deaf so he mainly enjoys the sights. LOL I know that in Italy, I'm most interested in seeing Pompeii and my brother is most interested in seeing the Vatican. And ... I like taking photos of food.

So, if anybody's interested, let me know and I'll look and see if they have group rates and stuff. This is just preliminary stuff so nobody's committing to anything anyway.

As an example: I'm looking at this company right now http://www.artviva.com/

 

[JeffPort]

Hello fellow cruisers ...

We've been tentatively booked for the June 8th cruise for many months now, but we just just successfully secured Frequent Flyer Reward seats for the family in the past week ... So it looks like we are now "all in."

Our group is two related families:

Mom + Dad + DD18 + DS16 + DD14 + DS11
Mom + Dad + DS4 + DD3

This is the 2nd Disney Cruise for me, my wife, and my 4 kids. It is the first Disney cruise for my in-laws and their 2 small children. It's also my family's first European expedition ... Except for my wife who lived in Spain for nearly a year many moons ago.

This will be the trip of a lifetime for us. We are all very excited to explore a new part of our world.

 

[amyren]

Hello fellow cruisers ...

We've been tentatively booked for the June 8th cruise for many months now, but we just just successfully secured Frequent Flyer Reward seats for the family in the past week ... So it looks like we are now "all in."

Our group is two related families:

Mom + Dad + DD18 + DS16 + DD14 + DS11
Mom + Dad + DS4 + DD3

This is the 2nd Disney Cruise for me, my wife, and my 4 kids. It is the first Disney cruise for my in-laws and their 2 small children. It's also my family's first European expedition ... Except for my wife who lived in Spain for nearly a year many moons ago.

This will be the trip of a lifetime for us. We are all very excited to explore a new part of our world.

Yes! Other preschoolers! I was beginning to think that I was the only crazy one for bringing DD (3 and a half next June). DH and I have been to Europe a few times and we are excited be able to travel with DD and my parents next summer. Hopefully this will be the perfect way to enjoy Europe with a 3 year old. We figure she may not love the ports but she will LOVE the boat!

 

[chris44]

I'm so glad to see more families joining this cruise! We also got our frequent flier award seats a few weeks ago, so it looks like it's a go!!

It will be me, my mom, and my DD13.

 

[mickymania]

Any advice from those that have redeemed frequent flyer miles? The airlines want almost double the normal amount of miles. Any tips?

 

[JeffPort]

It really depends on the Airline where you have accumulated the miles. We earn primarily on American and they are pretty fair in opening up 4-6 seats on their international flights 11 months out. Booking is pretty painless provided you book way in advance and are flexible with dates and routing. Also consider alternate airports (on both sides of the ocean) ... it might be worth a drive or train ride to secure the free seats. (We are flying into Madrid and taking the train a few days later to Barcelona.)

One more thing ... Don't forget about partner airlines. For example, Delta is absolutely miserable in providing almost no seats at their lowest redemption tier. However, they are a partner with Air France and other SkyTeam airlines, who tend to have better availability. You have to actually call Delta and ask them to check for availability with partner airlines. Be polite and persistent. A good agent can usually find a creative way to get you where you need to go. It is well worth the $20 call-in booking fee.

Good luck!

 

[chris44]

Any advice from those that have redeemed frequent flyer miles? The airlines want almost double the normal amount of miles. Any tips?

JEFFPORT has provided you with some good info. We were able to get our American award tickets exactly at the 330-day mark.

You might also get some good info at www.flyertalk.com, which is where I always get my info on frequent flyer programs.

 

[Zoom]

JEFFPORT has provided you with some good info. We were able to get our American award tickets exactly at the 330-day mark.

You might also get some good info at www.flyertalk.com, which is where I always get my info on frequent flyer programs.

Thanks for the link, i will definitely check it out. We also have FF miles thru AA. But with the no. of miles we have right now, it'll probably good only for 1 person, which is fine at least it'll save us $$. If you don't mind, can i ask how much miles you used for 1 person? Thanks.

 

[chris44]

We used 30,000 each way, so 60,000 round trip (per person). But that was right when the award tickets were released (at 330 days prior to travel).

I have seen discussions on flyertalk indicating that sometimes airlines release more award tickets later, but I'm not sure that's very common on flights to Europe. You might have to play around with dates and routing, but award tickets are usually much easier to get right when they are released. Good luck!!

 

[JeffPort]

Thanks for the link, i will definitely check it out. We also have FF miles thru AA. But with the no. of miles we have right now, it'll probably good only for 1 person, which is fine at least it'll save us $$. If you don't mind, can i ask how much miles you used for 1 person? Thanks.

If you have good/stable credit, check out the current Citibank 75,000 bonus miles credit card offers available right now ... Look on the MilesBuzz! forum on FlyerTalk for more details. If you are married and both you and your spouse apply for a new card right now, you could have another 150,000 AA miles in your accounts in less than 2 months. It's possible you can even do better than that by obtaining both a personal & business credit card at the same time.

Careful ... Airline mile collecting can be an addictive habit!

 

[Zoom]

We used 30,000 each way, so 60,000 round trip (per person). But that was right when the award tickets were released (at 330 days prior to travel).

I have seen discussions on flyertalk indicating that sometimes airlines release more award tickets later, but I'm not sure that's very common on flights to Europe. You might have to play around with dates and routing, but award tickets are usually much easier to get right when they are released. Good luck!!

I checked AA site and for the dates that i'm looking into booking, it requires 60K each way , very few on 30K. I should have checked last June. I will just have to check everyday and hoping that something will open up for at least 1 award ticket . And also it looks like there are more options flying to Madrid than BCN.

If you have good/stable credit, check out the current Citibank 75,000 bonus miles credit card offers available right now ... Look on the MilesBuzz! forum on FlyerTalk for more details. If you are married and both you and your spouse apply for a new card right now, you could have another 150,000 AA miles in your accounts in less than 2 months. It's possible you can even do better than that by obtaining both a personal & business credit card at the same time.

Careful ... Airline mile collecting can be an addictive habit!

Thanks for the suggestion. We have a good credit but i don't think my husband would agree on getting another card , since we already have one with FF miles.

 

[ebony]

I would like to all the new people wo have signed on.

My name is Jan and I am travelling with my DH Carl, we come from Oxford in the UK.

We also did this same cruise, in May of this year and obviously enjoyed it sooo much, we are going back for more .

This will be our 6th cruise, by then 5 with Disney and 1 with RCI.

Look forward to chatting with you all, over the coming months.

Jan