‘Tapas & Togas’ - Ocean Village Mediterranean Cruise, Oct 20-27 2009 TRIP REPORT UPDATED 10/26 About This Page:

[Tinkerboo]

‘Tapas & Togas’ - Ocean Village Mediterranean Cruise, Oct 20-27 2009

Who: Me (Toyah), *29* and DH (Andy) *age strictly confidential*
Where: Ocean Village 1 cruise liner, on the ‘Tapas and Togas’ itinerary - sailing around the Mediterranean starting from Palma (Majorca) and stopping at: Tunis (Tunisia), Rome (Italy), Genoa (Italy), St Raphael (France) and Barcelona (Spain) before returning to Palma to fly home
When: October 20th - 27th 2009
Why: No specific reason, though it was a good consolation for there being no Disney trips this year

So welcome to my first ever trip report! Despite having two separate Deluxe Pass Porters - in which I diligently filed every little ticket, receipt, map and other scrap of potential souvenir - and carrying round a tiny notepad to keep track of what we did every moment of every day during both of those Disney stays, I’ve never actually got round to writing any of it up into something someone might want to read. I’ve never got round to scrap booking any of it either…but let‘s not talk about that. The point is that when we started planning this holiday, I thought “this would be a good way of practicing writing a TR, so that next time we go to Disney I can do a proper one”. There are no Disney trips on the horizon at this time (except for hopefully Paris for my big 3-0 birthday next year) so this is also a good way for me to keep active on the boards without feeling down about the fact that I’m not counting down to a rendezvous with Tinker Bell and co.

This story essentially started a number of months ago. I’ll spare you the less exciting details, but essentially we do all our grocery shopping and fuel our cars at Tesco (the biggest supermarket chain in the UK). They have a loyalty card scheme that you earn points on and can then redeem on a wide selection of ‘Clubcard Deals’. Because DH’s work car uses SO much fuel and because we get ALL our food etc there, we build up a lot of points. Long story short, we were able to get £660-worth (about $1000 I think) of holiday tokens with these points. We dithered for AGES over how we could possibly use them to go to WDW but for various reasons that didn’t work out. We’d been on an Ocean Village (referred to as OV from here on) cruise in 2005 so we knew it was something we liked, and so we decided to redeem our tokens against that. What with the economy etc being the way it is, we wanted to be as confident as possible of having a good time - we didn’t want to waste tokens and money on something we weren’t sure about. Plus, both OV ships are being sold off to another cruise line in Australia next year, so this is pretty much our last chance to go on them.

We received the holiday tokens and went online to check availability for the ‘Tapas & Togas’ itinerary for October 2009. Our nearest airport is Manchester, so we needed flights from there, which restricted the dates we could choose from to - well - one really. When we cruised in ‘05 we had a cabin with a balcony and both swore that if we ever cruised again we’d have nothing less, as it was the Best Thing Ever (though do bear in mind that we hadn‘t been to WDW at that point!). I know you can go up on deck for fresh air, but nothing beats sitting on your own balcony in your PJs at midnight watching the ocean glide by… So we were pretty disappointed when that grade of cabin was all full when we came to book. It took us about twenty seconds to agree that we should go for the ‘suite with balcony’ instead, as it didn’t come to too much more ££ and after all we were saving money with the tokens…

We had to book over the phone because of having the tokens, which we did on the date which shall now ever be known as The Date We Finally Booked Our Holiday - June 1st. Hurrah! After months of dithering, we were finally confirmed as going somewhere! At last!

Safely booked, deposit paid etc, I could now concentrate on planning…one of my most favourite hobbies! Unlike a WDW holiday though, there wasn’t a huge amount to plan unfortunately, but we could choose what excursions we wanted to go on (in case they were fully booked by the time we sailed) and whether we wanted to do any extras such as spa treatments. I’m a bit fanatical about guidebooks, last time we cruised I had one for each stop, even though we were only in each one for a matter of hours, and were with fully knowledgeable guides the whole time anyway. What can I say? I just like to know about places, look at pretty pictures and imagine I’m there already…

Our 2005 cruise took us to Palma in Majorca (all OV’s Med itineraries start from there), Tunis (they all seem to go there too, but more on my opinion of that later), Naples (Italy), Florence (Italy), Monte Carlo (Monaco), Menorca (another of the Balearic islands) and back to Palma to fly home. Unfortunately due to bad weather we weren’t able to dock at Menorca so got another ‘at sea’ day instead - not the most terrible experience ever, but I had been looking forward to that stop so it was a bit of a downer for our last full day. As listed at the start of this report, this year’s itinerary takes us to Palma, Tunis, Rome, Genoa, St Raphael and Barcelona. I’m keen to see Rome, as I love ancient history like the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians (plus I just read Dan Brown’s ‘Angels & Demons’), and St Raphael sounds similar to both Monte Carlo and Nice, both of which I’d adored the last time, so all in all we are two happy cruisers-to-be. This is our itinerary:



(The pink arrow points to Cagliari in Sardinia, where I lived for three years as a child…happy days!)

And just to whet your appetites, here are a few snaps from our 2005 cruise...


The ship lobby


Enjoying our lovely balcony


Ponte Vecchio in Florence


Quaint little street in Monaco


Our majestic vessel, as seen from the top of the hill in Monte Carlo

Before the TR starts in earnest, I’d just like to thank and apologise to chezp for blatantly copying her great format…it is just way better than anything I can think of myself! I would also like to subtitle it “This IS the life” in honour of LLaffinPlace Larry’s Greek TR which I’ve just read. It may be a cliché, but cruising really IS the life!!

Next: Day 1...our voyage of discovery begins! (to be uploaded hopefully Oct 21st...keep an eye out!)

[lauriep]

Sounds like a wonderful trip!

[DrDolphin]

what a great start! I wish we had a grocery rewards program that you could get vacations from!!!

[pamcarey]

Great start! Sounds like a fabulous trip! Have a great time!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!

[MGW]

Ooooo, can't wait to read all about it!

[Tinkerboo]

Getting excited now - finished work yesterday and have been putting things in a pile today ready to pack!

[Colexis Mom]

Not much longer!

[lauriep]

It's so close! Have a great trip.

[chezp]

Great start! I'm looking forward to reading this, especially as Ocean Village is one way for us to spend all our Clubcard vouchers!

[Tinkerboo]

Originally Posted by chezp

Great start! I'm looking forward to reading this, especially as Ocean Village is one way for us to spend all our Clubcard vouchers!

You'll have to be quick - it's being sold off next year!!

[Wendyismyname]

Great start Toyah! Have a great time!

[Minnie Lor]

Great start! I hope you have a wonderful trip.

[Tinkerboo]

We are safely tucked away in the airport hotel - I am writing this using their free wifi (it's the first time I've ever used my little netbook on a network other than our one at home and wahoo - it's working!! ).

There's not really much to do here - Andy wants to go over and watch the planes but I think we'll just grab an quick snack and chill until the restaurant opens and we can have a proper meal. And then it's straight to bed as the airport shuttle is at 4.15AM tomorrow morning!!

Ta ta for now!

[Wendyismyname]

Well you know you'll be too excited to sleep!! Have a great time!