May Med Magic - May 15 2010 - Meet thread

[rashdecision]

I just heard from someone on cruise critic that this board exists. We are traveling on the May 15th med cruise. The crew includes myself (37), wife (not gonna say), two boys (7 and 9), and my wifes two parents. We are looking at all private excursions for Naples, Rome, Florence, and villefranche. We will likely use Disneys excursions in Tunisia and I have NO clue about Corsica and Malta. Would love to hear peoples comments about these ports. We are in a Cat 3 aft room and are really excited about the extra space and I can only imagine these ports from the aft balcony. We just found a pretty good deal on rooms in Barcelona at hotel fira palace

 

[tripodjw]

Welcome to the new cruisers and welcome to the DISboards rash decision (love that name - sounds like everything i do)

:welcome

We're slowly putting together a decent size group. 30 rooms and counting.

I'm starting to plan my new door magnets, seeing as I can't use the ones that refer to the caribbean on this trip.

 

[rashdecision]

relatively new to these boards. Tell me about the door magnets. Do you make them copy them and what are the purpose. I assumed they were to identify your room over others on the ship since it can get pretty confusing but it seems that everyone is talking about these magnets. Thanks for the welcome. I am really excited and this board looks pretty busy. The cruise critic site is barely moving but we still have 4 months. Are we planning a meet and greet? Thanks for any info. Also, has anyone been to Malta or Corsica and if so can you recommend things to do. Im not sure if I want an official tour and thought we may do these independantly but if there is a must see out there, I would hate to miss it.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Welcome rashdecision! I'm "jlspence" over on cruise critic. Regarding Corsica, from the research I've done on tripadvisor, cruise critic and elsewhere on the web, it seems there are no "must sees" in Corsica. Additionally, we'll be arriving there on Sunday so I'm not sure how much will be open anyway. On Malta, we've signed up for the uPhotoMalta private tour given its rave reviews on tripadvisor. Seems like a great way to see the natural beauty of the island and bypass most of the touristy areas.

 

[tripodjw]

Ajaccio in Corsica is the birthplace of Napoloen so much of the tourist stuff relates to him.

Other than that it's very much a typical mediterranean port, and as it is French territory there will be lots of french influenced food including the yummy cakes!).

As the cruise ships dock 5 mins walk from the main centre of Ajaccio we are eplanning on just doing a walking tour on our own.

With regrds to the magents, partly they are for helping identify your door in amongst the long corridor of identical doors, but also its fun to decorate- normally Disney themed as its a Disney ship.

Most people print their magnets onto magnetic paper or onto plain paper (maybe laminate it) that you can attach plain magnets (i buy strips of magnets cheap on e bay)

We'll definately have at least one meet and greet - probably 1st sea day in the early afternoon but we'll negotiate the details nearer to cruise time.

The DCL board is very good on here, lots of general info about the boats, although most at the moment is Caribbean specific. There'll be more med stuff when we get to April and the Magic doing its transatlantic over to Barcelona.

Whatever, it should be a great cruise.

 

[jubes]

We are new to these boards and never sailed DCL but excited to set sail May 15th. We are a family of 4, with our son, 9 and daughter 7. I have almost cancelled this cruise as it seems overwhelming to plan, but really glad that I haven't after reading this board.

 

[sayhello]

We are new to these boards and never sailed DCL but excited to set sail May 15th. We are a family of 4, with our son, 9 and daughter 7. I have almost cancelled this cruise as it seems overwhelming to plan, but really glad that I haven't after reading this board.

Yay! Welcome, jubes! Glad you're still with us.

Sayhello

 

[Travelbee]

Could i ask everyone to check the details in post #2 and send me a PM if they need anything changing or adding.

It's good fun giving out little treats and even more fun coming back to your stateroom to find little treats waiting for you. You don't need to spend much and is fun for kids and adults alike.

Our info is correct!
We did FE last November and DD LOVED it. We're getting together with our friends at the end of the month. We'll bring up the FE at that time, hopefully not overwhelm them since they've never cruised before.

What we did back in 2007 was:

Formal on first at sea evening (Day 2)
Semi-formal on 2nd at sea evening (Day 7)
Semi-formal on 10th day at Villefranche (Day 10)

I alway like to schedule Palo dinner around the formal nights so that's great info!

Hi all,
Here are summaries of the three tours I've arranged with Rudy's Touring Service in Italy. By booking three tours with Rudy, he discounted his normal rate in Naples and La Spezia by 50 Euro per tour. Rate for Naples is 500 Euro for 6-7 people. Rate for Civitavecchia is 600 Euro for 6-7 people, rate for La Spezia is 500 Euro for 6-7 people.

Do you know if they have more than one van? Could we possibly piggy back off your reservation for another van on one or more of the tour and get the same discount? We have 7 in our party (4 adults and 3 kids) and would be interested in at least the Pompeii (Naples) tour and maybe Civitavecchia.

 

[Hilari Smith]

Hello fellow cruisers! My husband may already be on these forums, as he's the disney freak of the family, but I was excited to see this existed as we too are excited and overwhelmed about planning this European trip. This will be our second time to Europe, but this time we'll be dragging our kids along for the ride (I'm sure they won't complain). Our son is 9 and our daughter 4.

If anyone is interested in sharing a van for a private tour; we would definitely be interested! Seems like those are the way to go.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Hello and welcome jubes and hilari.

This will be our 4th DCL cruise and I've found the DIS boards and fellow DISers here to be great at helping with any and all planning questions.

Travelbee,

I do not know but I'd be happy to check. Will let you know.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Welcome to the new cruisers and welcome to the DISboards rash decision (love that name - sounds like everything i do)

:welcome

We're slowly putting together a decent size group. 30 rooms and counting.

I'm starting to plan my new door magnets, seeing as I can't use the ones that refer to the caribbean on this trip.

If you're going by # of cabins, we actually have two in our party. Wife and I in one, son and daughter in the second. Both GTY at this point. Both second seating dinner.

 

[sarahgirl]

Anyone have any idea or guess as to what night Pirate night will be? I am not a big fan of it or the menu and I would much rather be in Palo that night.

 

[rashdecision]

Sorry for the ignorance but I was just about to figure out cruise critic and Im no where near ready to figure out DIS. What are FE's? Ive only cruise with disney once and was not on the boards at that time. Looks like our information on the front of the board is good. We are the first seating for dinner (kids would go nuts trying to eat that late). What is GTY? Thanks for all the help. I will look into the Malta excursions. I think Im staying with disney for tunsia. We get to Villefranche on a Monday. Does anyone know if France is like Italy in that everything is closed on Mondays? Just curious.

 

[abdmom]

Rash, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one choosing early seating. Not only the kids, but "I" would go crazy waiting until 8:30 p.m. for dinner.

FE is fish extender. Yeah, clear as mud, right? Outside the cabin is a wall mount which is supposed to be for putting mail in. People hang wall hanging with pockets in them and then other passengers on your sailing put little goodies in them. Kind of like Secret Santa.

GTY is a guarantee cabin. I have one. I was booked on a Celebrity Med cruise and DCL came out with unbelievable cat12 rates. So, now I have a guarantee. I'll get my cabin assignment closer to sailing.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Anyone have any idea or guess as to what night Pirate night will be? I am not a big fan of it or the menu and I would much rather be in Palo that night.

Sarah,

In 2007, for the 11 night cruises, it was the evening we were in port at Marseille. For this cruise, that would be when we're visiting Ajaccio, Corsica if Disney were to keep to the same schedule.

Travelbee,

Here's Rudy's response on your question. I did not ask him about piggy-backing off my reservation as I felt a bit uneasy guaranteeing someone else's tour with my credit card. Sorry.

Dear Jeff,
Of course. I can serve many different people on the same way. If they need I can provide for the services for them as for you.
Thank you,
Rudy

Rash,

Sundays are generally days when things close down in France. This was true when we docked in Marseille in 2007 on a Sunday. Patisseries, grocery shops and churches were all we found open and I expect the same to be true for Ajaccio, Corsica which is French.

Sundays in France, when most shops are closed
Don't expect to find shops open in France on Sundays. Sunday in France is still for most people a day of rest, and most shops are not allowed to open, except in specific locations at at certain times of year. Sunday is a day for window shopping in French towns, for most of the year. Large shops are only allowed to open on Sundays in tourist resorts in the holiday period; elsewhere, in the cities, Sunday opening is only allowed on a limited number of Sundays in the run-up to Christmas. Nonetheless, small corner shops and essential services (such as boulangeries) can open on Sundays if they want to, and indeed Sunday is the busiest days of the week for many patisseries. So in any town, it is usually possible to buy fresh bread and groceries on a Sunday, particularly on Sunday morning.

 

[tripodjw]

You also find some shops/restaurants close on a Monday in France - which is the day of the week we are in Villefranche.

That said, i would expect a busy tourist place like Monte Carlo or Nice to be pretty much fully open every day of the week.

 

[tripodjw]

Our info is correct!
We did FE last November and DD LOVED it. We're getting together with our friends at the end of the month. We'll bring up the FE at that time, hopefully not overwhelm them since they've never cruised before.

I'll count you in for the FE and you can let me know later if your friends want to participate too.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Just saw this on another Med cruise thread and checked it out myself. Hotel Novotel is opening a new 4 star hotel in Barcelona in March 2010 and they've got some great rates. Additionally, they are family friendly in that they have rooms with queen beds & sleeper sofas and up to two kids (15 and under) to stay in the room free. I changed our reservation from the Regencia Colon to Novotel and saved 100 Euro.

http://www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-5560-novotel-barcelona-city-opening-1st-march-2010/index.shtml

 

[rashdecision]

I'll count you in for the FE and you can let me know later if your friends want to participate too.

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.

 

[Travelbee]

Travelbee,

Here's Rudy's response on your question. I did not ask him about piggy-backing off my reservation as I felt a bit uneasy guaranteeing someone else's tour with my credit card. Sorry.

Jeff,

Thanks for checking. I didn't mean for you to guarantee our tour with your credit card. I was simply interested in whether they'd extend the same rate for our tour (specifically 500 Euros for Naples). Do you mind if I use your name when I contact them directly for a quote?

Connie