May 12, 2007 -- Taking the Magic to the Mediterranean -- 14 day Repo Cruise! Part 2

[tig82174]

WOW! I can't belive you don't like Animal Kingdom. We LOVE the shows (haven't been since Nemo opened--still mourning loss of Tarzan Rocks). Festival of the Lion King is my FAVOURITE attraction on property. I admit it can get very hot and crowded (why we do not go to WDW in high season). Even Flights of Wonder is a blast. We always scheudle our day there around the shows an if we miss rides, so be it (my two cents for those of you who may have never been there).

OOH I just fell even further in love with Hadley and her crew.....Animal Kingdom is my absolute favorite....I love the shows and the theming and all the animals....it's just so wonderful!!!


Erik

 

[ssnyder]

We went to Animal Kingdom today.... now I know why we have only been there 3 times since it opened... it was boring!!!! We spent the whole day walking back and forth to get fast pass tickets, we only had an hour between each scheduled time between fast passes, so we couldn't visit another part of the park or we would miss our time.

It sounds like you aren't aware of the secret of fastpasses - the only time that counts is the first one. You can't get in early but you don't have to worry about the end time - they are good all day.

 

[AuntyBrat]

60 days until we leave!!!! Can it get any better than this??? Tomorrow it is less than 2 months!!! YEAH!!!

Ok, I have to ask if anyone else is going and NOT bringing their kids/teens? Our kids did not do well in school for the first semester and we could not justify letting them miss two weeks of school. So they are staying with grandparents while we do an adults only cruise. How bad/mean are we?

 

[kpros]

60 days until we leave!!!! Can it get any better than this??? Tomorrow it is less than 2 months!!! YEAH!!!

Ok, I have to ask if anyone else is going and NOT bringing their kids/teens? Our kids did not do well in school for the first semester and we could not justify letting them miss two weeks of school. So they are staying with grandparents while we do an adults only cruise. How bad/mean are we?

This is our third cruise without our DD15. She is feeling a little left out. Her and Mom are taking a 4 day cruise with 4 days at WDW later in the summer.

Ken

 

[Michelle2]

60 days until we leave!!!! Can it get any better than this??? Tomorrow it is less than 2 months!!! YEAH!!!

Ok, I have to ask if anyone else is going and NOT bringing their kids/teens? Our kids did not do well in school for the first semester and we could not justify letting them miss two weeks of school. So they are staying with grandparents while we do an adults only cruise. How bad/mean are we?

I am sort of doing the same thing, except we are taking our youngest DS4 because he is not in school yet. We are leaving our older 3 for the same reasons....cannot miss 2 weeks (and they already missed one from our cruise in November).

I can't believe that it is 2 months away....I have been so excited!

 

[Michelle2]

That's a great idea!! I never thought about doing that. My in-laws from Morocco are meeting us for the 11 day Med. cruise. We could spend a pre-cruise day together!!!

If anyone needs info on Morocco, let me know. DH was born and raised there...We could even do a group trip over if anyone is interested!

If you find a ferry company, let me know. I'm gonna look into it as well...

COOL! I was wondering if I was being crazy...LOL I would love to go with a group instead of on my own. I think DH would feel more comfortable about that too.... There is a website of a private guide that is recommended on tripadvisor I was looking at: www.d-destination.com
I am just not sure if time will permit for it.

 

[Scott H]

Debbie use VEA to get to DLP from the airports, easy and pretty efficient http://www.vea.fr/uk/index.asp.

Hadley and Eric, AK is also one of our favorites. Maybe it is my Environmental Ed background, living in WY, or having been a National Park Ranger at one time, who knows. Critters are KEWL.

Welcome Aboard to our new cruisers from Germany, KEWL !!!!

Debbie an earthquake and I thought Cleveland Rocked!!!!

Kissimmee, I like the idea of a barking suit case, ours are too big and we would have to pay a lot in extra fees. LOL I would just tell the cruise line folks you work for Disney and are working on a new audio animatronics. Yeah that would work….


I gotta run to work…. Later kids

 

[mom_rules]

Welcome to our German Cruisers!

Lufthansa has great airfares from BCN to Frankfurt in case you are looking!

 

[padalyn]

I got lost in all the sauce....

 

[Scott H]

Yes. I think I heard that reference once.
I believe that we were all lumped in together.....
The innocent (like me) with the deck chair robbers and hallway sleepers.

Yes the great Deck Chair Holdup!!! a classic.

Thanks for all the pup pictures, nice to see and share our furry friends.

In class most of this week.

 

[milestogo]

Debbie, We heard about the earthquake on our news last night and, of course, we laugh in the face of a 3.6 I wondered if it was anywhere near you.

I'm really, really just kidding! Any time the earth moves when you are not expecting it to is terrifying. I've lived in earthquake county my entire life and lived through some really big ones 6+ and it is always scary. The 3.0 and under don't even make the news here. But each point that it goes up is like the power doubles. We haven't had one in a long time.

Yes, we too love AK. We are planning our entire trip around AK. I plan to visit Eric's room every day!

"Maybe it is my Environmental Ed background, living in WY, or having been a National Park Ranger at one time, who knows." Scott, what haven't you done?

 

[milestogo]

Good Morning Trivia:

One man's voice - 2 bears? and a ________?

 

[seaulater]

Seaulater---you rock at getting the dirt! You're better than my T.A.!! I hope once you've gotten all those details...like movie schedules and the dates for the pirate party and other dinners you'll post it for all of us so we can make sure that our online bookings still work out and don't conflict!!



Erik

Will do, no problem.

Well guess what! We had an earthquake tonight! There was a 3.6 earthquake just south of me and I did feel it! We don't have those here. An occasional tremor but usually out in the lake. I hope no more are on the horizon

I checked one more thing off of my to do list: Made my flight reservations from Barcelona to Paris. Now I only have to figure out how to get from the port to the airport and the airport to DLP.

It is getting closer!!

Debbie

Wow! KEWL on the earthquake. Well, not really KEWL, but KEWL.

When we went to DLP, we took the Disney buses from the airport right to the DLP hotel. Worked out great. Of course the buses have DISNEY all over them. Here's my little story-Jamie (dd 15) and I surprised DH Robert for Thanksgiving in 2003 (I think) and put him on a plane to a place unknown. We got off the plane in Atlanta (so he thought he was going to visit his sister) and then we went to the international terminal. He didn't know where in the world we were going until we boarded the plane for Paris. Now, DH does not have Disney on the brain like I do, so he thought, Paris, how KEWL. Spend Thanksgiving in Paris. Well, got off the plane in Paris, headed to ground transporation and ta-da there was the Disney bus all in it's glory. DH response.....I should have known..... is there a Disneyland in Paris? Of course there is, that's why we are here! Spent the next four days in Paris and had a great time. Did a tour one day through the Disney hotel we stayed at and did the city tour with the Eiffel tower and the whole thing. Had a blast!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I talked to the disney cruise line today and they said that we will have a midnight curfew to be back on the ship. Has anyone else heard this? Why would we have a curfew? Am I missing something?

My guess is some people will sneak off on Friday once we are in Barcelona and not come back on the ship Friday night. We should be clearing customs on Friday, so I am not sure what the deal would be. They might want the curfew in place so they can get ready for disembarkation on Saturday morning and then kick us off again bright and early? I'll make some calls when I get a chance and see if I can find out anything.

 

[first timers]

Lanyard Team - it all started with the May 2005 repo cruise. Actually, I guess it started on the 2004 Xmas cruise. Some of our disboard friends made buttons for everyone with their disboard names on them. And I saw another persons name tag from a previous cruise that she had in a plastic badge holder. So, as the May repo got closer and people started talking about sailaway gifts - I though it would be cool to make custom lanyards and name badges as our sailaway gift. But as I started looking into the cost - it became clear that it was going to cost more then we could do on our own. So I was talking to another repo cruiser about my idea and they said they would help with the cost. We asked around on the thread and we got about 10 people to help with the cost. We made about 350 name tags and lanyards for that cruise.

Then we did it again for the 11 day Wonder cruise. Many of the same people were on that cruise, so we had some of the May repo lanyard team and a few new folks.

This will be our third time doing the name badges and lanyards. It has been a challenge this time doing it for 2 cruises at the same time.

The lanyards and name badges make a great souvenir of the cuise and they really do make a great place to carry your key to the world card. We use ours when we go to Disneyland to carry our passes and fast passes.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Ken

The lanyard stories continues: I liked the lanyards so much and thought Ken did such a great job, I made lanyards and badges for the Wonder 10 day Southern Carrib. Cruise (just before the one Ken did-we did B2B cruises). He helped with some practical aspect of the process, but they had to be good knowing his lanyards/badges would be next! They were very good, but Ken sets the bar pretty high.

This past weekend we were at WDW and saw a new design on the DCL buses. The new design has porthole style windows and the paint job on the bus has the ship's colors instead of white with red/blue trim. They look great! Much more distinctive and eye catching than the previous design.


Alex

 

[mom_rules]

Well I am annoyed with our bank right now!

Not only do all the bank credit cards I own charge the current foreign exchange plus 2.5% fee on top of it-I just got a notice that my bank is doing the same for foreign exchange ATM/debit transactions.

Well I'd better stock up on travellers checks now.

 

[tazzmacd]

Anybody find a hotel that will allow 2 adults and 2 kids in the room in Barcelona that isn't close to 300 Euro's? Trying to find a hotel but the only one we have found that is in a central location is the Best Western Regina hotel in downtown Barcelona that will take 2 adults and 2 kids in a room. The rest have been 3 max to a room so we would have to get 2 rooms.

Cheers!!

Pat

 

[NHdisneylover]

Anybody find a hotel that will allow 2 adults and 2 kids in the room in Barcelona that isn't close to 300 Euro's? Trying to find a hotel but the only one we have found that is in a central location is the Best Western Regina hotel in downtown Barcelona that will take 2 adults and 2 kids in a room. The rest have been 3 max to a room so we would have to get 2 rooms.

Cheers!!

Pat

We've had the same problem. Even rooms for three are much pricier than those for two (we could put one of our kids with their grandparents). We'd rather not stay at the airport as it is hard to see the city from there. So, we told our friend who used to live in Barceloan this last weekend and he is calling some friends who still live there to have them find us something. He says there are still many good, safe places which you can't really find online in which to stay. I will let you know if we get any good leads.

 

[tazzmacd]

We've had the same problem. Even rooms for three are much pricier than those for two (we could put one of our kids with their grandparents). We'd rather not stay at the airport as it is hard to see the city from there. So, we told our friend who used to live in Barceloan this last weekend and he is calling some friends who still live there to have them find us something. He says there are still many good, safe places which you can't really find online in which to stay. I will let you know if we get any good leads.

That is great!!! Thanks!! I just have this thing abotu paying $500 cdn for a place that we will be for oh about 6 hours to maybe sleep and to store our luggage while we are touring the city.

Cheers!!

Pat

 

[NHdisneylover]

I will post an update as soo nas I can. In the mean time we have reserved rooms at the Marriot by the airport (115 Euros per night) just so we do not get stuck with nothing. These can be cancelled with no penalty all the way up until May 26 at 6:00 pm local time. I'm going with better safe than sorry here (I think these rooms max out at 3 people though also).

 

[seaulater]

I will post an update as soo nas I can. In the mean time we have reserved rooms at the Marriot by the airport (115 Euros per night) just so we do not get stuck with nothing. These can be cancelled with no penalty all the way up until May 26 at 6:00 pm local time. I'm going with better safe than sorry here (I think these rooms max out at 3 people though also).

We did the same. We are booked at the Renaissance by Marriott at the airport for 115 euros per night and they offer a free airport shuttle. Since our flight was out at 7 a.m. on Monday morning, figured, we would be close so it would be easy getting over to the airport.