A magical Mediterranean vacation live report UPDATED 7/15 - Page 12 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Your plans are certainly coming together and almost complete! Well done on the weight loss so far and hope you have some great results and stick to it! Although, it may not be easy with all the temptations of great cuisine on your trip! Hope you finally get specifics on those electric strips!
How long is your trip BTW?
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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A magical Mediterranean vacation pre-trip report UPDATED 7/1
I somehow skipped an update so I'm responding to the last one first.
I'm impressed with Mark's visit to the shop for alterations. That can be such a pain and great result on getting in and out and that's a great deal for a mans suit.
I feel your pain with the shoes issue. I have a history of foot trouble, surgeries, etc so I also have to be very picky with shoes. It'll be so fun if these work for you - the great part being on a cruise is if they don't you're never that far away from your room to ditch them if necessary.
I tried Dramamine at home before my first cruise and unloading my dishwasher, became very confused about where dishes go in my own kitchen! It was worse than being drunk. I hope the new meds strike a nice balance for you.
Congrats on the camera! When I first saw the price I was shocked but immediately said "Cheryl LOVES taking pictures". It's always worth splurging on what brings you joy.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Your plans are certainly coming together and almost complete! Well done on the weight loss so far and hope you have some great results and stick to it! Although, it may not be easy with all the temptations of great cuisine on your trip!
That is the worry for me, that we'll come back and I'll have put back on all the weight and some...
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Hope you finally get specifics on those electric strips!
How long is your trip BTW?
It's 16 nights in total. We leave this Friday morning, although we actually leave the house tomorrow night and stay at the airport and then we're home on the afternoon of Sunday 20 July.
I somehow skipped an update so I'm responding to the last one first.
I'm impressed with Mark's visit to the shop for alterations. That can be such a pain and great result on getting in and out and that's a great deal for a mans suit.
I feel your pain with the shoes issue. I have a history of foot trouble, surgeries, etc so I also have to be very picky with shoes. It'll be so fun if these work for you - the great part being on a cruise is if they don't you're never that far away from your room to ditch them if necessary.
That's a good point and luckily for the day time, I have my trusty trainers (tennis shoes), so I should be Ok. Just as well, as I got blistered from my sandals (not the first time I've worn them) - not what I needed...
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I tried Dramamine at home before my first cruise and unloading my dishwasher, became very confused about where dishes go in my own kitchen! It was worse than being drunk. I hope the new meds strike a nice balance for you.
Oh my goodness - how scary!
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Congrats on the camera! When I first saw the price I was shocked but immediately said "Cheryl LOVES taking pictures". It's always worth splurging on what brings you joy.
And you've got to remember the pound is doing well against the dollar, so it seems more expensive to you guys...
Congrats on your weight loss and good luck printing your magnets. I'd like to do something like that but is there any worry about them being taken?
On all the previous cruises we've taken, it's never happened to us and I'm not aware of it ever happening to anyone else either, so I think you'll be fairly safe.
Pre-trip report – part thirteen: let’s try printing those door magnets…
Sunday 22 June
so much to Dave for his input into my pre-trip report (you see, there is a bonus to starting one a couple of weeks before you head out ), as he’s given me an idea of somewhere to eat in Venice for either lunch or dinner. It’ll just depend where in the city we end up when we’re hungry…
He also gave me a suggestion for Padua, but sadly that one didn’t work, as it’s in the centre of the city, and our hotel isn’t. However, it did give me the idea to check to see whether our hotel has a restaurant. It does, and it looks like a good place, as it’s got good ratings on TripAdvisor. I tried to book it, and got reasonably far through the Italian site, with only a little bit of help needed with translation, but then sadly you had to subscribe to an Italian booking system, which only seemed to have options if you lived in Italy. Ok, not really an option then… hopefully it will have some space when we get there and we can book it when we arrive. If not, I now have a note of a couple of possible places reasonably near our hotel, so at least that’s under control.
Monday 23 June
Ok, I have sort of started packing. When I say sort of, I mean that. I’ve thrown a few things in a suitcase upstairs that I know need to come with us. I’ve found a total of five US to UK plug adapters, so I think we’ve got plenty of those now. I figured this was the easiest way to do things, then when we bring the case down to start packing properly (probably at the weekend), we’ll already have bits and pieces in there. We already have a few items in the other suitcase, so packing is officially underway I guess!
Just to update you on my Italian… it’s going OK I think. It’s hard to know, as I have got through a lot of my book. I’m on chapter seven, which is further than I got before our last visit to Italy for May 2013. For those of you who’ve studied languages, I’m on to the past perfect tense. That’s always fun, as you really have to know the verbs “to have” (avere in Italian) and “to be” (essere in Italian), as they make up the past perfect. Boy, trying to get those straight in my head has been tough, but I’m getting there, bit by bit…
For those of you who haven’t studied languages, and are probably thinking “what?”, this is the tense where you say “I have been doing something”, rather than the imperfect tense, which is “I was doing something”. I always remember being taught at school that the perfect tense meant something had happened and had stopped quite quickly (e.g. I visited a place), while the imperfect tense meant something had happened and happened for some time (e.g. I was annoyed). That probably makes it all as clear as mud to you! Of course, I know that all my learning will no doubt go out of my head as soon as we actually get to Italy…
Tuesday 24 June
We are officially in single digits today! Mari emailed me last night to say that it’s 10 days and she can’t believe it, and I have to say I’m with her on that. You know that feeling I’m sure, you wait so long for something to come round, and then when it finally gets close, you can’t believe it’s almost here!
Mark gave me some good news tonight, and I probably am being a bit selfish here, but Italy are out of the World Cup! I was a bit worried that they might do well, and then we’d have football (soccer) to content with while we were in Italy. In particular, I was concerned about the fact that the night we get back to Venice, it’s the World Cup final. Can you imagine what that would’ve been like had Italy been in the final? At least that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about now… phew!
Thursday 26 June
I am now literally a quarter pound off losing what I wanted to before we go away, so very nearly there! Admittedly I didn’t set myself a great target, but it was realistic, and it looks like I might finally achieve it. I’m also very close to achieving my goal with my Italian as well – to get on to the third CD. I just have the summary section to do, then I move on to that elusive next CD. Of course, I just know it will all go out of my head the second I get to Italy!
Friday 27 June
I got an email from British Airways about our flight a week today and I must admit, when I get emails like this, I am always a little bit nervous when I open them. Has the flight time changed? all they wanted to do was tell you all about the things you could book, and what you could take on the flight. I have to be honest, I was a bit shocked to discover that you can pay to take up to 10 cases per person – and yes, you did read that right! I had no idea that any airline would take more than about three cases per person.
Exactly a week today, as I write this, we’ll actually be on that flight from Gatwick to Venice! Can you say excited?
I am currently downloading the next Italian CD, so I’ve achieved that aim before we go away as well. Now anything else I manage to do is a bonus!
When I got home, I carried on doing my peer review of PassPorter’s Disney Cruise Line. I’ve been doing this for a few days now (such a cool perk! ) and I’ve got on to chapter three, all about the staterooms. I just loved reading the bit about the makeover that the Disney Magic staterooms had had, because I hadn’t really heard much about that side of things. I’d heard about the changes to the rest of the Disney Magic, but very little about the rooms. Wow, do they look good! I can’t wait to get into one for myself!
I also tried out various tops this evening as well, as a few of them weren’t fitting as nicely as they did a few months ago, shall we say? I was so relieved to find plenty that did still did, so I have more than enough to come with me – phew!
Sadly it wasn’t such good news with the door magnets that we had from our Alaskan cruise and the cruise on the Dream. I knew that some were specific to those cruises, but I also thought there were some generic magnets, and I wanted to get those for this trip. However, having searched out the box where they should’ve been, I had no joy.
I had another check of Accuweather, and this time it wasn’t so promising. Let’s just say that we won’t need any rain gear, but we now have a few really hot days – Athens, Ephesus and Rhodes are all in the mid to high 90s, so three days in a row of that. Ugh! Then it’s in the low 90s when we’re in Florence. Double ugh! I guess we’ve still got time for those temperatures to go down a bit – let’s hope that happens…
I also had a look at the Disney Cruise Line website just for fun, and to see whether there was any availability left on our cruise. The answer? Very little… just stateroom categories 9A and 5B. I guess this will be a full cruise then… mind you, I think we’re yet to cruise on a Disney ship that hasn’t sailed full, if I’m being honest, so the prospect doesn’t worry me.
Saturday 28 June
A week today we’ll be boarding the Magic – ooooh I really cannot wait!
I’ve finally hit my weight target with a few days to go! I wanted to lose five pounds, and now I’ve done it and a bit more – six pounds so far! I won’t stop there, and will carry on over the last few days I’ve got left before our vacation, and while I’m sure I’ll put a lot of weight back on while we’re away, I’m determined to pick up again when we get back, as I feel so much better since I started doing this.
We went out and I managed to get some more tops from the same place I bought some last weekend. They didn’t have a couple of colours I wanted, so I came home and ordered them online, although it took me forever to find the tops, as they weren’t listed in an easy-to-find way, shall we say? They should be in tomorrow or Monday, so that’s good. Mark also got a few more tops, so I think we’re both now pretty much done for shopping for the cruise.
I’ve gone through the itinerary again, and have found some potential places for dinner for most of our days in Italy. I’d done Venice already, but now I have some details as well for Verona (hopefully we’ll eat at the hotel restaurant, as it’s a bit outside the city), Florence (a few places nearby, as our hotel doesn’t have a restaurant), and Rapallo (a few places that we’ll have to drive to, as our hotel doesn’t have a restaurant, and it’s not close to any restaurants ).
We have also officially started the packing! So far, I think so good. Quite a lot of stuff is downstairs and going into the two cases we’re taking and I’m not worried, so that’s got to be a good sign…
As the rain hit Wimbledon, and I ended up with some of my least favourite players out on Centre Court (the only one with a roof, so the only one where play could continue), I finally plucked up courage to print out the door magnets. I had one design done, but I managed to do another, and fitted them both on the first sheet of magnetic paper. Mark then suggested doing a Grumpy one for him and an Eeyore one for me. Ok, that was sheet two done. Then I came up with another idea, and that was sheet done too. You’ll have to wait to see them up on our door though I’m afraid… but I am very pleased with how they came out.
There’s good news (finally!) – my camera is back and all repaired. Apparently it had a “lens block” and has been “fully valeted”, so I assume that means it’s as good as new. Of course, I checked it as soon as I got home, and sure enough that annoying error message is finally gone! So now there’ll be two cameras coming with me, although Mark is welcome to one, should he want it… we’ll have to see, as I know he’s not keen on a bigger camera.
Oh – and I nearly forgot, as so much has happened today I got a call from Jane at British Airways about our flight on Friday. I was a bit worried at first, especially when she said the time of the flight had changed, then she said it had changed from 7:40am to 6:40am. I asked her if that was the change from a few months ago and she told me Apparently, they’ve just found out that the email notification they sent out didn’t go to all passengers, so they were calling round to check everyone had the message, given it’s an earlier departure time. What impressive customer service!
As she was on the phone, I took the opportunity to ask her whether the flight had twilight check-in the night before. To her credit, although she didn’t know, she went away and found out and it does, between 4:00pm, and 10:00pm, which is a real result. It now means we can drop the car off for valet parking, then go and drop the luggage off, and all we need to do in the morning is clear security for our flight. Excellent!
While I only took a couple years of German in school, I think I know what you mean about the verbs and the correct way to say things. I really hope you can remember all of this when you step foot in Italy!
And I completely agree that it's good Italy is out of the world cup for you! I happened to be in Boston in 2006 when they won. Boston has a large Italian community. It was crazy! I cannot imagine how they would react in Italy itself!!
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Tanya
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Well done on the weight loss so far and hope you have some great results and stick to it! 
Although, it may not be easy with all the temptations of great cuisine on your trip! 
Hope you finally get specifics on those electric strips! 
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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so much to Dave for his input into my pre-trip report (you see, there is a bonus to starting one a couple of weeks before you head out 
), as he’s given me an idea of somewhere to eat in Venice for either lunch or dinner. It’ll just depend where in the city we end up when we’re hungry… 
Ok, not really an option then… hopefully it will have some space when we get there and we can book it when we arrive. If not, I now have a note of a couple of possible places reasonably near our hotel, so at least that’s under control. 
all they wanted to do was tell you all about the things you could book, and what you could take on the flight. I have to be honest, I was a bit shocked to discover that you can pay to take up to 10 cases per person – and yes, you did read that right! 
I had no idea that any airline would take more than about three cases per person. 
I got a call from Jane at British Airways about our flight on Friday. 
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