May Med Magic - May 15 2010 - Meet thread

[Jeff Spencer]

No, I don't mind at all Connie.

 

[amackay]

Just putting some feelers out to see if there would be any interest in some other board members joining us on private shore excursions.

We would be looking at arranging private excursions from La Spezia to Florence & Pisa and also from Naples (Amalfi coast, Positano, Sorrento and Pompeii)

Feel free to send a private message if you are interested.

It's just me and my girlfriend so we would have room for 4 or 5 more people on the tours.

 

[sarahgirl]

Thanks Jeff! That makes sense since we are leaving port early that day (5pm). Now I only have to wait a few more weeks until I can make my reservations.

 

[dawne577]

Jeff,
You obviously are comfortable with switching precruise hotels - Hotwire just notified us that they couldn't honor our suite purchase and gave us an option to cancel. Any info you can give on this hotel and area that it's located would be helpful.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

dawne,

I don't have any other insight that what's at the link I gave you. Probably the thing that sold me (in addition to the savings) was the location. Looking at the map, it's only about a mile and a half from the cruise port.

 

[tripodjw]

Is it too late to join on the FE? I think it would be kind of neat. Does each person bring a different item to place in the FE (Im a dermatologist so you could expect kids sunscreen packets) or moisturizer. Does each person have to come up with the extender to hang or does one person do this for everyone. I also had my TA find rates at the hotel fira palace that was pretty decent with big rooms and the ability to keep the kids in the room on the sleeper sofa. I think the per night rate was 180 euros now. Sort of high but much less than booking more rooms. Its was rated highly by Frommers and the cruise critic board was high on it. I was happy b/c we are arriving 48 hours early and the hotel is relatively close to the old district for touring. Thanks for all the advice. Ill get this board eventually.

Not too late at all. I think we'll set a 1 month before deadline for signing up to FE - to allow people plenty of time to know final numbers and sort out the FE gifts.

Each stateroom participating provides their own FE outside their room (either homemade or pre-bought). There is generally no coordination of gift giving (that way it's a surprise) so it is pretty random. My experience before has been that you get a wide selection of different stuff. Last yr some of the things we got a mini first aid kit, candy, glowsticks, home made notebooks, door magnets, home made soft drink coolers, Disney photographs, moisturiser, after-sun, pens, stickers, temporary pirate tattoos. I'm sure there was other stuff too but can't remember right now.

 

[rashdecision]

Not too late at all. I think we'll set a 1 month before deadline for signing up to FE - to allow people plenty of time to know final numbers and sort out the FE gifts.

Each stateroom participating provides their own FE outside their room (either homemade or pre-bought). There is generally no coordination of gift giving (that way it's a surprise) so it is pretty random. My experience before has been that you get a wide selection of different stuff. Last yr some of the things we got a mini first aid kit, candy, glowsticks, home made notebooks, door magnets, home made soft drink coolers, Disney photographs, moisturiser, after-sun, pens, stickers, temporary pirate tattoos. I'm sure there was other stuff too but can't remember right now.

that sounds great. Sign me up for the FE's and Ill check back as we get closer. We have a cruise before "the cruise" with royal caribbean to the southern caribbean so my attention is back and forth. The more research I do on barcelona, the more excited that we arranged to get there thursday morning. If anyone was wondering, the disney cruise line is having problems posting the malta excursions so you can't book them yet. Should be fixed soon but you can call disney directly and they will handle your reservation. We decided to go less expensive in malta and did a short excursion as oppossed to the private tours at the other ports. Off to the blue grotto!

 

[Travelbee]

No, I don't mind at all Connie.

Thanks Jeff! We're booked with Rudy's for Naples and he's given me the same discount!

Can anyone tell me how far is Florence from the port of La Spezia?

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Connie,

It took us about 2 hours to get to Florence from La Spezia in 2007.

 

[llkoolj40]

Hello Everyone,

My roommate and I will be on this cruise celebrating our 40th and 50th birthdays. We are very excited about this trip. We are all booked, flights and all, except for excursions. We are staying in Barcelona for 3 days before the cruise and booked the Europark Hotel. Very reasonable for 3 nights. We are looking at the possibility of sharing private shore excursions, especially in Rome. We are from the Orlando area.

 

[tripodjw]

Hello Everyone,

My roommate and I will be on this cruise celebrating our 40th and 50th birthdays. We are very excited about this trip. We are all booked, flights and all, except for excursions. We are staying in Barcelona for 3 days before the cruise and booked the Europark Hotel. Very reasonable for 3 nights. We are looking at the possibility of sharing private shore excursions, especially in Rome. We are from the Orlando area.

Welcome aboard.

There's a few people sharing shore excursions so hopefully you'll be able to link up with another group for that.

3 days in Barcelona pre-cruise should be rather nice. We're staying on for a few nights after the cruise (though we haven't decided if we are staying in Barcelona or travelling down the coast a bit).

 

[MPS516]

added to list

Mike (52)
DW - Donna
DD19 - Jessi
DD19 - Megan
Room - Deck 6
Late Seating

 

[tripodjw]

added to list

Mike (52)
DW - Donna
DD20 - Jessi
DD20 - Megan
Room - Deck 6
Late Seating

Welcome Mike!

 

[leelee9878]

Hello Everyone,

My roommate and I will be on this cruise celebrating our 40th and 50th birthdays. We are very excited about this trip. We are all booked, flights and all, except for excursions. We are staying in Barcelona for 3 days before the cruise and booked the Europark Hotel. Very reasonable for 3 nights. We are looking at the possibility of sharing private shore excursions, especially in Rome. We are from the Orlando area.

Hey llkoolj, I sent you a PM.

 

[llkoolj40]

Hey llkoolj, I sent you a PM.

I sent you a PM as well.

 

[Florida Princess]

Hi Everyone
Have been absent from here for a while and it's so nice to see more Cruisers joining us !!!!!
Finally getting down to serious planning now---oh-- and we have another Cabin joining us---my Aunt and Uncle ! This will be there
2nd Disney Cruise and their first in Europe !!!!
Still searching for Air sales---have our precruise Hotel booked and considering staying an extra night in Barcelona after our Cruise.

 

[jenandmartin]

Hi Everyone! My husband and I just booked this cruise this week! I found out about this website on cruisecritic and I'm very happy I did. This will be our first Disney cruise and it sounds like we're in for a treat! It looks like I have a lot a catching up to do with the posts here. I managed to read long enough to figure out what FEs are and we'd like to participate...now I just have to figure out how to make/buy one. Our details for your rollcall... Jennifer (me) - 36 (at time of cruise...birthday next week)...DH - Martin - 39...GTY stateroom...late seating. Looking forward to meeting you all soon!

 

[MPS516]

We are booking a private limo tour of Monuments of Rome along with the Vatican during our Civitavecchia port stop from Benvenuto Tours
( on the web at benvenutolimos. com )
We have 4 in our group which would leave room for 3 or 4 more and allow everyone to save a considerable amount.

If interested let me know.

Mike

 

[STLUCIELADY]

Hi everyone!
My daughter (26) and I (45) will be joining you guys on this fabulous cruise! We are so psyched. We are up for sharing private tours in Italy or any of the ports for that matter. This is our 5th Disney cruise and 14th overall for me. My daughter worked (slaved) on NCL for 9 months in Hawaii so we are both very familar with cruising and just love it.
We are in Cat 11 GTY. Would have loved a verandah but just couldn't justify the upcharge yet. I would rather spend it on shopping and tours.
Anyway, very nice to meet you all and we are up for doing the FE and doing a meet and greet especially if it's at diversions or at the Palos Brunch the first day at sea.

 

[MPS516]

We did the Hawaii Cruise on NCL, enjoyed the trip but really did not like NCL.

We have never had a bad experience on Disney and love the bathroom set up. Our daughters are both 20 so if you want to look at the details of the tours go to benvenutolimos. com and see what they have to offer, we are doing the Monuments of Rme RO1 and looking at one or two more, probably the Pompeii, Herculaneum out of Naples (not sure yet).