Dreams do come true – our Med cruise! **Updated 6/30** THREAD 1 *COMPLETE* - Page 20 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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Beautiful photos!! Too funny about the DCL tour guide thinking you were her missing tour members!! I love the Cathedral photos! The ceiling is SO ornate.... Sounds like you made the right decision to do Palermo on your own.
Monday 28 May – part four: they’re not meant to be here
Again, we carried on walking and found ourselves more in what we’d describe as real Sicily.
Eventually we turned down a road to take us back towards the park and came across Piazza Marina, one of the largest in Palermo. It lies on what was once the seafront. Now in front of it is the harbour, all built on reclaimed land.
Looking towards the harbour
Speaking of the harbour, it wasn’t far away, so we set off for that, knowing that if we then carried on walking along the shoreline, we would get back to the Disney Magic. The harbour was lovely:
A glimpse of the Disney Magic!
The walk back to the port wasn’t so lovely though. I was already commenting on the way that they park round here and almost the whole way back we had to walk in the road to get round parked cars that were all over the pavement.
Finally we were back at the port and headed back on to the Disney Magic.
Some of the other ships in port Keeping the Magic clean!
It was pretty quiet when we got back on board at 11.30, so we headed off to the adult pool to make the best of the quiet. I had the whole pool to myself, so I did a few lengths and it’s just as well I did, as it’s not a big pool and I wouldn’t like to try and do the backstroke with anyone else in there.
I got out and headed into the whirlpool and while in there, I noticed there was a girl aged no more than about four or five with her mum sunning herself. Let’s just say she wasn’t keeping that close an eye on her, as she was running around and this really annoyed me. After all, this is an area for guests over 18 years old and there’s a perfectly good children’s pool elsewhere. That’s why I come here. It got worse when the mother decided to head to the pool and take her daughter with her. I’m sorry, but the prospect of a kid playing around in the adult pool was about as much as I could take.
I got out of the whirlpool and told Mark so, before heading off to the Vista Spa to go and enjoy the Tropical Rainforest. As soon as I got in there, I did no more than to ask how seriously Disney took the rule about no-one under the age of 18 year using the adult pool and I was told this was taken very seriously/ When I told her what was going on out there, she said she’d deal with it immediately and, from what Mark told me, she did, although when she got there, the head waiter from the bar nearby was also dealing with it. It’s hardly as if there’s no child friendly options for them on this boat, so I didn’t feel sorry for them.
Sounds like a great day in Palermo. Did it inspire you to take a further trip there?
I agree with you about the rule flouting. An adult pool is just that and should be respected as such. We have experienced the opposite problem on cruises, ie. adults sunbathing around the kids' pool and complaining about noise. This bugs me too.
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I love your walking tour of Palermo. We are planning on doing our own walking tour as well in Palermo. It seems as though most of the sights are with in walking distance of the ship and we will need the exercise. Did they supply maps on the ship or did you bring your own? The street market sounds like fun.
I would have done the same thing at the adult pool--report it to the crew. Or maybe if I felt bold that day and particularly annoyed, I would have talked to the mother myself. I would never bring my child to the adult pool. What fun is that for the kid anyway?
Thanks for the TR.
Last edited by MickeyWatch; 06-29-2007 at 11:19 AM..
Reason: new information
I love your walking tour of Palermo. We are planning on doing our own walking tour as well in Palermo. It seems as though most of the sights are with in walking distance of the ship and we will need the exercise. Did they supply maps on the ship or did you bring your own? The street market sounds like fun.
I brought my own guidebook, which had a very good map of Palermo in it, but we were also provided with maps at the cruise terminal, which I thought was good.
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Monday 28 May – part five: drunk without any alcohol!
After about half an hour in the Tropical Rainforest using the fog shower and washing my hair and then drying out with the gentle sauna and on the hot stone chairs, we headed off for lunch.
We went back to Topsiders Buffet and again the food wasn’t bad. It was a bit more ethnic than it had been before, especially the desserts. I’m very open minded about all types of food, but those desserts didn’t really appeal to me at all. What we had was very nice.
We took a break in the room and then went out on deck to get some photos and that was really how the afternoon went. I did get a cocktail, the same ones as they were handing out last night, and this was a lot stronger than last night. No wonder they were giving them away free, they’d watered them down!
We were a little late setting sail, probably by around 45 minutes or so, but when we finally saw that we were about to set off, we headed up to the front of the ship and let me tell you, there is no finer sound than the Disney Magic’s horn playing “When You Wish Upon A Star”. The passengers on the Holland America Line ship next to us all turned round when it went off. I guess some of them got it and liked it and I guess some of them didn’t. If they didn’t, it’s their loss.
[b]Captain Tom and friends sailing us out of Palermo
My goodness, there was certainly a lot of rocking when we got out of the harbour, more so then we’d had so far on this cruise. I knew it was getting bad when I got our of the shower and nearly fell over about three times, the boat was swaying so much. It felt like being drunk without actually having any alcohol!
Great pictures as always, Cheryl. Sorry you had problems in the adult pool but I'm impressed that the CM inforced the rules so quickly. I needed to hear the ship horn as you described. I found a video of it on youtube. Very cool! Can't wait til I get to take a cruise. The rough seas doesn't sound good, though. That's the one thing holding me back on booking a cruise.
Looking forward to more! TR that is not rough seas. :
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Sounds like you had a wonderful day in Palermo. Sorry about that mom flouting the rules (that always ticks me off) -- and wow - sounds like things are gonna get rough!
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Sorry the seas are getting rough 
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