May 5, 2010 Magic of Barcelona

[lmhall2000]

Hey Goofy! I did see EasyJet had Doncaster/Sheffield to BCN for $24 pounds...wasn't sure if that was your airport or not, it's for summer rates May on....

Off to go search on my Delta flights!!

Tara

 

[Lemonbee]

Well how weird that the day I post about not getting my OBC I got the letter today. Hope you get yours soon too!

 

[Goofy Mum]

Hey Goofy! I did see EasyJet had Doncaster/Sheffield to BCN for $24 pounds...wasn't sure if that was your airport or not, it's for summer rates May on....

Off to go search on my Delta flights!!

Tara

Hiya. No that airport is very far from us. We have EasyJet flights nearby but to be honest I don't trust them very much with all their hidden charges. The price may say £24 but they'll charge you a £20 "online booking fee" plus £15 each way for your bags! And their schedule is extremely limited. I decided to fly British Airways from London Heathrow to BCN. Will cost about £420 for all of us but the price includes bags and has a huge schdule to chose from. Usually budget airlines have one or two flights a day a if you miss it or it gets cancelled it could mean big problems. BA is safe

Lemonbee. I called DCL and was told I got a $100 credit ontop of the original £25 credit but they said the $100 wasn't per person it was just a flat $100. The reason, they said I didnt receive any info in the mail about it is because they only post important doc's, ie. cruise doc's through the mail for international passengers. Anyone in the US will have things posted regularly US First Class Mail. Did your letter specify if the $100 credit was per person or per booking?

Also I'm not sure if you guys know the information I received today from the DCL agent but I'm going to type it down here just in case.

5/5/10 Barcelona .... The earliest we can embark the Magic will be 1pm. There's a manditory lifeboat drill at 5pm so we must all be on board present in our staterooms at that time. After the drill we're free to disembark and see Barcelona or whatever we like but we must be back on board by 9.30pm. I think we leave port at 10pm. Im surprised at this really. Our first day on board and we'll just be docked. But it's still all good!

5/15/10.... Back in Barcelona.... Our luggage will be picked up the night before we arrive in Barcelona. It will be security cleared by the time we disembark at 7am. So basically at 7am we can just walk off and get our bags. The latest we can stay in our rooms is 8am. By 9pm we should all be off.

I'm booking an 11am flight from BCN to London Heathrow. So I should be home before dinner that night.

I read that the taxis charge per taxi not per passenger so if anyone else leaving for the airport first thing I suggest we meet up and squeeze in and split up the fare. Could save us some dosh! )

Has anyone booked their flights yet?

 

[lmhall2000]

Has anyone booked their flights yet?

Great info!!! Glad you found your flights!! That's a stress gone! I'll write what my letter states..and you can bet I'm bringing it with me in case there's any issue!!

Dear Guest:

We truly appreciate...blah blah blah....whether you've chosen a Mediterranean or Baltic itinerary, we cannot wait to share blah blah blah...

As a special thank you for your business, we are pleased to provide EACH member of your stateroom party with a $100 shipboard credit. This credit can be used toward the purchase of any of our onboard amenities or your selection of Port Adventures...blah blah blah

Sincerely,

Cast & Crew
Disney Cruise Line


You guys are going to have to ring our staterooms, I can guarantee you that all 7 of our party will be ZONKED out sleeping in our rooms!!! But anyone up for midnight farkle and we'll be there!

Shushh provided a great link to a service that will meet you at port...it worked out to be cheaper than the taxis...some taxis only fit 2-3 passengers, so finding ones that will take four or more gets hard...I'll try and find that link and post,


I read that we could have our luggage NOT sent down and carry it ourselves so we'd be the first ones off..those with early flights can hang out in a special area and disembark early, it means probably skipping breakfast, but we'll probably do that. Told to tell our room steward the night before??

Can't wait!!!

Tara

 

[fitnessmouse]

@ DIsneycrowd,
Didn't mean to ignore your question, i was out of town for the holidays.

Yes, we got a total price of $2241. 2A+2C
$999 per person AND kids free

@ Goofymum
No, i don't have the letter either (Netherlands), but my TA told me we also qualify for the $100 OBC and that this is per person.
I would have preferred to have this in writing from DCL though

Still haven't decided if we go to Disneyland Paris, I think we'll skip it, we already have a trip planned for a weekend this month.

So now i am ready to start planning excursions

 

[Goofy Mum]

Thanks for your info Fitnessmouse and Tara. Will call DCL yet again and find out exactly what the credit is!

If you find the link to the shuttle service please post!!

I was told we couldnt bring our bags down ourselves because they have to clear customs/sniffer dogs, security, etc. Just like at the airport I guess. I specifically asked the DCL agent last night if we could bring our own bags and he said no. hmm.....

 

[Goofy Mum]

Just searched "shuttle service barcelona airport to cruise terminal" and got lots of sites! They state its only a 20 min ride to the port. That's good news!

 

[lmhall2000]

Hey just found the transfer...it's called a2btransfers...it may be one of the ones you found! HTH!
Tara

 

[Goofy Mum]

Just checked that site, Tara. Looks like it's going to be around £35 ($55 approx) with just about any firm. I just dont know if it's faster to just grab a taxi at the airport or arrange something in advance.

 

[lmhall2000]

The distance between the Cruise terminal and the Barcelona airport is approximately 20 Km.

Taxi fare from cruise docks to Barcelona Airport
The price of the taxi is approximately 1.10 euro / km . The taxi minimum fee is 20.00 euro from the airport. There is also a supplement of 1.00 euro for each bag that is stored in the boot of the taxi. However there is an additional supplement to pay on top of the normal taxi price if you are going between the docks and the airport. The supplement is 2.10 euros for pickup (or drop off) at the Cruise Terminals.

A normal Taxi can hold up to 4 people and the taxi fare is based per cab and not per person. Therefore for a taxi with 3 people with 3 bags going from Barcelona International airport to the cruise terminal you would expect to pay around 25 to 30 euros if you are travelling from Terminal 2. If you are travelling from Terminal 1 you can add approximately 5 euros to this price. Note however there are additional supplements for holidays or late night or early pickups or if there are delays in the traffic.

Hope this helps, I think with all the add ons, it is better for our party of 7 to book with a2b....we would have to get 2 taxis and it would run over euros easily with our bag charges...but maybe with the four of you it woulnd't be so bad...??

Tara

 

[Goofy Mum]

Thanks for the info! Guess what! Just spoke to DCL AGAIN and they confirmed my $400 OBC for the four of us! YES! Gratuities baby!! ))
That will help so much. I want to make sure our wait staff, etc are taken care of but $500 is quite a big chunk out of our travel buget and not I have a $425 OBC that takes care of most of it! Yipee!!

 

[lmhall2000]

Thanks for the info! Guess what! Just spoke to DCL AGAIN and they confirmed my $400 OBC for the four of us! YES! Gratuities baby!! ))

That is awesome!! This will be the best vacation!! So excited for you to confirm..I hope word gets out to those who did not get letters to be diligent about asking...!

Tara

 

[Goofy Mum]

That is awesome!! This will be the best vacation!! So excited for you to confirm..I hope word gets out to those who did not get letters to be diligent about asking...!

Tara

Thing is I kept calling and getting conflicting answers. So this time I asked to speak to a supervisor. He told me I can have my $425 in credit put toward my gratuities either at the port or on board. I'm so happy about this. This will give us a bit more Euro to spend in France and Italy!

Also Im up for a midnight stroll or an early morning brisk walk around the prom deck. Im bringing my trainers. I fear I'm going to bulk up bit style on this cruise and will at least try to do a bit of walking each day.

Now, does anyone know about the laundry facilities? Can we get soap there? I'm planning on packing pretty light and just do a wash or two while we're at sea.

 

[sabrecmc]

Thought I'd give you some info from DCL on the hotel package prices. For our party of 2 adults and 1 4-year old, we were quoted (through my TA) Hilton Diagonal Mar for $470, Pullman Barcelona Skipper for $601 and Le Meridien for $791. I booked it directly through the Le Meridien website for $383 on a totally flexible rate. I assume that the block of rooms reserved for DCL only had suites at the LeM left. Otherwise, the prices were not that far off the website prices. I'm just going to tell myself to pretend I'm going to Disney World and not sweat the darn conversion rate. That really hikes the price up!

 

[Goofy Mum]

I wanted to bring up a question a poster posted on the main boards about leaving kids in kids club while the parents are on port. I would never even consider doing this for a number of reasons. Mainly because I have an epileptic child, secondly I wouldnt so much worry about if the kids were OK but what if something were to happen to me and I couldnt get to them. It's just so worrying on so many levels. But does Disney even allow you to leave your kids if you disembark?

 

[keaster]

I think it is allowed...but given how long the excursions would be on the med cruise I also personally would not do it.

When we did the western Caribbean, DH and I got of the ship in Key West for a couple hours without DD, who was 5 at the time...we just wanted to do a little shopping and browsing and she had ZERO interest in the that...and we didn't wander far from the ship, so we had no problem leaving her in the club.

However, we WANT our daughter (who will be 7 when we sail) to see the sights with us in the med...after all she is missing 2 weeks of school, so she's gotta have some kind of learning experience She's already excited about seeing the Colisseum in Rome and the leaning tower of Pisa, and she has a globe and she points out to everyone where she is going. To me it would be kind of a waste of money to bring her all the way with us to have her stay in the clubs most of the time. I think for us, most of her club time will come in the evenings or in ports where we do a shorter excursion, and on the sea days.

 

[sabrecmc]

My understanding is that you can leave a child onboard while you go to the port, but you need to inform the staff and leave a contact number. If I was going to do it, I would want to be on a DCL excursion or stay very close to the ship. I would be in a total panic the whole time worrying that I wouldn't make it back to the ship on time!

I definitely plan to make some use of the kids' club for dinner at Palo and maybe a spa afternoon or even a movie. But I am not interested in leaving her while I go explore Europe. For us, this is a family vacation and that means being together is the most important part. I can't wait to experience it with her! Plus, I would never spend this kind of money to take her to a kids' club. Honestly, that makes no sense to me. But, to each their own. Leaving the kids at a DCL kids' club is hardly neglectful!

 

[stingmom]

We have left our kids before while we were in St Maartin and Nassau. We only did it since we were near the dock most of the time. I wouldn't do it with the full day excursions coming up in the Med. Plus are kids are older now and we want them to experience the new cities.

 

[Goofy Mum]

Interesting to see the comments. I never thought about a contact number. I have a European Union phone service provider so I could have my phone on however like the rest of you I want my sons to enjoy the holiday as much as I will. Nothing wrong with teaching them about different cultures, experiencing new foods, lauguages, etc. I can't imagine them getting bored! When all else fails there's gelato!

 

[lmperrault]

I see my sister has already made it here (CJsMom). We've been too busy with Christmas and the holidays but I finally have a free moment now and after we get back from our ski vacation next week will start the planning in earnest.

We are a family of six- my husband and I, a 9yo daughter, a almost 7yo daughter, a 3 yo son and a almost 2 yo daughter. My sister (CJsMom) and her daughter (9yo) will be travelling with us on this cruise. I'm looking forward to the kids being able to meet up with some other kids on the cruise and us too!


Like my sister we've done the Disney cruise 2x both out of Florida. My Mom was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer six years ago and took our entire family (all her kids, spouses and grandchildren) on the first Disney cruise as her last gift to us and her grandchildren. She unfortunatly died shortly after we got back but the memories and time were a tremendous gift to us. We then went back on the cruise at the anniversary of her death with some of the money from her estate. My sister and I are using some of the money she left us to go on this cruise so it means all the more to me/us. I look at it as another gift from my Mom (who adored travelling) and will be telling my children that this is a gift from their Grammy J.

I've been wanting to do this cruise for years but it's always been out of our budget for a family of six. This is not the year for us to do this but the deal was just too good to pass up.

We'll be flying out of Baltimore/New York and coming in a day early and then flying back out Saturday morning. My kids are in school but I'm just taking them out and will deal with the consequences afterwards.

We have not told our kids yet but I will probably tell them soon.

Looking forward to "meeting" everyone.