May 5, 2010 Magic of Barcelona

[laydee314]

I agree Everafter. After being on this board for so many months, I expected the ship to only be populated by the 20 of us on this board. I didn't think that the ship would be that big.
Anyway, I'll miss Brent's announcements, 4 course dinners, daily newsletters (wouldn't it be awesome if everyday we could receive a flyer letting us know what's going to happen in the day?), prizes in the FE. Oh well, back to reality....

 

[Goofy Mum]

I'm actually experiencing Brent withdrawl!

I wish I had just one not so great experience on board so I could dwell on it. But the truth is, everything was perfect and I'm missing it!

 

[keaster]

Hey everyone!

We had an amazing time on our trip...I was actually going to go to the DIS meet on the first sea day, but DD was obsessed with the pool so we stayed there for most of the afternoon and didn't want to give up our poolside seats.

Service was great, both in the stateroom and dining room...this is our third cruise and have yet to be disappointed. We did DCL excursions except for the final stops in Villefranche and Corsica...on those two days we pretty much just got off the ship and did some exploring becuase we were exhausted from our three busy Italy days!

Now back to reality, still trying to get adjusted to the time change and get some laundry done.

Oh and we booked another cruise...so if anyone is going on the Dream July 5th, 2011 drop me a line

 

[Kaleigh]

Kaleigh, we will be on the May 26th sailing. Saw your latest blog post--thanks so much for the information. Can you tell me the show line up for each day if you have a chance? Also, how are they working the character breakfast with only one sea day? Have a great time!

The show line up is on my website, and our character breakfast was just listed on our dining ticket. We missed it because we had a Palo brunch that day. So worth it!

Hey everyone!!! Everafter- you saw me lots! Felt like we were always at Palo and Rockin Bar D's at the same time. As well as Hochan, Mike, strawberryblonde and Lara (sorry if I spelled that wrong) and cj's mom. Seems like we kept running into disboarders in the funniest places, but it was so great to see a friendly face. I loved meeting all of you.
I had so much fun. Gosh, it was such a wonderful experience, really the perfect vacation for us. Combine Disney with our first Europe experience, and I am not sure we will ever have a better time. (Plus the upgrade to a verandah) We won 3 trivia contests on board and barely lost a Mickey Mania (darn kids that can unscramble disney characters faster than us) I think I need to decompress before I can do a trip report, but I am sure it is forthcoming.

 

[lmperrault]

Hey everyone! We're home too and still wishing we were on the ship. Jackson was ready to come home but all of the rest of us could easily have stayed on board and done everything all over again. I was so jealous of the new borders getting ready to get on as were were getting off. What a great trip. Loved seing everyone. Only bad thing that happened to us was that all four kids got sick the night before we disembarked. We must really have looked pitiful because when we landed in New York at 12am, the British Airways Duty manger took pity on us with all four kids running fevers and put us up on british airways dime in a hotel for the night so we didn't have to drive home another 4 hours. What a godsend. Took the kids to the Dr's Monday morning and two had developed minor cases of Pnuemonia with ear infections and sinus infections, one had double ear infections and the other had a sinus infection. So today is the first day we've been even close to back to normal and the kids still have not returned to school yet. Oh well what do you do, at least it was at the end of the cruise and not right in the middle of it.

I'll miss "chatting" with everyone via the board. Now I want to do the Baltic and the Transatlantic.

see you around real soon,

Lara

Album 05/18/10, by Lara Perrault
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I'd like to share my Walgreens Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

 

[everafter1]

The show line up is on my website, and our character breakfast was just listed on our dining ticket. We missed it because we had a Palo brunch that day. So worth it!

Hey everyone!!! Everafter- you saw me lots! Felt like we were always at Palo and Rockin Bar D's at the same time. As well as Hochan, Mike, strawberryblonde and Lara (sorry if I spelled that wrong) and cj's mom. Seems like we kept running into disboarders in the funniest places, but it was so great to see a friendly face. I loved meeting all of you.
I had so much fun. Gosh, it was such a wonderful experience, really the perfect vacation for us. Combine Disney with our first Europe experience, and I am not sure we will ever have a better time. (Plus the upgrade to a verandah) We won 3 trivia contests on board and barely lost a Mickey Mania (darn kids that can unscramble disney characters faster than us) I think I need to decompress before I can do a trip report, but I am sure it is forthcoming.

I did get to see you a lot Kaleigh I just felt bad that it was always in a place I couldn't stop to chat. It was so nice to see friendly faces too!

I'm so sorry your family got sick Imperrault, but I'm glad you still had a great vacation. My husband and I got a cough right at the end of the cruise, but nothing major.

 

[sabrecmc]

Wow, Imperrault! I'm so glad everyone is ok, but hate that happened. Makes my raging case of pink eye seem like no big deal though! I must have looked very bad b/c the nice Italian pharmacist gave me antibiotic drops even though I didn't have a prescription.

 

[strawberryblonde]

Plus, I met strawberryblonde, who is, in fact, strawberry blonde and has adorable and insanely polite kids.

QUOTE]

Oh you are too sweet, thanks!! You were such a cute female trio and I'm glad we had a chance to chat with you

 

[strawberryblonde]

I'm sorry that your kids were ill there at the end, Lara! Poor you. At least you were able to enjoy the majority of your vacation. We didn't catch it, you were great about not sharing, so thanks for that hun

 

[strawberryblonde]

We got home yesterday, but I didn't make it on the dis, too busy getting caught up with relatives and buying food. I'm still swaying a bit...I call it "landsickness". I think my body misses the ship and sea!!

What a great cruise, we loved it . Having more than 7 days really made it more relaxing. Even though there were so many ports, not all of them were go-go-go ones. I found Malta, Villefranche, La Spezia and Corsica relaxing and fun. Rome was busy, but not as hard as I had feared. The kids held up all day and didn't say "bored" once, so hooray !

If I could change something, it would be that La Spezia had been sunny (I got soaked doing Cinque Terre on our own, it would have been beyond amazing on a sunny day) and that we had booked a tour out of Naples. We tried doing Naples on our own, and it wore me out emotionally just walking to the train station ....the traffic, litter, noise, pickpockets, and the fact that it took an hour to get there not the 20 min. I had planned on....ah well. We still had a taste of a different culture there and found some parts of it to enjoy.

 

[strawberryblonde]

Wish I had had an extra mickey bar to share with you Kaleigh!!

 

[Goofy Mum]

I kept running into the same folks on a daily basis yet some I only met at the meet or not at all. Always ran into Tara, Tracy and Jennifer. I bumped into Helen many times but that was my doing. lol A few others now and then but the biggest surprise was about an hour after boarding Jennifer comes up to me and says "Ricki?" Funny how people recognised me but I was totally oblivious to most people. So I hope i didnt offend anyone. I don't have a photographic memory.

Sorry to hear about sick children. That's a horrible way to end a beautiful holiday. I hope everyones doing well.

My 8 year old son was diagnosed with Alopecia today. A huge downer after a great holiday.

Oh another note. I wanted to ask if everyone was satisfied with their wait staff. We liked our head server but our main server we could have done without. In fact he was so offputting we decided to eat at the buffet for 6 out of the ten nights. It didn't ruin our cruise at all but I wish I would have had the wonderful dining experience everyone else did.

 

[sabrecmc]

Sorry about your server issues, Goofy Mum. That would suck. Did you notify the head server about the issues or talk to guest services? I hope you at least follow up with an email.

We loved our servers, Mario and Alexander. They were fantastic. I'd request them again next time we're on the Magic. Jenny, our stateroom hostess, was also out of this world. Actually, we only had outstanding experiences with the cast members. Usually there is at least one that is less than magical, but not this time. Everyone was great. We had an issue with our La Spezia excursion (the promised fossil making activity at the dinosaur museum didn't occur) and were notified the next day that we were getting 50% back, without even having to ask about it. Guess the CM on the trip reported the problem. So, I didn't even get to gripe before Disney fixed it!

We did manage to miss our Palo dining. They offered to give us another slot on a different night, but we decided to just skip it and eat with my daughter. We were enjoying the different menus so much anyway. Maybe next trip! Gives me something to look forward to.

 

[laydee314]

Ricki, that's unfortunate about the main server. Our servers were excellent - the next day we got home, my son woke up and said he missed them. Unfortunately, we didn't take any proper pics with them. The head server, I could have cared less. He was nice enough and I'm sure very helpful if we needed him but it was kind of overkill to give him a tip for just coming around to say hello. Money that could have been spent on more overpriced drinks!

 

[disney-lover]

I kept running into the same folks on a daily basis yet some I only met at the meet or not at all. Always ran into Tara, Tracy and Jennifer. I bumped into Helen many times but that was my doing. lol A few others now and then but the biggest surprise was about an hour after boarding Jennifer comes up to me and says "Ricki?" Funny how people recognised me but I was totally oblivious to most people. So I hope i didnt offend anyone. I don't have a photographic memory.

Sorry to hear about sick children. That's a horrible way to end a beautiful holiday. I hope everyones doing well.

My 8 year old son was diagnosed with Alopecia today. A huge downer after a great holiday.

Oh another note. I wanted to ask if everyone was satisfied with their wait staff. We liked our head server but our main server we could have done without. In fact he was so offputting we decided to eat at the buffet for 6 out of the ten nights. It didn't ruin our cruise at all but I wish I would have had the wonderful dining experience everyone else did.

Our servers were great most of the time. There was one night when they were a bit off with us, very distant. We asked them what was wrong with them both and they told us that they had had a talking to that day and that it had been so quite but they weren't allowed their day off! Other than that though they were really good and we were really pleased with them

Sorry to hear your DS has got Alopicia, a friend of mine had it a few years back and got it treated ok, so fingers crossed it will be ok

Well I am totally back to normal now, seems hard to believe we have been back for nearly a week, why can't holidays last forever

It was lovely meeting you hun and hopefully we will be able to meet up soon.

 

[lmhall2000]

Only bad thing that happened to us was that all four kids got sick the night before we disembarked. I'll miss "chatting" with everyone via the board. Now I want to do the Baltic and the Transatlantic

Hey all!! We're back, but just like Imperrault dd #2 and I both caught the same thing y'all did! My fever started the day after we arrived home and dd's was all three flights home..she screamed in terror each landing, begging me not to make her get on the next flight...it was heartbreaking, I actually considered staying in Detroit, renting a car, and driving her 20 hours home...the 4 hour layover gave her time to recoup and try again...she was stuck to me like glue so I naturally caught it, now my son started the fever today, it's a nasty Med cold...104 fever for me, now I'm in the coughing stage..Eliza finally seems to be mending...

I absolutely loved the opportunity to experience the Med...impressed by the Disney ship...LOVED hanging out with GoofyMum and having our sons commiserate together made for a very happy teen of mine!!..long story about how we missed the meet up...I ran into GM the day before the meet up but we were running and I was not sure where we were supposed to meet...could not remember who needed the ranch seasoning! Just knew I'd run into everyone, but with so many different dining schedules and events/excursions, I barely ran into 10 of the same people the entire trip. Great to meet Tarald, I kept looking for her great lanyards on everyone and thought I could connect that way...

The kids LOVED the FE gifts and loved seeing the notes written on the doors, our girls were at the pool often, so even if we didn't meet, I'm sure our kids probably did! My trip report is almost finished so you might see your kids in my pool pictures!! We had dining LAP at 8:30..

Going to try and rest now, coughing woke me up, trying to get some sleep, still am not on the right time zone yet!!!

Tara

We did not rebook on the ship

 

[lmhall2000]

Ricky! So sorry about Coby! Or is it Jack? I'm horrible with names! I hope it's not painful and they can fix it right up!! He looked great on the ship!

Oh...on the servers..not sure how much I should go into detail, I think our main server was really nice, personable....deserves his promotion to the Dream...I really liked our assistant server and my mom says she didn't get the same impression as I did but he just acted like he did not want to be there...thank goodness he was good at his job, b/c if you had to ask for something it was like inside he was cringing and wanted to scream "Can't you see I"m doing something here?" He was very very quick and would knock out those bread selections while we were still gathering ourselves at the table and if he had to repeat "Bread" it definitely had a tone to it..I just think he thinks he should be a head not assistant server, and he probably would be a great head server..but was a bit stressful trying to get him to smile and relax.

Our main server had a definite lack of personality on the day after we gave tips...so either our guys had a talking to or we were experiencing the "we don't have a reason to be nice" mentality some servers can get...hoping that's not the case, we gave him the recommended amt...really could not afford more paying for 7 people....and for what we paid for the cruise our total tip amount cost more than 20% of what we paid for the cruise..it was just a let down at the end.

Hope to hear more from y'all and your experiences!! Can't believe being the last 3 to board in Rome...I knew that would happen to us...so glad you made it on the ship!!
Tara

 

[downtick]

Our assistant server was great. We gave him more money than the main server. I didn't leave a tip til that saturday morning cause I knew they would be upset the next morning with the amounts I left for them. Anyway, the main server didn't say a word all breakfast long. You can tell he was upset about his tips from the night before. I thought the service was pretty bad to be honest. Would forget to bring what was asked for several times. We also told him it was our kids 4th birthday before we sat down on the last night. He forgot all about it and we were just tired of waiting for them to come around and sing we just got up and left. We were the last ones to leave the dining room that night, just sitting and waiting! He knew were pissed the next day too. Whatever, I left way less than the suggested tip amounts and I do not feel bad about it at all.

On another note,, what is up with the italians? Did anyone notice that when you are in some kind of a line in for anything they just cut in front of you? I couldn't believe how many times they tried that on me!

 

[strawberryblonde]

Sorry to hear about some kids getting sick at the end of vacation, what a downer. Shame you caught it too Tara . Wish I could have met you! I did wear the red lanyard Tarald made for us (those were fantastic! thanks for making those Tarald ) sometimes, mainly when I didn't have my purse along, but that was never for off the ship.

I had a nice chat with EverAfter at the dismeet and then never bumped into her again until the last seaday, happy for our end of cruise chat, that was fun!

GoofyMum, I'm sad to read that you were made to feel uncomfortable in the dining room by your server, really sorry about that! I'm glad that you did enjoy your vacation anyway, you are great at looking at the bright side. Our servers were ok, I have no complaints, but it wasn't excellent either. They seemed tired and overworked, even though over half of the time our table of 8 were the only ones who showed up in their section for dinner. I didn't care for our table location, right in the corner with no view for Lum. and AP....AP was the worst, it felt so tight and cramped back there, and you couldn't see a thing. We joked about "nobody puts Baby in a corner" many times with our tablemates. They were amazing, such a fun family and our two DD's became fast friends. Our tablemates saved dinner for us, had we been at a table for 4 in the corner, I would have felt completely left out and lonely. First cruise we have ever been given tablemates that weren't related to us, and I loved it.

Tara - I've read about the final breakfast on these boards through the years. We tip on the last night and tell our servers we will not be making it to final breakfast, we always grab something from the buffet or have some food bars. Many folks tend to get that "less than friendly feeling" from their servers on the last breakfast and there are many theories why. I don't think it is because you didn't tip extra. We tipped double on our first cruise, and we didn't get "warm fuzzies" from anyone we tipped....I think they are quite busy with the changeover, it must be the most stressful time of the trip. Tipping the stated amount, is like tipping 15% IMO. That is a good tip....not jump up and down, but perfectly fine. I waited tables, back in the day, and I was always kind to everyone, no matter how they tipped, but 15% was never viewed as "not good enough". I will admit that the 25+% tips are what made my day, but 15% does not pull down your average.

Anyway, I've always heard how last breakfast is not worth it, and can even be uncomfortable with your servers, so I've never pushed for it, nor planned to be there. This cruise, my DH did not make it to the buffet in time (or perhaps it wasn't open at all that morning? not even sure). I had food bars for everyone, so I wasn't worried about it, but he really wanted a warm breakfast. We asked nicely at Lumiere's, as we were getting ready to walk off the ship, if they could fit us in, and they did, with smiles and "no problem!". I couldn't believe it, I was sure they would say no. We had the best service for that breakfast of our entire cruise. Amazing servers, just amazing. They made it seem like no trouble (and it must have been, how could it have not been) and smiled and seemed happy to squeeze us in, as they had an empty table. We ordered and ate quickly, and it was delicious and fast.....these were not even our servers, I can not believe it how amazing they were! I made a beeline for the head guy, and told him my thoughts, he said "I know!" and smiled....he must have known these were the best of the best of his servers. I hope to someday get servers like them for an entire cruise...someday! Icing on the cake, was getting to see Lemonbee and her cute family one more time....cute kids, I tell you!

 

[Goofy Mum]

Well I guess I'll talk about my server experience. Firstly we were at the last seating which turned out to be no good because I didn't realise dinner would take 90 Mins!! Anyway, our server, Isaac from Kenya was pleasant but the first day before we left Barcelona I expressed to him that my youngest son was a bit scared about departing because of the waves, etc. He then talked very candidly about how the cruise before us experienced very rough seas and waves that crashed on the restaurant windows! He then said lots of people got sick, etc. (rolling eyes) So that was the start of a not so wonderful relationship. Then he seemed nearly annoyed when I sent back my very RAW steak. Our head server brought me the replacement. A few times we asked for things that were just totally ignored and all this was our first night! The second night things weren't much better but I wanted to experience all the restaurants so we toughed it out. Animators Palate was a bit of a disappointment. The kids were getting tired and we just kept waiting for something to happen and it did just very very slowly. After that night we decided to do buffet for the rest of the cruise. And wouldnt you know it our head server was calling us daily leaving messages on our answerphone asking where we were. We nearly felt harrassed! We enjoyed the buffet so much. In fact one night was a sit down night at the buffet and the server, Sem, was so incredible I slipped him a tenner. That night we had prime rib and crab claws
In the end, we decided to skip the last morning breakfast and went to the airport starving!
I think also we weren't too keen on the kissy arsey stuff that went on in the dining room. I mean I want to pick my own bread out of the basket and I felt more than uncomfortable when our server insisted on cutting my sons' meat!! All this stuff just led us to cancel our Palo reservation. We much preferred to be casual cruisers. We did formal night and after we did all three dining rooms we were happy to go to Topsider's each night for a fantastic spread and we were always dressed very casual.