Dreams do come true – our Med cruise! **Updated 6/30** THREAD 1 *COMPLETE* About This Page:

[chezp]

Dates: Friday 25 May – Wednesday 6 June
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (34) and DH Mark (41)
Resort: Grand Marina Hotel, Barcelona for one night and then 11 nights on board the Disney Magic
Meets: None planned, as we don’t know of any other PassPorters who’ll be on this sailing
Celebration: Visiting all the places we’ve always wanted to in the Med!

Pre-trip report – part one: I want to do this, but how?

This trip report just had to be called Dreams do come true, because to me, that’s what this cruise is going to be. Ever since mutterings first started that Disney would be cruising around the Mediterranean in the summer of 2007, I knew I wanted to be on board. Then the plans were officially announced and booking opened. There was just one teensy weeny problem with actually going ahead and booking anything. A problem that I’m sure many of you know very well. Money.

I had a rough idea of what sort of price I expected to pay for a 10 or 11 night cruise. After all, Disney occasionally offer similar length cruises and surely they’d be the same price? When the details appeared, it didn’t seem that they were. They seemed to be a lot pricier, particularly for DVC members and that was how I was planning to pay for this cruise. A quick glance at the points needed for both of us told me that there was no way I could afford to do that. Sadly, I put the thought of cruising with Disney around the Med to one side.

Then I remembered something. I had shares in a local radio station and under a special tax arrangement we had, after we had invested our money in the company for three years, we could sell our shares and pay no tax. That date would be up in October 2006. Hmmm… perhaps if we could get enough money for those shares, then maybe I could pay for one of us from that money and use points for the other person.

This plan made, it was just a case of waiting to see what happened – whether anyone would make an offer for the shares and if so, how much. The waiting almost killed me, especially as I couldn’t book anything without knowing what was happening. It meant, for the first time in a long time, that we returned home from our Disney and Hilton Head trip in November, not having any future Disney trips in the works. That was depressing to say the least.

Fortunately, we had had good news just before we left the country – an excellent offer for the shares, which would allow me to stick to the plan, but they gave all the shareholders a certain amount of time to say yes or no to the offer and in the meantime, other companies were expected to come in with other offers. The other offers didn’t happen, so we said yes to the original offer, along with everyone else who had shares and a few days after we returned home, we had a cheque in our hands. Quickly paid into the bank, the first thing I did once I knew it had cleared was to call Member Services and make our booking.

The whole way through the conversation, which I think went on for something like 35 minutes, I kept thinking that any minute I’d be told I couldn’t book the cruise I wanted, which was the first Mediterranean cruise. My reasoning was that it was one of the cheaper ones, it was 11 nights, the schools were still in, probably meaning less children on board and the weather would also be a bit cooler. My worry? In small print, it tells you that you can’t use your points on the Disney collection, which includes the cruises, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney and Hong Kong Disney, in the last 60 days of your use year. Our use year ends on 31 July and when I counted back, the 60 day period started at something like 4 or 5 June and we wouldn’t be finishing our cruise until 6 June. Obviously they must base this on your start date of the cruise, because this was never mentioned and the reservation went straight through.

By the end of the phone call, I was the proud owner of stateroom 7627 on the Disney Magic 11 night cruise of the Mediterranean, leaving on 26 May. Now this was a category 11 stateroom. The last time we had cruised, we had a category 7 stateroom, but I only had enough points to pay for a category 9 or under. I ruled out category 9, as they were only available on decks 1 and 2 and we didn’t fancy the idea of being at the bottom of the ship. After finding out which rooms were still available in category 10 and 11 on that cruise, the choice was made. The only category 10 rooms left were also on deck 2. No thanks. So decision made, we were all booked and ready to go – a dream come true!

Next: The Castaway Club finally let us in!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Cheryl More please

[NanaTink]

Excellent start! I can't wait to read all about it! I also wanted to do this cruise, but wasn't able to "make it work."
So I will live vicariously through you! It won't be long now!

[mickeycrazy]

Great start, more please!

[iamgrumpy]

Great Start I can't wait to hear all about it!

[marisag]

Can't wait to hear all about it!!!

[chezp]

Pre-trip report part 2: The Castaway Club finally let us in!

The next challenge was getting our flights booked. I kept an eye on the prices for a while and saw some reasonably priced British Airways flights, but they were all out of Heathrow. Bear in mind that around the time I was searching for flights, Heathrow had been closed due to fog and most BA flights had been cancelled or severely delayed. Maybe Heathrow isn’t such a good plan then. I kept watching for decent prices out of Gatwick and watched as they seemed to go up and up. Now that’s not what should happen!

Eventually, just as I was about to give up hope of ever being able to get a flight from Gatwick and I was resigning myself to having to drive all the way to Heathrow, I saw a flight pop up for just £110 each, leaving Gatwick at 9.20 on the Friday morning and coming back at 1.05 in the afternoon we arrived back in Barcelona. Perfect! I have never purchased a ticket so quickly! So we were all set with our flights.

The next thing to purchase would be our one night’s hotel stay in Barcelona. Having thumbed through my trusty PassPorter a number of times, I came to the conclusion that the Grand Marina Hotel would be perfect for us. It was right on the port, meaning that we could leave our luggage there after our night’s stay and hopefully not have too much of a walk with it to get to our magical Disney cruise. I had a look at prices for that hotel, thinking that it would be stupidly expensive, but not a bit of it. I eventually got a great deal direct through the hotel’s website that worked out to about £175 (it was priced in Euros). Now bear in mind that when I tell you that works out to around $330, it really is a good deal – honest! It’s just with the superb strength of the pound against the dollar (OK, it’s superb for us, not so superb for you guys!) it doesn’t look like it.

By the end of February, we reached the 90 day mark from our cruise. Unlike Disney vacation, the 90 day mark still means something, especially if you’re a Castaway Club member, like us. There’s an interesting story. We took our first Disney cruise in May 2004, a three night one around the Caribbean. We paid for it completely with DVC points and I wondered if that’s why we never received a Castaway Club membership pack. I figured that maybe that meant we were treated differently, but the more I spoke to people, the more I realised it was irrelevant how we paid.

Eventually I contacted Disney Cruise Line to find out what was going on. I figured after two and a half years, I’d given them more than enough time to send me a membership pack. We immediately got an e-mail back with our Castaway Club membership details and the news that the details had been applied to our current booking, so 25 February would be the day that we could make bookings for our shore excursions, Palo and the spa. Let the countdown begin!

For some very bizarre reason, the bookings open at midnight Pacific time, but we didn’t mind. As we’re eight hours ahead of that, that just meant getting up a little bit earlier than usual on a Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure how long after 8am the bookings would open, but I tried at 7.59am and then again just as my computer clock ticked over to 8am and we were go! Now that’s what I call Disney service!

I had no problems booking anything and a few minutes later, our cruise itinerary looked like this:

Saturday 26 May – leave Barcelona
No plans, although we’ll probably board early afternoon, even though we don’t sail until 9pm that night.

Sunday 27 May – at sea
No plans

Monday 28 May – Palermo, Sicily
Dinner booked at Palo (my logic being get the one booking we can make in advance in as early as possible for the cruise and then hopefully we can get another booking later on – I’m pinning my hopes on the day we’re in Cittavecchia, as most people will head to Rome, while we stay on the boat )
We didn’t book a shore excursion for this day, as our plan is just to walk around Palermo and see the sights on our own on foot.

Tuesday 29 May – Naples (Pompeii), Italy
7.30am Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii shore excursion, which will be a full day excursion with lunch.

Wednesday 30 May – Olbia, Sardinia
8am Costa Smeralda shore excursion, which is a half day excursion.

Thursday 31 May – Cittavecchia (Rome), Italy
Our plan is to stay on the boat, as we’ve already seen Rome in some depth and we don’t see any benefit in the long drive there and back for only a few hours of places we’ve already visited. We’ve got a couples’ massage booked at 2pm that day and hope to try and sneak back to Palo for dinner, as hopefully they’ll have some space, with most people off in Rome.

Friday 1 June – at sea
3pm High tea at Palo.

Saturday 2 June – La Spezia (Florence and Pisa), Italy
7.45am Florence and Pisa shore excursion, which will be a full day excursion with lunch.

Sunday 3 June – Marseilles, France
8am Marseilles City Tour shore excursion, which will be a half day.

Monday 4 June – Villefranche (Monte Carlo, Nice, Monaco), France
9.15am Monaco, Monte Carlo and Eze shore excursion, which will be a full day excursion with lunch.

Tuesday 5 June – at sea
10.30am Palo brunch

Wednesday 6 June – return to Barcelona
No plans, except to disembark at 6.45am – oh goodie, a nice late start then!

Next: exactly how do I give you my flight details?!

[Colexis Mom]

Great plans Cheryl I didn't realize you had so many shore excursions booked Can't wait to hear all about those

[Cheriemek]

Sounds like a wonderful trip !!!

[chezp]

Pre-trip report part 3: exactly how do I give you my flight details?!

All that done, the next day we could input all the information they needed before departure. Our personal details, including passport details, were easy enough to do. Then I moved on to the flight information section…and that’s where the problems started.

Disney were using a drop down menu for your departure airport, so I went into it and went to London. Nothing listed. OK, a bit odd. Let’s try Gatwick, as maybe they’re listing it differently to how most people would expect. No, nothing there either. OK, now what? Ah, all the airports listed are in the US. OK, so somewhere there must be an option that says you’re flying from somewhere outside America? I looked and I looked and I looked and no, there was no other option. Now what? I can’t fill this is as it stands.

Well, what else could I do, but fire off an e-mail to Disney, asking them for their advice. I outlined the problem and honestly expected that they’d come back with some really simple solution, as obviously I must be missing something. Well, apparently not. Here’s an excerpt from the e-mail I got back from them:

I sincerely regret the challenge you have encountered online. I would also like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We are now diligently working towards resolving this issue.

Can you imagine the reaction in that office, when they went on to the website, tried it out for themselves and realised the problem? Oh my goodness, what I’d give to see the look on their faces! They were very good and while they were “diligently working towards resolving this issue”, they inputted all the information for me, so that problem was finally solved!

About six or seven weeks before we were due to depart, a package arrived from the Disney Cruise Line, which I think Mark was more keen to get into than I was – he kept asking me when I was going to open it. I don’t remember why I wasn’t more keen to get into it, but I did wait a while. When we opened it, I found a DVD, which detailed more about the ports of call that the ship would be calling at on the Mediterranean itinerary. It was pretty interesting and seeing some of the places we’d be visiting certainly helped with the anticipation of our upcoming vacation. One segment on it was all about what you needed to know before leaving home, but to be honest, I found this information a bit basic and pretty obvious – things like be careful with your passport and perhaps leave it in the ship when you go on a shore excursion. I suspected this wouldn’t be a problem, as no doubt ours would be taken off us, as we’d still be “foreigners” entering an American ship, although technically we have European Union passports and we’ll be in the EU. Interesting… hmmm…

As we drew closer to our departure date, all the remaining forms were filled in online and about three weeks before we were due to depart, our documents, including our luggage tags, arrived in the post. I have to admit to not feeling as excited as on our previous cruise, when that package had arrived. I don’t know about anyone else, but somehow because you can now fill everything in online and download pretty much everything you need (except the luggage tags), when that package arrives, it seems less magical now.

By now, I had spent a lot of time consulting the guidebook on Barcelona and had a plan of attack in mind to try and make the best of the limited time that we’d be spending in the city. Considering that our plane would be landing at lunchtime on Friday and our cruise documents now indicated that we’d be boarding the ship at 1pm on the Saturday (although not leaving until 9pm that night, according to my trusty PassPorter), I wanted to make the best of the 24 hours we’d have there. Commando style itineraries in place, I felt happier and knew that we’d at least try to see what we could during our time there.

As to our other ports of call, I wasn’t too worried, as obviously we’d be on shore excursions most of the day. I did put an order in for books about Sicily and Sardinia, as we were planning on walking around Palermo on our own in Sicily and I wanted to find out about all the places we should see there and I also wanted to double check that Costa Smeralda was the best shore excursion for us in Sardinia. I’d also already got a book on Florence and Tuscany, mainly so that I’d have it as reference to double check things before and after the day there, as I was sure that I wouldn’t take in everything we’d be told while on our tour.

Next: the danger of buying travel guides

[Colexis Mom]

More great updates Cheryl! Too funny that they forgot to put any European airports in their system

[lauren-roxy]

Great start Cheryl and your plans sound amazing!!!

[ariel14]

Great update! What an amazing trip you have planned!!!

[WDWfan]

Cheryl - I can't wait for your trip to start! Your plans look amazing! Any chance you'll be posting live updates?