Just back from July 7/07 -have ???? - will try and answer

[vegs1]

Just returned from the July 7 Med cruise and loved every minute of it. If you have any questions, please send me a PM as I'm not checking on here as often. I will list what we did below and if you have questions...ask away.

We took the Aerobus on arrival in Barcelona. Straight out the door of the airport and on the right if you're in terminal A. Took us to Placa de Catalunya. Very simple and cheap. (approx. 11 euros for 3 of us.)

Stayed at the Hotel Continental Palacete for the 1st night and the last 2 nights.. Ideal location...close to everything. Snacks, wine, beer and soda included in cost. Also free internet!

Stayed in Category 9 cabin on deck 2 - cabin 2646. Very nice, quiet area.

Shore excursions:

Palermo: Mysterious Palermo - visited the catacombs and a couple of churches. (my 9 year old loved the catacombs)

Naples: Did a private tour of the Amalfi Coast and visited Pompeii for 2 hours with Salvatore Lucibello of Drive Amalfi. Excellent, excellent, excellent is all I can say.

Rome: Ultimate Rome through DCL. Long day but we really enjoyed it. Great lunch! 2 hours of free time was only about 1/2 an hour due to traffic coming into Rome but we didn't mind. The Colisseum was awesome and our tour guide, Francesco, was amazing. Very knowledgeable! The wait to get into St. Peter's Basilica was quite lengthy in the sun but it went by fairly quickly. Our tablemates did the Rome on Your Own through the ship. The bus ride was OK for them but their regret was that they had no guide once in Rome to explain anything to them. They felt they missed out greatly.

Olbia - Gnocchetti Sardi & Ravioli - Went to a countryside restaurant near Agasse, Sardinia. Got to make both ravioli and gnocchi. Very fun. My 9 year old daughter LOVED it! Afterwards, listened to a quartet sing and then went to hear about the local cork trees then inside for a wonderful lunch. Afterwards, toured a local museum displaying various local customs and costumes.

La Spezia - VIP Tour of Pisa. Took the tender ashore and looked around the town. Very nice shops with fairly (for Europe) reasonable prices. Lots of sales. Then left for our afternoon tour of VIP Pisa. Climbed the tower (yes, all 294 well worn marble steps) had 1/2 hour to shop or look in the church or Baptistery and then off for a drink and snack (pastries and cafe) from a local bakery. Then back to the ship.


Marseille - Soap Factory and City Tour Toured the city and then went to the local soap factory. Had a chance to purchase soap and then see how it was made. Went to the Notre Dame de la Gard church. Stopped in Vieux Port for crepes (on our own - yummy) and then shopped at the market set up by the water. Then back to the ship. Nice length of tour and a great overview of the city. Only chance to really shop as the other stores in Marseille were closed. NOTE: We had some folks on this tour in a wheelchair and they were told it was wheelchair accessible. They had to push the wheelchair up a huge incline to get to the soap factory and also had to get a vehicle to take them up to the top at Notre Dame de la Gard. Was not the easiest but I guess it WAS accessible. (not MY idea of accessible!)

Villefranche - Did the train on our own into Monte Carlo. Very easy to do. Visited the Palace (outside only), saw the changing of the guard, visited the Cathedral, had snacks at the Cafe de Paris, photo ops of the Casino (we didn't go inside) then took the local bus 112 to Eze. Visited Eze (very quaint and beautiful perched village). Loved all the little shops and cafes. Stopped at shop called Les Trois Etoiles run by a wonderful gentleman named Horst. He was absolutely fabulous. They sell wonderful liqueurs and olive oils and pack them up really well in bubble wrap for bringing home. We bought both Peach and cherry liqueurs which were absolutely delicious. Also bought some truffle oil and some garlic infused olive oil. (They let you sample...mmmmmmm...yummy! I thought my daughter was going to eat his whole display of bread and oil dip but he kept bringing out more and saying "let her indulge...she's on vacation!" He was really wonderful and we were glad to give him our business. We did pay the 5 euros to go into the garden at the top (kids under 12 were free) and were glad we did. The views were spectacular and you could see all the way to the ship. We took a cab back to the ship as the bus schedule seemed a little more complicated to get back to Villefranche and we were getting tired. Cab ride back to the port from Eze was 35 euros. We didn't mind though as we saved all that money that we would have spent on the shore excursion!

Barcelona:

Again stayed at the Continental Hotel Palacete. Also, took the train to Montserrat. Very enjoyable place. Easy to get to. Took the Metro to Parc Guell and to La Sagrada Familia. Metro in Barcelona is extremely easy to use and fairly reasonable. Great restaurant near hotel called El Raco. Great prices and nice location for people watching. Shopped on Passeig de Gracia...lots of high end stores...Burberry, D & G, Cartier.

Flight home went well. Took Air Transat from Barcelona (stop only in Montreal) and then on to Toronto. Arrived on time...no lost luggage!

That's it in a nutshell other than we wish we were just setting sail!

Happy Travels!

 

[jlawall]

Thx for sharing, great details......one question, were you allowed to change excursions while onboard?

 

[vegs1]

Thx for sharing, great details......one question, were you allowed to change excursions while onboard?

To my knowledge, you were not. Our tablemate tried to switch one of her excursions to a new 1/2 day of Pompeii which they were offering and they made her pay for both. Quite undisneylike I thought but I guess they probably have had to pay their tour people at destination for the tours by a certain time.

 

[OurDogCisco]

WE were able to cancel our two dds from an excursion but there was a waiting list and another 2 people got the spot. But they explained to us that excursions were non-refundable X days prior to boarding (I can't remember how many days). So I think we lucked out but we were willing to pay even if our dds didn't go because they needed a break from the tours.

 

[Bjirka]

What did you guys wear on your excursions...i'm taking some of the same ones? thank you for your story sounds like you had a great time!

Brier

 

[vegs1]

What did you guys wear on your excursions...i'm taking some of the same ones? thank you for your story sounds like you had a great time!

Brier

I normally wore capris and a t-shirt. My husband wore t-shirts and shorts but had some zip off pants/shorts for tours that went to the Vatican or other churches.

I hope you have fun on your cruise.

 

[nzdisneymom]

We also did the VIP Pisa tour in the afternoon on the July 18th Med. It was one of our most fun excursions. One thing I thought was that we would have a final stop at a gift shop / souvenir shop - I thought I heard our tour guide and our escort say that twice, but I must've misunderstood and as a result I was not able to actually get a small Leaning Tower souvenir. I did dash into the tobacco shop just down the block from Salza (the bakery stop) and got a post card. We used our free-time after our climb to get gelato and use the restroom (oops, I mean the toilette) in Bar Duomo, and I looked for souvenirs in the shop right across from there but it was a book store (I did get a copy of Harry Potter there which was one thing I wanted to do while on the trip) but then we thought we were out of time. As it turned out, we still had about 15 minutes we were waiting for everyone to get back together -- but I didn't go back to look because I thought we had another stop after the bakery. Oh well.

I was fine with the climb to the top of the tower - it was coming down that I felt it to be a bit treacherous as I looked at how slick those marble steps really were. Ay yi yi! But the view from the top was breath-taking... or was it that the climb to the top took my breath away? Either way, it was amazing.