Mediterranean cruises - loud?

[casana]

A friend told us that their neighbor said their mediterranean cruise was the "worst cruise because the Spanish people are rude and loud", apparently these neighbors take 1-2 cruises a year and have been all over.
Can anyone who's taken a mediterranean cruise comment? I can't imagine it being all that bad...?! We're in the middle of booking a reservation for the 10 day Barcelona cruise.

 

[phinz]

Different cultures are going to generally behave in different ways, but I try not to pigeonhole people by the culture in which they were raised. One person's "rude and loud" is another person's life of the party. I'd say do the trip and judge for yourselves. Don't let a friend of a friend change your travel plans. Obviously thousands of Disney passengers go every year and enjoy it or they wouldn't keep taking the Magic across the pond.

 

[morgan98]

This is more of a cultural difference than anything, probably. Europeans are generally late diners at night, especially in the summer, so I could see how that could change the dynamics on the ship quite a bit. This would be especially true if they were travelling with a larger group of family members and talking, dining, etc.

 

[bbel]

Do you mean the Spanish in Spain or on the ship?
The Med cruises were the most culturally diverse cruises I ever experienced at dcl. There weren't crazy high numbers of Spanish onboard, more Brits and Arabs onboard...
The 'worst' cruises with the rudest and loudest cruisers I ever experienced were actually out of Miami...

 

[GPaLarry]

After eight DCL cruises all over the place, we have not found any uncomfortable shipboard nationality problems. Sometimes you get a strange, to us, situation with parents and their friends & kids. However, the Med cruise was port-intensive, with long days spent on land/excursions where we meet the locals first hand. We expect Italy, France and Spain to be a different culture, some bad, most good...that's just the way it is. We have had many more positive experiences by far on DCL cruises than negative, or we wouldn't continue to do them...part of the adventure.

 

[pjacobi]

European usually consider Americans to be rude and loud.

-Paul