Just back from the July 7th Med Cruise... (m)

[OurDogCisco]

We had a great time. LOVED IT!!!

Just to warn future cruise people, the airlines loss all kinds of luggage. We still have a piece missing. Air France thinks it is in Rome. Hopefully, we'll get it back. On our cruise over 200 bags were missing. Many people didn't have any luggage at all. We loss all of our dressup clothes.

We did all Disney's excursions and one private excursion. I wish we did one excursion on our own so I could really compare. We did tour Marseilles on our own after our morning excursion to Aix En Provence. We took a cab to the Church of Notre Dame and then, walked back. It was easy. However, without a tour guide we didn't get any information about the church. So I didn't like the on your own part as I wanted some information about what I was looking at. As for the private tour I wasn't impressed. It still had the same feel as a group tour for us. I didn't feel we got any more time than a group tour.

All the tours were great except Rome & Florence/Pisa. Those were really tough days especially since there is so much to see. These tours showed us some great sights but it was a very, very FAST day. With the Disney excursions I was really disappointed with the 2 hour wasted lunches. Totally unneccessary. Also, I really hated when our servers would get mad if we didn't show up for dinner. You know after a 2 hour lunch nobody really wants to sit through another 2 hour dinner. Disney really blew it there.

I felt totally safe in all the ports we visited. It was very easy to pick out the pick pocket people almost immediately. We saw lots of them with walkie talkies, etc.. So I really wished we had done more on our own tours. Also, we wish we left our 6 year old in the club more. She did spend 2 days in the club while we were out.

Oh, the DisMeet was fun. I wish I got to talk to more of you all. I loved all the gifts it was very thoughtful. We did meet a wonderful family onboard and had a great time hanging out with them. It actually made our cruise very MAGICAL.

For pre and post cruise we stayed at Reinaissance Barcelona. It was clean. However, next time I think we'll pick a hotel on the beach. There wasn't much to do in the area. When we arrived on Saturday night there was no where to eat except the smokey hotel bar (the food was pretty good). We couldn't even buy bottled water. The room had a FREE mini-bar but not enough for a family of 4. For the 1st night we got a one king bed and one rollaway bed. The 2nd night we got 2 queen beds. This hotel allowed 4 in a room as long as the 2nd child is under 12 years old.

Anyways, if you have any questions let me know.

 

[JustJus]

Thanks so much for posting- love reading everyone else's experiences

Which disney trips did you take and which would you recommend?

Thanks again
Good luck unpacking!

 

[OurDogCisco]

Here you go... It might take me a few days to do them all. Personally, I would have done more on our own but we had a small child with us that I didn't feel comfortable having her ride in a cab without a booster seat and I didn't want to bring one with us to Europe. The airlines would have probably loss it anyways.

SIGHTS OF PALERMO

Here we traveled by bus from the port around town. Basically, they showed us some of the town's highlights. We stopped at what looked like a Banyon tree. It was a tree from Austrialia. In the same park there was a plaque of a New York police officer that murdered in Silicy for researching out mobsters. Anyways after that the bus took us to get gelato at 9 am in the morning. Afterwards to went to a really big church. At that point we realized my youngest needed sunglasses that were in our loss luggage. So we bought some at the square. At first, the guy told us kid sunglasses were 50 Euros. We said no thanks and walked away. He ran after us and eventually sold them to us for 5 Euros. The church was beautiful inside. The tour guide explained all the things in the church. This is the part of tours I love is getting personal information about what you are looking at and being able to ask questions. Next, they took us to the main part of town and let us walk around. At this point she said that you could either ride back on the bus to the port or just shop around and get back to the port on your own. Most stayed. We went back to the ship and dropped the kids at the club then, walked around on our own. This is when we discovered Disney was not observing local time. So at 12:30 it was really 1:30 and all the shops were closed for Siesta time. We walked around and found pastries to eat. We also had the best Iced Tea ever. It was iced tea mixed with a lemon Granita. Very good. There wasn't much to see. We wanted to see one museum but it was closed during Siesta time. Anyways, it was a lovely port otherwised and we felt very safe being there.

Note they did not use whispers on this tour. She had a microphone. She did talk good English so it was every easy to understand her.

 

[PURTYPAT1]

Thanks for sharing, looking forward to more

 

[APinCA]

For pre and post cruise we stayed at Reinaissance Barcelona. It was clean. However, next time I think we'll pick a hotel on the beach. There wasn't much to do in the area. When we arrived on Saturday night there was no where to eat except the smokey hotel bar (the food was pretty good). We couldn't even buy bottled water. The room had a FREE mini-bar but not enough for a family of 4. For the 1st night we got a one king bed and one rollaway bed. The 2nd night we got 2 queen beds. This hotel allowed 4 in a room as long as the 2nd child is under 12 years old.

We were also at the Renaissance. We had to change rooms twice. Our first night we returned around 11:30 pm and the ceiling above the shower was leaking water. Not just a drip, drip, but a several streams. The water was splashing around the tub and floor. I called down and was told that they would send someone up. I called again 10 min later and was told that they couldn't reach anyone in maintenance and that the hotel was full - no rooms available. I called several more times and 40 min later housekeeping came up to clean up the mess. By then the water had stopped streaming. The cleaners saw what had happened and used a cell phone to call down to the front desk. Someone came up IMMEDIATELY and arranged for us to change rooms. Since we didn't get the new room until 12:30 am we decided to sleep in the next morning. I woke up around 9:30 am to running water. The same problem, only worse. The ceiling was leaking above the shower AND toilet. I called down and requested that someone come up. I opened our door and asked a woman from housekeeping to come in. She saw what was happening and RAN down the hall. No one came up so I got dressed and went down to the front desk and demanded a new room. We had to move again, but at least this ceiling didn't leak. We NEVER received a real apology from the hotel and never felt that anyone was concerned about our situation. I would never stay there again. Others had no problems. Good luck to those who are staying there.

 

[NYGiantsRule!]

Is this hotel near the airport? We have reservations at the Renaissance near the airport in Barcelona. After reading these posts I am thinking of changing hotels.

 

[PURTYPAT1]

Hi All,

We stayed at the Renaissance airport hotel also. June 15th. We had a very good experience. We also met many Disney folks staying there before the cruise too.

When we exited the airport, we walked outside & to the right was the Renaissance Shuttle stop. The bus happened to be there, & we were able to hop on & leave. It comes about every 10-20 min.

At the hotel check in went quickly. I had requested 2 double beds, & that's what we got. The rooms, were quite large for Europeans standards. It was clean & the shower was great. They even supplied blow dryers, shampoos & bath gel in the bathroom. (great since BA lost our bags)

Breakfast, was included in our price. The next morning we all woke up very early, & headed downstairs for our buffet. It was "Excellent" Everyone in our party was happy with the food, & fresh fruit. They even had a chef making omlets.

We were told that the shuttle bus, would bring us to the bus stop or subway, & we would be in town quickly, for a low cost.


The next morning, the day of the cruise, I had plans to meet up with Dis board family & we shared the expensence of "Angie's Car Service" to the port.

Would I stay there again? Yes, in a heart beat. The price we paid $200.00 for my family, plus the buffet, was well worth the cost

 

[OurDogCisco]

Is this hotel near the airport? We have reservations at the Renaissance near the airport in Barcelona. After reading these posts I am thinking of changing hotels.

Yes... this is the hotel near the airport. The location near the airport you can't beat especially with the free shuttle back and forth...

However, it wasn't close to downtown & there were no stores for groceries. We had planned to buy bottled water prior to boarding the ship as the ship was charging $48 for 24 bottles. Second, my kids were hungry when we arrived but there was nothing quick to eat. At the bar it took about 1 1/2 hours to get served as they are understaffed. The food was good. We didn't even know they had a breakfast buffet. We were staying on points so I'm pretty sure it wasn't included.

As far as room size it was great. And, I was happy we didn't have to get two rooms for the 4 of us.

So should you get a different hotel just depends on what you are looking for. The room was fine pre-cruise but post-cruise we wish we had either flew to Paris for the day since our layover flight was in Paris. Or we should ahve stayed at a beach resort type hotel so we could relax. The last day of the cruise we were all beat and going around looking for snacks & bottled water wasn't my idea of fun.

GL with decision..

 

[OurDogCisco]

AMALFI COAST DRIVE & THE RUINS OF POMPEII

This was definitely one of my favorite tours. We had originally booked a private tour but decided with our booster seat child to go with the DCL excursion. We didn't want to have to bring the booster. Thank goodness we didn't because I'm sure the airlines would have loss it anyways...

The tour starts out with a bus ride to the Amalfi coast. We had a great guide. The 1st stop was at a Cameo Factory. Beautiful furniture. It was short shop including a bathroom break. Then, we drove the Amalfi Coast for a hour or so... Finally, we stopped in the City of Amalfi for a bathroom break. At first, it didn't look like there was anything exciting there. We ended up buying gelato for the girls & then, walking around. We walked through the market and came upon a huge church. It was beautiful so we decided to tour it quickly. We had about 15 minutes. Then, we went back to the bus and drove another hour or so of the coast. We stopped at Hotel Panorama for lunch. We were suppose to have lunch on the roof top terrace but it started to rain. So we ate inside. Lunch started out with a pasta dish of cannoli (spelling) & penne pasta with a red sauce. Then, we had a buffet salad bar with pizza. Dessert was gelato. The lunch was great and didn't take too long about hour to hour and half. The had bathrooms too.

Next, we drove to Pompeii. When we got there we had another bathroom break which was a pain because we basically wasted about 1/2 hour of time waiting for everyone. Finally, we walked off to the ruins and had about 2 hours to tour the place. The tour guide was awesome and explained a lot of things.

Finally, the tour was over and we had about 20 minutes in snack & shop area. We got some granita since it was hot. We had to walk back to the bus that was park about 1/4 mile away. They don't allow buses to pick up passengers only drop off in the area.

We were back on the ship by 6 pm. It was a great day.

 

[jlawall]

Thx for the excellent details........keep those reports coming.......we're leaving tomorrow for the Med!

 

[PURTYPAT1]

Thx for the excellent details........keep those reports coming.......we're leaving tomorrow for the Med!

Have a great time JoAnn!!! Looking forward to reading your blogs!!!