A magical Mediterranean vacation live report UPDATED 7/15 About This Page:

[KMB733]

The plans are looking great!!

[Cam22]

I'm catching back up. I think it is very neat that you will have friends along to enjoy the cruise. I like the sound of the excursions, too. All of your plans are looking great. The current cost of the cruise is staggering. Thank goodness you booked so early.

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part six: maybe we should change our return flights…

Thursday 27 February

Tonight I had a look through at what else we still needed to buy for this trip. The pressing concern was the car rental, which was a stupid amount of money. It had been right from the very start, but when I checked the prices again, it was getting worse and worse. We were now looking at £1,100 ($1,800) for seven days’ car rental. Of course, with there being four adults and four large suitcases, never mind hand luggage, we need a big car – like a people carrier, which is not going to be cheap.

In frustration, I priced up some other options, to see whether perhaps it might be cheaper to drop the car off at Genoa, as that’s still in Italy, and then take the train to Nice in France. Sure enough, it was – by £400 ($660)! Ok, so how to get there? The train was the obvious choice, and it seems to be cheap enough, although you had to change trains, and there were warnings that you couldn’t buy tickets in advance, and the lines at the ticket machines could be a couple of hours long!

I started to look to see if there were any flights back from Genoa instead, as I figured maybe I could change our return flight. There were, but they were stupidly expensive. I then looked at Turin, a couple of hours’ drive from Genoa, and they had reasonably priced flights. Ok, that’s an option then. I decided to call up in the morning, and see whether I could change our flights. After all, it couldn’t cost more than £400 extra for the car rental!

Friday 28 February

I called British Airways first this morning, as the flight was with them, although given it was booked through Avios points, I figured I might need to call them, and sure enough I did. The woman I spoke to was very helpful, and literally 10 minutes later, we were booked on the Turin flight! If only everything could be that easy!

Saturday 1 March

I emailed Mari last night to say that I was ready to go ahead and book the final two nights of our trip, which would be in Rapallo along the Portofino Penisula (a village I’ve always wanted to visit! ) and then Genoa, the final night of our stay. I told her which hotels we’d be going for, and gave her the option of either us each booking our own rooms, or me booking both, and she said she was good to book her own.

I went ahead and got the Hotel Canali Rapallo booked for Friday 18 July, as it looked wonderful, and had some very good reviews on TripAdvisor, and then I went ahead and booked the NH Marina in Genoa for Saturday 19 July. I had my heart set on this place, as it was right on the waterfront, and just a short walk away from the aquarium, which was going to be the main focus of our visit to the city.

Mari told me she was booked, and sent me through her confirmation details, which is just as well as she did, as I quickly saw she’d booked both hotels for the same night! Thankfully a quick email back, and she confirmed she’d also realized that, and had sorted it all out. Phew!

Today I also had a look for the shore excursion details for Rhodes and Katakolon, but there was still no sign of anything on Disney’s website. I wouldn’t say anything, but I felt sure the details would be up, as there’s another cruise departing before ours on 26 June, heading to the same destinations, and we’re now well within the 120 day booking window for that cruise for platinum and concierge guests. I have no idea whether they’ve been able to book shore excursions when they log in – perhaps they have, but I’d certainly like to be able to see the options before I actually have to log in and book. It’s a bit surprising Disney haven’t got the details together at an earlier stage.

I tried to get our car rental booked as well, now that we’d be flying back from Turin, but frustratingly, I couldn’t. It probably doesn’t mean much to you guys, as I know we use pin numbers a lot more over here than in the States, but here, you have to register for online security, and put in pin numbers to authorize charges online, which is a very good system, except that it just wouldn’t display properly on the Avis website, so I couldn’t input the details.

Sunday 2 March

I tried again to book our car rental with Avis, but I still had the same problems as yesterday, so I’m going to have to give them a call, as this is just stupid.

I set about copying pages out of my Greece Dorling Kindersley book. I’d already copied pages from my Italy and Greek Islands Dorling Kindersley book, which reduces the number of books I need to take, but even with those gone, there are still another four I need to bring with us, including Greece. I figured I’d try and reduce it a bit more, as three will be enough to bring along. Good grief, that entailed a lot of scanning in, but at least it means less to carry…

I also finally managed to find the shore excursions for Katakolon and Rhodes. I think it had been there all along, Disney just hadn’t added in the links from their ports of call page. At least now I have the details. Unsurprisingly, all the excursions for Katakolon are to Olympia. There’s an adult only departure for Olympia and the Archaeological Museum, and that’s the one I want to do, as I’ve read nothing but good things about the Archaeological Museum, and even better, it’s reasonably priced at just $79 per person. Bonus!

With Rhodes, it’s all about the Lindos Acropolis, and to be honest, I want to visit Rhodes medieval town, as having seen it in Larry’s trip report, it looks amazing. I don’t think we’ll bother with an excursion here. There is a walking tour that you can take of the town, but again, as with Athens, I think we’d probably prefer to do it at our own pace, especially as we’ll have guidebooks with us to be able to learn about what we’re seeing without needing a guide with us.

Tuesday 4 March

I spent this evening trying to plan out our day in Venice when we arrive. Mari and Raleigh don’t get in until the evening, whereas we arrive late morning, so we have quite a bit of time on our own to do what we want. I got about as far as working out how we’re going to get from the airport to Venice itself (bus) and after that, I really didn’t get very far, as I soon realized it would also depend on what shore excursion we do when the Magic returns here on our final night.

The one thing I really would like to do is a gondola tour, although the prices for the excursions are just silly money. I could book one much cheaper myself, but I thought I’d better check whether Mari and Raleigh want to do a gondola ride.

Wednesday 5 March

I was not pleased to come home from work, and see this post in the Disney Cruise Line forum of the boards: Disney Cruise Line changes policy on power strips and extension cords in staterooms This really worried me, as I don’t particularly want our power strip to be taken off us. Dave was able to offer some quick reassurance that, at Port Canaveral anyway, if items are removed, they are returned at the end of your cruise, but would that happen in Venice? We’ll definitely have to buy some more worldwide plug converters, as we only have a couple, and obviously we’ll need to buy more of those. I will definitely need to make more enquiries on this, as we may have to leave the power strip somewhere, perhaps the hotel we’re staying at in Venice, while we’re on the cruise, as we’re still going to need it when we get back. Not the news I needed.

Friday 7 March

Well, it turns out that Mari and Raleigh are pretty keen on the idea of doing a gondola ride, so we chatted a fair bit about it, and eventually Mari came up with this option: Alex Hai and the timings are perfect for the evening we’ve got in Venice, so once we confirm the prices are per gondola, rather than per person, we’ll probably go for it and book it. Mari, as the sites I came up with had timings that didn’t suit us, as it would be cutting it a bit too fine from when the Magic docks.

Sunday 9 March

Today I went ahead and booked our hotel for Verona, the Veronesi La Torre for Verona. I have to say this hotel looks absolutely amazing. The spa facilities here include an indoor pool, aromatic steam bath, Finnish sauna, outdoor Jacuzzi, aromatic shower, and ice fountain and pouring shower. Can you guess where I’m going to be spending a lot of my time during our night there?

I also put the excursions that I want to book back into my favourites again on the Disney Cruise Line website. I did this a few days ago, but for some reason, they’re now gone. Hopefully this time they’ll stay put, as I can make all my bookings in just under two week’s time!

Next: we’re not in Venice that day!

[xwewhisper]

The Disney cruise site definitely could use some work - I had similar problems with ports in 2012 where they weren't properly linked up!

[Cam22]

So glad you finally were able to look at the excursions. The hotels you've selected look fabulous.

[SuperDave]

The plans are certainly coming along, but needs some tweaking as things get closer as this was done quite far out from the trip! Not sure how the parking is in the Cinque Terre?

Just west of this area is the town of Levanto, which is quite nice, where I styed on my 2006 trip. You can take the train from here and includes a kind of park pass which allows to hike up the steep paths from town to town. The first terre from west to Vernazzo is quite a hike and very steep. Will take about 1 1/2 hours from the first down (can't remember the name). In a way a kind of wish I didn't do it as in my Rick Steves' guide book, he suggested not to do it, but I just forgot about it! My fault!

You may just want to go from town to town by train and just a bit of hiking. I spent almost the whole day from about 9 am to 6pm and covered only the first three towns. Vernazza is a must! When I descended from my long hike, (several hundred feet above) the views of Vernazza and it's harbor, were amazing. I was so tired when I got to the bottom. It was lunch time and I had a good one in the main square just past the harbour (north), It was on the right side of the square. This region is famous for white anchovies. Not your standard salted kind. Usually with olive oil and lemon juice. Also, known for their pesto sauce as well, which is beyond belief and so bright green with the fresh basil and all freshly made. I had both for lunch and they serve the pesto with trofie pasta. They have good wine too! Some of it homemade, which I had. A real enjoyable meal after a tiring hike.

The other towns are good too! I missed the last two for time constraints! I think the train is the way to go and do a bit of hiking, but know your limits. You'll love the harbor in Vernazza!

There were some extremely bad storms a few years ago around 2010 or 11 dad did a lot of damage, but it's back to normal. Check out the YT videos regarding this! Vasts amounts of flooding and mud slides.

Hope, I'm of help to you!

[lauriep]

Good job getting the price of the rental car down some and changing flights. You'll be fine on your own exploring the port area on Rhodes.

[Roxie2006]

It sounds so exciting. Glad to heard most of the planning is going smoothly. This is 1 TR I am really looking for too!!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

The plans are certainly coming along, but needs some tweaking as things get closer as this was done quite far out from the trip! Not sure how the parking is in the Cinque Terre?

That's not something I've even thought about. I'm sure there'll be some, and probably quite pricey, as no doubt they want people to stop there and spend money. If there isn't parking in one place, we can always just admire it, then drive on to the next place...

Just west of this area is the town of Levanto, which is quite nice, where I styed on my 2006 trip. You can take the train from here and includes a kind of park pass which allows to hike up the steep paths from town to town. The first terre from west to Vernazzo is quite a hike and very steep. Will take about 1 1/2 hours from the first down (can't remember the name). In a way a kind of wish I didn't do it as in my Rick Steves' guide book, he suggested not to do it, but I just forgot about it! My fault!

I did look at Levanto, but we just can't fit everything in. The hike certainly doesn't sound like it would work for us!

You may just want to go from town to town by train and just a bit of hiking. I spent almost the whole day from about 9 am to 6pm and covered only the first three towns. Vernazza is a must! When I descended from my long hike, (several hundred feet above) the views of Vernazza and it's harbor, were amazing. I was so tired when I got to the bottom. It was lunch time and I had a good one in the main square just past the harbour (north), It was on the right side of the square. This region is famous for white anchovies. Not your standard salted kind. Usually with olive oil and lemon juice. Also, known for their pesto sauce as well, which is beyond belief and so bright green with the fresh basil and all freshly made. I had both for lunch and they serve the pesto with trofie pasta. They have good wine too! Some of it homemade, which I had. A real enjoyable meal after a tiring hike.

The other towns are good too! I missed the last two for time constraints! I think the train is the way to go and do a bit of hiking, but know your limits. You'll love the harbor in Vernazza!

There were some extremely bad storms a few years ago around 2010 or 11 dad did a lot of damage, but it's back to normal. Check out the YT videos regarding this! Vasts amounts of flooding and mud slides.

Hope, I'm of help to you!

We'll literally just have a chance to get a taste of the area and see what we like. I figure with the exception of Florence, which we've already been to, and want to go back and spend more time in, we're sampling all the places we're going to. If we like them, we can always get a cheap flight there and spend a weekend doing some more exploring.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by lauriep

Good job getting the price of the rental car down some and changing flights. You'll be fine on your own exploring the port area on Rhodes.

Good to hear, as I was hoping that would be the case.

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part seven: we’re not in Venice that day!

Monday 10 March

Mari sent me a copy of the email she’d sent to the gondoliera and I couldn’t believe it – she’d made an enquiry about 9 July, which is the day we’d be in Kusadasi, Turkey. I quickly emailed her to point that out, as I didn’t want the booking to be for the wrong day! With the time difference, I wouldn’t hear back from her until the next day.

Tuesday 11 March

When I got online this morning, I saw I had a couple of emails from Mari, one of which was to the gondoliera, confirming our date was actually 13 July, and all our details. Fingers crossed she has availability that night….

I also went ahead and booked our hotel at Gatwick for the night before our flight, which is going to be a new one for us, as it only opened last year. It’s a Hampton Inn, and as far as I know, there aren’t many of those in the UK, so it’ll be interesting to see what it’s like. We’ve certainly never stayed at one on this side of the pond before, although we have experienced them in the States, and we’ve always enjoyed the experience, so fingers crossed they’re the same over here.

Wednesday 12 March

Our gondoliera came back to us to confirm that we are booked in for 8:45pm on 13 July! Given that the Magic is due to dock back in Venice at 6:30pm, that should give us plenty of time to get into the heart of the city for a once in a lifetime experience. Can you tell I’m looking forward to this?

As that’s now confirmed, I also had a look at how we get from the cruise terminal into the centre of Venice, as I have to be honest, that’s something I really haven’t considered. I know the vaparetto (water bus) services go to Piazzale Roma, and I’d read somewhere that there are shuttle buses from there to the cruise lines, which works for us with the luggage, but I also discovered that there’s now a People Mover service. Wow, how neat! That makes things pretty straightforward for us…

Saturday 15 March

I was very pleased to log into my Disney Cruise Line account this morning, and discover that all my favourites were still intact. Good, that bodes well for a week’s time! Good grief, where is the time going? I can’t believe that in a week I can finally make all our bookings for Palo and our shore excursions. Fingers crossed now that I get everything I want!

I also spent some time going through our itinerary, and checking it was all up to date, after all the things we’ve booked recently, so that’s another thing done.

Saturday 22 March

Today was the day for booking our excursions, and Palo dining. I realized last night that actually it wasn’t 5:00am British time that bookings opened, but 4:00am, as the clocks went forward in the States a couple of weeks ago, and over here, they won’t go forward for another week. I told Mark I drew the line at getting up that early. It was bad enough that we had to get up this early, although at least thankfully there was another reason for being up this early – we were also setting off for our weekend away in Paris!

I logged on to the Disney Cruise Line website as soon as I got up, and I was delighted to be able to access our reservation easily, and start booking. It’s not always been that simple in the past, so I was relieved to be past the first hurdle…

Now… could I get a Palo brunch? And could I get it at the time and date I wanted? I wanted to get it for our first full day on board, a day at sea, as I figured by the time we got to our next day at sea, we’d be exhausted, after five days of visiting various ports of call. I wanted something later in the day, so that if we wanted to sleep in, we could. This was an issue on our last cruise, as we had an early Palo brunch, and had we not set an alarm call, we would never have been up, and could have happily slept in.

When I logged into that day, it gave me a number of options, one of which was brunch at 12:30pm, which was exactly the time I wanted, so I snapped it up for ourselves and Mari and Raleigh. That booked, I could relax a little bit. The next thing on the agenda was booking our Palo dinner, which I was trying to get for the Monday night. That was our first day ashore, and the next morning, all ashore time was a much more leisurely 8:15am. Ok, it doesn’t sound that leisurely? Well, bear in mind that for the following three days, the all ashore time is a much less leisurely 7:15am. I snagged a 7:30pm reservation, so that we can still go to our restaurant for the night, as we’re on main dining.

Next, I moved on to the shore excursions. So what did I go for?

For Katakolon, which is our first port of call, the focus of all the excursions is ancient Olympia. The one I opted for was the Historic Olympia and Archaeological Museum – Adult Only Departure, as I’d heard that the Archaeological Museum was not to be missed. I cannot wait to visit Olympia, as it was the site of the first Olympic Games all the way back in 776 BC. As a massive Olympics fan, this is a huge deal for me, and Olympia still plays a role in the Games to this day, as this is where the Olympic flame is lit before each Games, before it makes its way around the host country.

The next day, we’re stopping in Pireaus for Athens. I’ve booked Athens on your own at the moment, although I have to be honest, I’m not 100% about this choice. The departure time back to the Magic is something like 2:45pm, yet the all aboard time is 6:45pm. I’m really not sure about this. While I obviously don’t want to cut it close to the all aboard time, I want to make the best of our time here. I may look into other options to see whether we can get something that gives us a bit longer in the Greek capital. While it’s nice that Disney offers you five hours of leisure time, if I could get say seven hours, that would be much better.

The next day is another country – Turkey, and our port of call is Kusadasi for the famous archaeological site of Ephesus. Again, most of the excursions are all about this place, and the one I went for is the Best of Ephesus – Adult Only Departure. You get to visit the House of the Virgin Mary, where the Blessed Virgin is reputed to have spent the last years of her life, and then you get to tour the ancient ruins of Ephesus. The tour is a 90-minute guided walking tour, and I’m just hoping it’s not too hot this day, as otherwise we may not do too well with this. Lunch is included in this excursion, which is an all day one, and our final stop is the remains of St. John’s Basilica.

Next we move on to Rhodes in the Greek Islands, and here I’ve deliberately decided not to book a shore excursion. From looking at my trusty Dorling Kindersley book, I want to take a walking tour of Rhodes Old Town, and very handily, my guidebook has one, so we’ll follow that. Then it’s up to us how early we get going. We’ll see how we feel after a couple of days of early starts, but if it’s forecast to be hot, I’d rather get going early…

Our final port of call is Mykonos, also in the Greek Islands, and for this stop, we’ve booked Delos Island – Adults Only Departure. There was a choice of times, so I deliberately went for the earliest, which departs at 7:45am. I appreciate this isn’t sounding much like a vacation with all these early departure times, but again, I’m thinking about the heat. I figured the earlier we’re out, the earlier we’re back, and then we’ll hopefully miss the hottest part of the day. This is especially important, as this tour has a lot of walking – over two hours of it, so I do not want to be out in the midday sun doing that!

At least once that was done, we could then head off to Paris for a wonderful weekend with great friends.

Sunday 30 March

I figured I’d better get the final hotel of our trip booked, which was for Padova. I was going for one hotel, but that one had gone up a bit, and now the second top rated hotel in the city was now cheaper, so I went for that instead. Ok, so it’s not in the centre of Padova, and we can’t walk to where we need to go the next day, but at least there is free parking, so that’s fine.

While updating this pre-trip report, I also realized that we could now complete our online check-in, so I went ahead and did that. I’d already talked to Mari about what boarding time to select, and while some people may love to get on board as soon as they can, we were more keen on having a bit more time in Venice and boarding once we knew the rooms would be ready, as it was a bit of a pain last time not having them ready and having to tote our carry-on luggage around with us. In the end, we settled on arriving between 1:00pm and 1:30pm.

Next: we need a bit more time in Venice!

[xwewhisper]

Sounds like some great plans! We like the adult only excursions too

[lauriep]

Glad you were able to get all the bookings done. Good choices, too-- nice mix of guided tours and on-your-own. I can't believe all-aboard time in Piraeus is 2:45. That does not give you enough time in Athens at all. The traffic getting from Piraeus into the city and back can eat up a lot of time.

[Pris]

DH and I loved the Adults Only tours with Disney. Looks like some good choices, and after doing a lot of walking tours recently in the heat, I totally understand your early bookings!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by lauriep

Glad you were able to get all the bookings done. Good choices, too-- nice mix of guided tours and on-your-own. I can't believe all-aboard time in Piraeus is 2:45. That does not give you enough time in Athens at all. The traffic getting from Piraeus into the city and back can eat up a lot of time.

Maybe that's why they're coming back so early. In a way, it bothers me, but in a way it doesn't, as it means that we'll be back on the ship for the hotter part of the day.