We'’re out of it! A summer 14 “MAGICal” Med adventure Day 14/Aug 05 updated 05/05

[scottny]

That is a long staircase. I would have stopped every 10 steps to take a pic and some breath. LOL.

Too bad you had to ditch the trip. I would have chucked the food but I have never been there. LOL. Might have thought differently if I had been.

OOH! That sundae looked good.

What an odd color the beer was.

Nice you got to sit and relax.

 

[dizneeat]

The fisherman's daughter looks like a great choice!

It was definitely a great choice and they were some of the friendliest hosts ever. Even though we were the only ones wanting to sit inside instead of out on the patio at the beach.

And well worth it to not go to Monaco!

To be honest, it was the one day we had no idea what to do. We both have been to Monaco several times, but after reading a TR where someone took the train we thought that would be a neat idea. Well, it did not turn out that way, but it was no problem at all.

I am surprised that a Coup Danmark is with peaches on France. Isn't it usually vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce?

You know, now that you pointed it out I realized that yes, here, Coup Danmark is vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. So I pulled up the photo of the menu and they sell it with peaches, no chocolate sauce. Funny that I didn't notice.

Sitting in the street cafes is one of the best things in France in my opinion.

It was so fun watching the patron make crepes with all different things (loads of Nutella and banana ones) and just people watch.

I hope your tourist train tour turned out well! But somehow I am afraid that there was another issue about train departing times...

Well, you are not quite wrong with sensing that there was another issue.

Sometimes changing plans is a good thing and everything looks delicious (so much so that I now have to start dinner which I wasn't going to start for another hour but I'm hungry now).

We had had a hard time finding something to do there when we planned the trip, but then it really turned into a fun day with a few changes along the way.

Hi Karin -

I'm finally back on the boards and slowly catching up. I read your last two updates and I have to say that the town looks beautiful. Sorry the train to Monaco plans didn't work out as you had hoped, but it looks like you are going to get there eventually.

We never got to Monaco in the end, but since we had been a few times before it did not matter at all.

In the meantime, you really did get to sample some yummy looking food and the pics of the city of just lovely.

Yes, despite the fact that we had "full board" on the ship we were happy to get some local food, which we enjoyed so much.

We did love our first cruise on the Dream. Our servers and stateroom host were delightful. I thought of you as we passed the cabanas. What a beautiful retreat.

I am glad you did and was pretty sure you would enjoy your cruise on the Dream. The Dream is so beautiful and we really love that ship.
Thank you for thinking of us when passing the Cabanas. We cannot wait to get back onto that beautiful island.

Love the change in plans. Can't wait to hear more.

It was fun not to have to stick to plans and the day turned out really nice in the end.

 

[dizneeat]

The crepes and the sundae look heavenly!

The crepe at the restaurant were awesome. I first thought Tom's looked pretty basic, but since it was scented with the alcohol it was heavenly. Mine was just divine, the spiced, cooked apples, the ice cream - heaven on a plate.

That is a long staircase. I would have stopped every 10 steps to take a pic and some breath. LOL.

It was definitely one LONG staircase and figure in that it was pretty hot that day (around 95°F) it was quite something to climb them.

Too bad you had to ditch the trip. I would have chucked the food but I have never been there. LOL. Might have thought differently if I had been.

We did not mind not going to Monaco. It is so crowded with tourists during the summer and we have seen all the big sights already. So we just enjoyed the day and it turned out to be a really good day.

OOH! That sundae looked good.

What an odd color the beer was.

Nice you got to sit and relax.

That was truly an odd coloured beer. But even though, he liked it and gave it the thumbs up!

 

[dvc4life]

Wow Karin! The scenery from the Magic and the village are amazing. How beautiful. I would love to be able to do a cruise like this but I am not adventurous and would be afraid of getting lost and not knowing what to do. So, I am just gonna live through you and this wonderful trip!

 

[Leshaface]

What a strange interaction with the dancing CM at breakfast. I understand being happy and trying to get guests happy too, but these folks are hungry, give them a plate!...and a dry one please!

What a let down about the food too.

Sounds like a great lunch and the crepes look delicious, especially yours. Great choice!

 

[eandesmom]

But finally the drill ended and it was high time to head to the DVC meet. We had not been too happy to hear that the meet started about half an hour before the ship was to leave the harbour, but since this was the way it was we just decided that we would leave once the ship was moving. They were already letting people into the D-Lounge when we arrived and we quickly found a table to the left of the stage. We settled in and got some drinks

What a horrible time for a meet! I do like, love actually, the mesh bags they gave out, we got them for the whole gang and I do like the new hat color and fabric they have now.

Not only did Brent, the cruise director give his daily speech, but he had a Spanish sidekick, who really loved to hear his voice as he kept on talking for quite some time. We both didn’t mind that much the first day, but lateron in the cruise, Armando became a mayor pain and so was Brent, who I just could not come to like very much. He always sounded somewhat “fake” to me. Well, to cut this long story short, about 20 minutes into the show we left as we both just did not like what we were seeing.

Instead we headed for the shops. I had wanted to pick up one of the very new Dooney and Bourke handbags and Tom wanted a Helmsman Mickey statue and a model of the Magic. We had a look at the Med Merchandise they were offering and were surprised that they already had T-shirts with Greece on it on display. I had thought that they would sell those once they got there, but who knew. So while browsing we debated if Tom would pick up his little statue right away or not and I thought it might be a good idea to get shopping for things we definitely wanted out of the way. When the cast member at the till found out what we were talking about he mentioned that it was a great idea to buy the statue right away, as they had just restocked them. They had been out of them for the last two cruises.
Wow!
You should just think they would have had enough supplies shipped. Once we had asked for all of Tom’s things, we asked about the new Dooney and Bourke and the answer was a simple, “we’re out of it”, which seemed to become the motto of the cruise, and definitely became the motto of my trip report.

I admit, we skipped most of the shows and tuned out the Spanish guys so I'm not sure if we had the same Spanish Language side kick or not. But, anyone for that many days who talks all the time can get really annoying.

How frustrating about things being out. I was not thrilled with the Southern merch, didn't actually buy a thing.

Had you asked for a table for two? We ended up with one and were really surprised and a little bummed. It was both good and bad I guess. Good in that it was lots of quality couple time but bad in the sense that we love meeting table mates.

How neat that you could see Monaco from the ship and although the day didn't go as planned, it sounds rather lovely in the end!

last but not least on the premium economy and the refunds!!!!!!!!!

 

[RGirl]

Hi Karin! I am so sorry - I have fallen so far behind. My life has just been crazy, and I haven’t even opened my laptop at home over the last couple of weeks. It promises to get even worse at work soon, so I am playing major DIS catch-up this weekend in hopes of not falling so far behind that I can never catch up!

Since I have fallen so far behind, I’m going to organize my comments by date/part of your trip report so you know what the heck I’m talking about.

Day 4, July 26 - Part 1

Ah, your breakfast pastries look so good. Can’t wait until I manage to start taking Willow to Europe. Pastries, tapas, etc. Oh, wait, there’s more than food…..

Oh, I’m feeling anxious reading your excitement about boarding the Magic after seeing your mid-trip updates in your other TR. Oh - I hope it is not too disappointing!!!! Ugh - I love the Wonder soooo much, even after sailing on the Fantasy. Hearing that the Magic looked small - it has me worried….

Oh dear, the new chandelier is not a promising sign. What in the world????

Lunch looks good!

Next Trip Update - holy cow! I’m so happy to read about your great airfare luck! YAY!!!!

Day 4, July 26 - Part 2

Uh oh - your cabin exploration does not sound like it bodes well.

Your pool deck pics are great though! It’s really fun to see all the sunshine and folks having fun as we are already deep into the grey and cold here.

Day 4, July 26 - Part 3

Very cool to have an unexpected DIS meet right away!!!

Love your stateroom door decorations - nicely done.

Ugh - not great cruise director (or directorS, I guess) - not good.

Oh, man, the merchandise situation sounds ridiculous! What in the world???? You would think a company like Disney could plan a little better. Although I guess the year-long situation with Frozen merchandise proves that theory wrong…. *sigh*

The bathroom smell is freaking me out……

Dinner looks and sounds wonderful! What a relief!!!! And then less-than-ideal news about breakfast. What in the world????

Day 5, July 27 - Part 1

Love the morning land pics!!!

Seriously??? A WET plate for breakfast? YUCK!!!!! And then sub-par food too.

Day 5, July 27 - Part 2

Oh my goodness! Everything else aside, I am loving your pictures!!!!

Day 5, July 27 - Part 3

More incredible photos!!! Everything onboard aside, I LOVE the places you visited (okay - it’s only one at this point, but I have to believe that all the ports at least were amazing ).

Oh, your leisurely brunch/lunch decision sounds perfect. The food looks amazing. And you needed a truly pleasant experience. Perfect!

Ice cream while waiting? Why, yes please!

 

[dizneeat]

Wow Karin! The scenery from the Magic and the village are amazing. How beautiful. I would love to be able to do a cruise like this but I am not adventurous and would be afraid of getting lost and not knowing what to do. So, I am just gonna live through you and this wonderful trip!

I am glad you enjoy "coming along" at least that way you don't suffer from the bathroom smells.
But honestly, it was a really a beautiful vacation. All the ports were really awesome and we had some lovely days on land as well.
Isn't it funny that we did not seem to have a worry since this was all Europe and we never even gave getting lost a thought.

What a strange interaction with the dancing CM at breakfast. I understand being happy and trying to get guests happy too, but these folks are hungry, give them a plate!...and a dry one please!

She seemed like she was in a world of her own. I might not have minded that much wouldn't I have been unhappy about the buffet breakfast in the first place, and then the dripping plate ......

What a let down about the food too.

Sounds like a great lunch and the crepes look delicious, especially yours. Great choice!

Lunch in Villefranche was lovely! It really turned out to be such a wonderful day.

What a horrible time for a meet! I do like, love actually, the mesh bags they gave out, we got them for the whole gang and I do like the new hat color and fabric they have now.

It was such an awkward time for the meet, as, as soon as most of them realized the ship was moving people got up and left.
Those bags are quite nice, but we have so many already - I think I could open a store with them.

I admit, we skipped most of the shows and tuned out the Spanish guys so I'm not sure if we had the same Spanish Language side kick or not. But, anyone for that many days who talks all the time can get really annoying.

He truly was.

How frustrating about things being out. I was not thrilled with the Southern merch, didn't actually buy a thing.

What they had was actually really nice, but they only had "so many" different sizes and some things disappeared over the course of the cruise. You would think that a company like Disney would be on top of things like restocking.

Had you asked for a table for two? We ended up with one and were really surprised and a little bummed. It was both good and bad I guess. Good in that it was lots of quality couple time but bad in the sense that we love meeting table mates.

Yes, I had requested a table for two and are always pretty happy if we get our request.
Thing is, that our mother tongue IS German, and sometimes small talk with someone with a heavy accent is not easy for us. We have also had our fair share of "funny" tablemates and find it far easier to be able to communicate in German (which we won't if we are seated with others).

How neat that you could see Monaco from the ship and although the day didn't go as planned, it sounds rather lovely in the end!

It turned out really nice, more than I had actually expected. We had a really nice day in Villefranche.

last but not least on the premium economy and the refunds!!!!!!!!!

Now, scoring the premium economy tickets without a change fee and a refund was like winning the lottery.
Very seldom that you get money back from an airline here in Europe.

 

[franandaj]

Good that your change of plans worked out in your favor. I will always choose a relaxing time in port over a hurried one. We had a much similar day on our trip, not as planned but still lots of fun.

I adore crepes and both of your crepes sounded absolutely wonderful!

I have a feeling that a Med cruise would not work out well for us until Fran gets a lot healthier. She did much better than before on our cruise last week, but not good enough to handle steps and things like in Europe. That staircase would have been a killer for us!

So neat to hear about these ports and experiences so I know what to possibly expect in case we ever get bold enough to book one!

 

[dizneeat]

Hi Karin! I am so sorry - I have fallen so far behind. My life has just been crazy, and I haven’t even opened my laptop at home over the last couple of weeks. It promises to get even worse at work soon, so I am playing major DIS catch-up this weekend in hopes of not falling so far behind that I can never catch up!

Falling behind? No problem at all, been there, done that.

Since I have fallen so far behind, I’m going to organize my comments by date/part of your trip report so you know what the heck I’m talking about.

You are VERY organized!

Day 4, July 26 - Part 1

Ah, your breakfast pastries look so good. Can’t wait until I manage to start taking Willow to Europe. Pastries, tapas, etc. Oh, wait, there’s more than food…..

What do you mean there's more than food??????????

Oh, I’m feeling anxious reading your excitement about boarding the Magic after seeing your mid-trip updates in your other TR. Oh - I hope it is not too disappointing!!!! Ugh - I love the Wonder soooo much, even after sailing on the Fantasy. Hearing that the Magic looked small - it has me worried….

We have always loved the Wonder and I guess I would be happy to sail on her again, but what really hit us were the corners they were cutting when it came to service, merchandise aso.
And yes, the ship looked small, but that is what I thought before our first cruise on the Wonder as well. She sat there and compared to the "huge" other ships in port she looked small. Love her though!

Oh dear, the new chandelier is not a promising sign. What in the world????

Who ever ordered that ugly thing should have his eyes checked.

Lunch looks good!

Next Trip Update - holy cow! I’m so happy to read about your great airfare luck! YAY!!!!

I still keep checking if it is still there, especially since I already received my money back from Lufthansa.

Day 4, July 26 - Part 2

Uh oh - your cabin exploration does not sound like it bodes well.

Your pool deck pics are great though! It’s really fun to see all the sunshine and folks having fun as we are already deep into the grey and cold here.

We were just a bit underwhelmed. But we got used to it.
The public areas of the ship had been redone nicely and the sun and view were great too.

Day 4, July 26 - Part 3

Very cool to have an unexpected DIS meet right away!!!

It was great to run into Bobbie and Connie that way. We spent quite some time together.

Love your stateroom door decorations - nicely done.

Ugh - not great cruise director (or directorS, I guess) - not good.

Oh, man, the merchandise situation sounds ridiculous! What in the world???? You would think a company like Disney could plan a little better. Although I guess the year-long situation with Frozen merchandise proves that theory wrong…. *sigh*

You would have thought they had enough of everything and would reorder BEFORE they completely ran out, but nope .....

The bathroom smell is freaking me out……

Me too!

Dinner looks and sounds wonderful! What a relief!!!! And then less-than-ideal news about breakfast. What in the world????

Dinner was nice every day. Our servers did their best to entertain everyone and there were always really nice things on the menus.
Table service breakfast being cut was a huge letdown. We had actually timed our excursions so we could have a nice sit down breakfast, but instead we were treated to lukewarm food and some so so service.

Day 5, July 27 - Part 1

Love the morning land pics!!!

Getting up when we were supposed to dock was great, as there were always great views.

Seriously??? A WET plate for breakfast? YUCK!!!!! And then sub-par food too.

Day 5, July 27 - Part 2

Oh my goodness! Everything else aside, I am loving your pictures!!!!

Day 5, July 27 - Part 3

More incredible photos!!! Everything onboard aside, I LOVE the places you visited (okay - it’s only one at this point, but I have to believe that all the ports at least were amazing ).

We were quite happy with the ports we visited and apart from one private excursion, all others were really nice. We had some days were we just explored on our own and they worked out great too!

Oh, your leisurely brunch/lunch decision sounds perfect. The food looks amazing. And you needed a truly pleasant experience. Perfect!

Ice cream while waiting? Why, yes please!

We were both a bit on the hungry side since breakfast had not been what we had expected so the decision to have a nice lunch was a great one. And the food was just so nice.
Yeah, ice cream while waiting ..... but you have to pass the time somehow.

 

[dizneeat]

Good that your change of plans worked out in your favor. I will always choose a relaxing time in port over a hurried one. We had a much similar day on our trip, not as planned but still lots of fun.

It worked out perfectly well. Once I knew when the next train was I was rethinking if we should go. The tickets were not expensive, so just not using them did not worry me.
And it turned out to be a really awesome day in the end.

I adore crepes and both of your crepes sounded absolutely wonderful!

I have a feeling that a Med cruise would not work out well for us until Fran gets a lot healthier. She did much better than before on our cruise last week, but not good enough to handle steps and things like in Europe. That staircase would have been a killer for us!

Europe is much more "disability" friendly as it seems from my pictures. There was another way up to the railway station, we just followed the shortest one. We walked down the "other" way and it was a really nice walk, but I guess, given that it was pretty hot that day and the walk would be going up all the time it can be pretty hard too.
But please keep in mind that in the cities public areas must be fitted with ways other than stairs to assure accessability.

So neat to hear about these ports and experiences so I know what to possibly expect in case we ever get bold enough to book one!

I am sure you would love the experience, just one word of warning - do not go in the height of summer. I wish we could have gone in June when it was not so hot.

 

[dizneeat]

Day 5, July 27

Not quite as planned, but fun none the less! - Part 4

Then it was time to head to the little train as the proposed time had come.



The driver then informed us that he would start, once he had 5 passengers. Okay, that can’t take too long. So we waited and waited and waited some more.
After about 20 minutes we gave up and slowly walked up to the Citadelle.















The view was amazing,



even though the entrance was closed.













There were people walking down the street and we were not sure if there wasn’t another entrance so we walked further up. There was just a parking lot for buses and we decided to walk around to the other side of the Citadelle to take some more pics.













Right when we had passed it we saw that there was a walkway along the water’s edge leading back to the village and the tender port.

To be continued ..........​

 

[KatMark]

Beautiful views, beautiful pictures Karin. That train is absolutely adorable...too bad you couldn't get five passengers so you could ride it.

 

[Leshaface]

Is the train not that popular? Wonder why no more passengers came. That's too bad.

The views of the city are amazing. Love seeing homes like that tucked into the mountain side.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Thank goodness for your quick links! I wouldn't ever catch up if not for them.

Beautiful pictures of Barcelona & France. I would love to go to Europe, but hubby says no, not ever.

The odd odor is an ominous foretelling of things to come! Hopefully it won't be as dire as I think.

All of the food you have had so far looks really tasty. Sorry the breakfast on the ship were below par. I'm not a buffet fan either, DH loves them, however is a piggy!

 

[LuvEeyore]

Love the little train. You would think that people would be flocking to ride the train around town. Sorry that 5 people didn't want to ride in a short period of time.
The views from the Citadel must have been magnificent.

 

[MEK]

That train is too cute, but I don't blame you for giving up and walking yourself.

The views from the Citadel are spectacular. What a beautiful view of the ship! Since my cruise I have grown to appreciate pictures of the Disney ships even more!

 

[debsters41]

Hi Karin and Tom! I am caught up again!

Wow, I would have thought that the little train would have been more popular as it would have taken people up those steep climbs. Was it very difficult in the heat? I love the shots you got of the ship in the background; I think it is a perfect example of what comes to mind when you hear "Mediterranean"

I am looking forward to seeing the next installment on the way down

 

[Minnie&Nana]

Absolutely breathtaking, Karin!

That was too bad about the train - does seem a bit odd that just three more people did not show up in 20 mins.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi Karin! I'm sorry to read that your Magic cruise started out less than Magical. It makes me really sad to think it has gone downhill that much - service included. Yet they continue to charge almost the same prices as the larger ships. I hope you let them know how you felt - you are one of their best customers!

Looks like you had a lot to see in Barcelona! Thanks for sharing such great pics.

Nice pics in Monaco - the Citadel view is not only beautiful, but it reminds me of some scenes in the first POC movie. I wonder?

Too bad the train didn't run. I guess it gave you the chance to take a nice hike.