Our first cruise - DIY Disney Magic round the Med (31st May - 7th June)

[Peppermintangel]

Hi!

We got back from our first Disney cruise (and DD's first cruise) on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves

I found the trip reports (especially ones from the Med cruises) to be invaluable when researching our trip so want to pay it forward and do a TR for ours

Intro:

We went to Disneyland Paris with DD last year and thoroughly enjoyed our visit - but the best part of it was seeing our usually shy DD with the characters - she couldn't get enough of them! So when thinking about our next holiday, I came across Disney Cruise Line. OH and I have both cruised before (Once with Ocean Village and once with Thomson - over 5 years ago) so knew that we enjoyed that type of holiday and were very interested in seeing what a Disney Cruise would be like...

We booked our cruise about 10 months before and had decided from the start that we'd be DIYing our port days - I liked the idea of having our own schedule, especially with a 4 year old, and being able to adjust our days as necessary. This worked really well and we ended up visiting Monaco from Villefranche, Porto Venere from La Spezia and Capri from Naples (Civitavecchia we decided to stay on the boat and treat as an extra sea day)

We originally booked an 11B and upgraded to a 9B for an extra £150 a couple of months before the trip. Thanks to research on the boards, we knew it was best to not arrive the day of the cruise and booked our flights arriving into Barcelona for the Friday, staying at the Novotel City hotel.

I also joined a facebook group and the Fish Extender for our cruise - and thoroughly enjoyed chatting to others on the page. We had such a great FB group and it definitely made the trip even more special

Friday 30th May:

We flew from Heathrow with British Airways and had no delays on the way, just over two hours to get to Barcelona. We've flown before with DD so there were no surprises there and everything was nice and easy.

We got to Barcelona around 6.30pm and it was raining! We'd booked transfers with SunTransfers in advance and our driver was there within 5 minutes of us arriving It took about 30 minutes to get from the airport to our hotel and we had prepaid 38 euros for the journey (and have been told that a taxi would have been 35 - 45 euros)

We checked in at the Novotel Barcelona City which was lovely and clean and had plenty of room for the 3 of us. We were opposite a shopping center with a Carrefour supermarket so decided to buy a selection of meats, cheeses and breads to take back to our room for dinner rather than eat out as it was now after 7pm (DD's normal bedtime) and still not very nice weather!



We had a tour of Barcelona booked for the Saturday we arrived back so just had a relaxing evening in the hotel room not having to worry about fitting sightseeing in



It wasn't long before DD was asleep and we got out our selection of kindles, tablets and headphones to pass away a couple of hours before we too fell asleep, looking forward to boarding the next day!

 

[llqool]

Ok...not trying to rush you or anything, lol, but we are departing for our med cruise in just two weeks, so I'm anxious to hear details!!

Thanks

 

[Peppermintangel]

Ok...not trying to rush you or anything, lol, but we are departing for our med cruise in just two weeks, so I'm anxious to hear details!!

Thanks

haha, no worries! Am hoping to get it done within a couple of days - am starting on Day 2 now. Will post our navigators etc for each day if I can find them too

Enjoy your cruise - it was amazing!

 

[Ana~n~Joseph]

Can't wait to read more! We are going in August!!!

 

[Peppermintangel]

Saturday 31st May:

Got up fairly early, probably due to excitement! And headed off for breakfast in the hotel - it was included in our rate and was a very reasonable breakfast, good selection of both hot and cold foods

It was still a little early for heading to the port so we went exploring the hotel and spent a bit of time on the rooftop terrace enjoying the views of Barcelona.





Eventually the time came and we took a taxi from the rank outside the hotel to the port (which was around 25 euros I believe). Seeing the ship that I'd been researching for months was amazing - couldn't believe that our holiday was actually here after being planned for so long!

We were still a little too early and couldn't get into the port building yet, but waited outside - and when they split the queue into 3 separate ones about 10 minutes before they let us in, we ended up at the front of one of them - with a delightful young lady, Julia, behind us (who we kept bumping in to around the boat and who our daughter, Matilda, adored!)

We had passports etc checked and made it through to the check in terminals which was all very quick and painless, giving boarding number 6, and were directed to the waiting area.

Whilst waiting we queued up for photos with Mickey and then Goofy. We also met some of the lovely people from our facebook group, especially the adorable Maddie, who we played Disney Trivia with to pass the time





We were also given our first Navigator - which was very exciting!! Have scanned it in below (please excuse the scribbles!)



TBC....

 

[Ana~n~Joseph]

Question - did the taxi that took you to the port have a car seat available or was that a non-issue? I've read that they are strict in Barcelona about car seats and that it's better to reserve a car ahead of time, etc etc so just curious.

Thanks!

 

[Peppermintangel]

Question - did the taxi that took you to the port have a car seat available or was that a non-issue? I've read that they are strict in Barcelona about car seats and that it's better to reserve a car ahead of time, etc etc so just curious.

Thanks!

We didn't have a car seat in either the taxi or the prebooked car and they didn't query it at all - being not too long a journey DD sat in the middle with a seatbelt and OH and I sat either side and we didn't have a problem. With the couple of queries I had about taxi availability and prices I emailed our hotel who were very good at getting back to me quickly with answers

 

[Peppermintangel]

Saturday 31st May continued...

It wasn’t long before our number was called and we started our walk through the ship around 12pm (our PAT was 11.30 – 12pm and we actually arrived about 10.30am).

I can’t describe the feelings on that walk to the ship – kind of a mixture of excitement, nerves and expectation! It was finally here!

Having spent the last 10 month of my life on the DIS boards, I was prepared for the welcome and it still felt a little unreal! We headed straight to Cariocas (again, from tips from the boards) for our buffet lunch and loved the restaurant – bright and colourful and plenty to choose from.





DD had Mac & cheese, salad and a few other bits and pieces - she was very good over the week at trying various different things, knowing that if she didn't like them, it was okay and she could choose something else



I went for pasta & salmon and it was delicious! I haven't got a pic of OH's lunch but I believe he had some sort of meat and mash potatoes.

After lunch we went exploring on the upper decks - had a quick go at the table tennis and the fussball while it was fairly quite still! DD spotted the ice cream machine on the way round deck 9 so we sat at a table, helped ourselves to an ice cream cone each (this didn't get old!) and enjoyed the calm, the weather and the view!





It was now almost 1.30pm, so we headed downstairs to deck 2 where we had just a 5 minute wait to get into our room. We were in 2042 which was a 9B room, just under the corridor in After Hours. I did speak to someone in our FB group who was directly under one of the bars and said it was ever so loud in the evenings - however whilst we heard footsteps now and then, we had no problem with hearing music or anything like that

The stateroom was plenty big enough for us - we especially like the curtain separating our bed from DD's in the evening! We've found on previous holidays that if she can see us, it takes a little longer for her to go to sleep (and we have to practically lie in bed as still as can be until she falls alseep!)



Most of our cases arrived fairly quickly (there was only one bag we had a problem with, but our Stateroom Host told us to go to GS and see if it had been stored there, and it had *phew*) so we did a little unpacking. Got our FE hung up and our magnets on the door!

 

[Alohagirl73]

Thank you for this trip report. Next summer we will be traveling with our DD who will be 4 to the Baltics. Nice to read a trip report with someone who has a similar aged child.

Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[Peppermintangel]

Saturday 31st May continued (again)...

We then headed off to check out the kids clubs during open house. We have a very shy DD who takes a little while to get used to people, so we were pretty sure we wouldn't be dropping her off to use the clubs alone - however we found there were plenty of times during the week when they had open house and we could enjoy the clubs together.

We all thoroughly enjoyed exploring both the club and the lab - tracing, steering the ship, dressing up, dancing and visiting all the different spaces (OH's favourite was the Avengers room!)









We spent about an hour in the clubs and then went off for our facebook meet up at 3.30pm in the Promenade Lounge. I had a chance to say a brief hello to most people there and then sat with DD whilst her and Maddie played one of the board games they had out in the lounge.

We finished just in time to go to the Safety Drill at 4.30pm - our muster station was in the Walt Disney Theatre, which was nice. Afterwards we raced off up to Deck 9 to stake our places for the sailaway party (After watching all the videos on youtube before we went, DD had insisted we be "right at the front"!)

We got a space right up against the rope on one of the sides and got ready to paaaaaaaaartay!





It started to rain just as the party begin - but it didn't seem to dampen any spirits! In fact, one of my favourite memories is just after the show of DD dancing in the rain to Let it Go - without a care in the world!





A special shout out here to Miguel Angel and Luke from the Entertainment team who were both brilliant over the week!

We then went down to the Atrium to meet Pluto - we were all about the characters and tried to do as many meet and greets as we could manage for DD We queued about 10 minute to meet him and then went off to Cariocas for our dinner (early seating - 6.15pm) ....

 

[Peppermintangel]

We booked the cruise through a UK travel agent and I had asked them to request we had our own table - I don't know if they did or not, but we ended up with a family of 5 on a table of 8. The family were very pleasant and perfectly nice, but English wasn't their native language and it did feel a little like we were intruding on their family dinner - we decided to eat only did the first three nights in the MDR (so we could experience each dining room once). Don't get me wrong, it worked out well for us in that we had a dinner from either Cabanas (which had buffet service a couple of nights and waiter service on the others) or the fast food place and then went to see the early show. This meant we were getting DD to bed by 8.30pm (expect for Pirate Night and the last night) and we had a slightly less grumpy 4 year old during the days!

We had the Let the Magic Begin menu and I went for Prosciutto, Tomato and Mozzarella Bruschetta and then Mesquite grilled chicken breast - both of which were delicious!







OH is a plain eater, so didn't go for a starter and had steak and some sort of potato (I don't remember!) which, again, was really tasty.

DD had soup and then Mac & Cheese which was all eaten up, so I presume that was good too!



Again, the MDR let us down a little as, though our servers were really nice, there was none of the special treatment I'd read about on the boards - no cutting up of DD's food, we didn't see any magic tricks/any form of entertainment for the children. Possibly a time when lots of research didn't do any favours, as if I hadn't read about the cutting of the kids meals etc then I wouldn't have noticed it not happening!

(Again, I want to point out that none of this in any way ruined our DCL experience - in fact it was the only thing that wasn't perfectly magical, and in 7 days, that's not bad at all!)

We were finished in about 90 minutes and had time to head off and see the end of Mickey Mania in the D Lounge....

 

[mrslfc]

Really enjoying your TR we are going at the end of Aug and getting so excited now!!!! We have a 5 year old DS and planning on doing all ports DIY so looking forward to seeing what you did.

One question were did you get your magnets? They are great

 

[Peppermintangel]

We all enjoyed watching Mickey Mania and got the chance to give a couple of answers that none of the teams got. When it was over, we went to Fathoms for the last 15 minutes of the family dance party, where a couple of singers were performing for about half a dozen toddlers - DD enjoyed dancing with the other children and we enjoyed a sit down, listening to some good music

When the band were finished, off we went to the Walt Disney Theatre for the All Aboard show - DD really enjoyed this. Mickey, Minnie and the gang all made appearances and it was a show, with a few songs, interspersed with a lot of talking by Brent (the Cruise Director) and one of the variety acts, Max Winfrey, who was actually really good. We saw him juggling tennis rackets and various other objects! Would have liked to have seen his variety show later in the week, but just got caught up doing so many other things that we didn't make it!!

The show finished at half 9 and it was time for bed! Off we went, where we saw our Stateroom host again (Aileen) - she was brilliant, definitely full of the Disney Magic we'd heard all about

DD fell asleep pretty quickly - not surprising as it had been a busy day. And OH and I couldn't resist a late night room service order around 11pm to finish the night off (Being from the UK, we'd come prepared with lots of one dollar bills to enjoy late night snacks and breakfasts in our room on some days too)



(Burger and fries and a Chicken and guacamole fajita - again, the food was superb)

 

[Peppermintangel]

Sunday 1st June - At Sea

Today's navigator:



Having perused the navigator the night before, and the plan was to get as many characters as possible done today, so if we didn’t have chance to see them later in the week, then that was okay (however, whenever we saw a queue for a meet and great, we had to join it!). So we started with the Princess gathering at 9am!

Lumiere’s was open for brunch until 12.30pm, so we decided to do the meet and greats first, then head there for brunch afterwards

We started queuing around 8.40am and there were perhaps 10-15 families in front of us, which wasn’t too bad. We were lucky enough that three of the four princesses were ones that DD didn’t get to meet in Disneyland Paris last year – we had Tiana, Rapunzel, Belle and Cinderella.

It was about 20 past 9 when we got to the front of the queue – so a very reasonable 40 minute wait to meet 4 Princesses – at DLRP we queued about an hour to meet one! They were all very charming and brilliant with DD - coaxing a few words out of her (which is impressive!)



DD was very excited to see that Sofia was onboard for a meet and great (I think it was only once through the week though – so I’m glad we decided to go then) and we went there next (she was on Deck 4 – just above the Princess gathering) and as we’d done Sofia, we then decided we may as well queue and see Princess Minnie also!



It was about 20 past 10 we got in to Lumiere’s from brunch, so we’d been character meeting for around 1 hour 40 minutes that morning, which DD was very happy with!

OH went for Eggs Benedict, DD had a selection of croissants, pastries and jams and I had a bacon, tomato and cheese panini





Again, no problems with the food - it was all delicious and enjoyed by all

Our next planned event was watching the incredible diaper dash at 11.30am, so we had a little time to go back to our cabin - where we found some more FE gifts (DD loved coming back to our room and seeing what delights were awaiting in our FE) and had a little sit down before heading off again ....

 

[Peppermintangel]

Really enjoying your TR we are going at the end of Aug and getting so excited now!!!! We have a 5 year old DS and planning on doing all ports DIY so looking forward to seeing what you did.

One question were did you get your magnets? They are great

Thank you I bet you'll have an amazing time - the ports were beautiful. Definitely would recommend Porto Venere, it was our favourite place to visit

The magnets were a selection of my own and ones used from the forums and Disney graphics facebook groups

 

[llqool]

thanks for posting so much today!

Did you use the new Navigator App at all? I have downloaded it to my phone, but obviously can't tell yet if it will be useful. I am hoping it will miraculously solve the problem I usually have onboard: there's so much going on that I inevitably miss something I had really intended to go to!

Sorry your servers weren't very magical. We have been on four cruises and three of the four serving teams were awesome. But on that one cruise...our lackluster team really did put a damper on things.

We also always request to sit by ourselves unless we're travelling with friends. I saw some very uncomfortable pairings in the dining room the last time we sailed -- four couples had been placed together at a large table and they barely spoke to their partners let alone the others at the table. They were right next to us and it was impossible to ignore.

 

[Peppermintangel]

thanks for posting so much today!

Did you use the new Navigator App at all? I have downloaded it to my phone, but obviously can't tell yet if it will be useful. I am hoping it will miraculously solve the problem I usually have onboard: there's so much going on that I inevitably miss something I had really intended to go to!

Sorry your servers weren't very magical. We have been on four cruises and three of the four serving teams were awesome. But on that one cruise...our lackluster team really did put a damper on things.

We also always request to sit by ourselves unless we're travelling with friends. I saw some very uncomfortable pairings in the dining room the last time we sailed -- four couples had been placed together at a large table and they barely spoke to their partners let alone the others at the table. They were right next to us and it was impossible to ignore.

We did have the Navigator app on OHs phone, however I did prefer the paper version - there's something fun (to me, anyway) of reading through it of an evening and circling things we'd like to go to! We found the App handy for checking if something was going to be on again during the week, which made dealing with clashes easier.

We've booked the Dover - Barcelona cruise for next year (ourselves this time, rather than through a TA) and will make sure to request a table by ourselves - have read that most people who request a table, will get one, so not sure if our TA ever passed the message along tbh... As I said, it was a shame it wasn't a magical MDR experience, but we used it to our advantage and then weren't upset about missing it most nights to make the most of our time

 

[Ana~n~Joseph]

We didn't have a car seat in either the taxi or the prebooked car and they didn't query it at all - being not too long a journey DD sat in the middle with a seatbelt and OH and I sat either side and we didn't have a problem. With the couple of queries I had about taxi availability and prices I emailed our hotel who were very good at getting back to me quickly with answers

Thank you so much!!!!

 

[Peppermintangel]

Sunday 1st June - At Sea....continued...

We got to the atrium just as the races were starting - DD loved this, she really got into it, shouting "3..2...1...RACE THOSE BABIES" and cheering for her favourites!

Next up on our character list were the meet and greets at the Gazebo on deck 9 - Mickey and Donald were up first (at 12pm and 12.30pm) and DD and I queued whilst OH watched the Movie Challenge in front of the funnel vision.





Next up we hit the deck 9 fast food places for lunch - we went to Pete's Boiler Bites, where OH and DD went for chicken and chips and I tried the Shwarma station - which was fab!





We then wandering down to the Promenade lounge for Disney Tunes Trivia, we were a little early so we sat and enjoyed the view! There weren't an awful lot of people there (perhaps 6 or 7 teams) but we had a great time! Aileen de la Cruz (pianist) played little snippets of Disney songs on the piano, then we had to write down the name of the song, the film it was from and then the host asked a question about the film - so 3 points for each song.

We finished with a (we thought) respectful 35 out of 45 - and were very impressed with DD who answered one of the trivia questions that we couldn't (the name of the cat in Cinderella). It was a fun family activity - OH and I love quizzes so couldn't resist and DD loves her Disney music so was able to join in and help us!

I believe the winners got a very impressive 42/45 and walked away with DCL keychains

Next, we were back up to Deck 9 for some more character meet & greets (we didn't get tired of them!)....

 

[Peppermintangel]

We had just enough time to grab an ice cream and watch the Esencia Spanish Dancers on the deck stage before our next characters. The dancers were fabulous to watch - another moment where you have to pinch yourself to realise you really are on a Disney ship, in the Med, watching Flamenco dancers with your family





The dancers had a photo op after they'd finished, so we went over for a pic and a chat

Next up were Stitch and Daisy in the Gazebo (again, DD and I queued - I believe OH was somewhere on Deck 9 reading, something he doesn't get to just sit and do often at home )





We had a bit of down time again now, so took the chance to hang out on Deck 4 (again, another tip read on the boards - it was always so quiet down there, and we had a couple of good character moments too)

DD and OH loved shuffleboard! I think we went down there to play at least once a day