11 Night Mediterranean Cruise – Mouse style!

11 nights in the Mediterranean!! With the Mouse!!:sohappy:

I got a last minute travel agent special too great to pass up! Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Disney cruises. This was my fifth! When this deal came out, I was scrambling to make it work.

Dh couldn’t get off work for two weeks, but he was beyond sweet and told me to go ahead! I knew the kids would love it too, but there was no way Ds15 could miss two weeks of high school. Dd12 however, no problem! I talked to Ds who insisted he could go at first. After a week passed, I decided to talk to him again.

The conversation went like this –

“So, about this cruise…” – Me
“Mmhmm” – Him
“You know there’s no way you can miss two weeks of school, don’t you?” –Me
“Yeah, I know.” – Him
“So you won’t be bitter if I go?” – Me, sounding hopeful
“No, I guess not.” – Him
“Would you be bitter if I took your sister?” – Me
After an eternal silence – “No, but you’re going to have to buy me off.” – Him (obviously my child):lookaroun

Now, who else to bring? My parents were tempted, but Mom felt like it was someone else’s turn since she took advantage of the last travel agent special cruise with me. I started talking to friends, and one, Debbie, didn’t hesitate, she was in! She didn’t mind taking her dd14 out of school for this kind of opportunity. And bonus, she has a ds17 who could commiserate with my ds15 while we were gone. We talked to the girl’s teachers and got the green light. Woo hoo!

My parents were still toying around with going. I checked the military specials and there was a great one. They got a category 5, verandah, for an 11 night cruise for $2300. Total. For two people. :eek: Pretty amazing!
I realized my in-laws wouldn’t want to pass that up either, so they booked a verandah too.

Here we all are. These photos are your teasers for different parts of the trip!

Dd and I:
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Debbie and her dd:
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My parents:
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My inlaws:
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The scene was set, we were ready to plan! And we only had about 6 weeks to do it!

About three weeks before the cruise, we got our room assignment. A verandah!! I couldn’t believe it! With all of my cruises, we’d never splurged for one before. We’ve always been happy enough with our portholes. I was crazy excited to try a verandah, though. What a perfect cruise to have one on!:sohappy:

About a week before we left, the Icelandic volcano started to erupt, shutting down European airspace for days. We were flying directly into Barcelona, which thankfully wasn’t immediately shut down. I was pretty worried we weren’t going to make it, and incredibly thankful we purchased trip insurance. I DID NOT want to use it, but it sure provided some piece of mind.

I have to tell you, of all the reasons I thought we might have to use our trip insurance, illness, flight delays, etc., a volcano in Iceland never crossed my mind!:lol:

I had also devised about 13 alternate plans to get there, including – flying into Madrid if it was still open, flying anywhere in Europe we could get to, flying into Morocco and taking the train/ferry/train to Barcelona, and meeting the cruise at any port we could get to.

Well, thankfully, about two days before we left, everything started to open again. Woo hoo, indeed!

After several days spent researching ports and excursions, little bit of shopping, and lots of packing, the big day had finally arrived!
 

WishIWasAtWDW

Well-Known Member
AMAZING trip report so far tammy!! your pictures are breathtaking! what an amazing cruise! my boyfriend has always wanted to go to europe, especially italy, so this cruise would be perfect! i hope we get to go on this one. never been on a cruise, but if i did, it would have to be disney! :D thanks for sharing!! can't wait to read more and see more pictures!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
AMAZING trip report so far tammy!! your pictures are breathtaking! what an amazing cruise! my boyfriend has always wanted to go to europe, especially italy, so this cruise would be perfect! i hope we get to go on this one. never been on a cruise, but if i did, it would have to be disney! :D thanks for sharing!! can't wait to read more and see more pictures!

Thank you for reading wishiwasatwdw!! I haven't been to Europe since I was a little girl, and I enjoyed every minute of it! I definitely recommend it.:)
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Friday, April 30th, Day 9 – Pisa

We started off the day with breakfast at Parrot Cay. A couple who sat down next to us told their waiter they’d missed their excursion, again!:eek:

Debbie and her dd wanted to go to Florence, and I really wanted to see the Leaning Tower, so we split up today. Florence was about 2 ½ hours from the port, so they played it safe and took a Disney excursion. When you're going that far from the ship, that's when the peace of mind is worth it to take an excursion.

We tendered in. You can see the tender boats next to the ship:

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We walked to the train station and caught a train. We took a wrong turn on the way and walked through the beautiful town of La Spezia.

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On the train we had a private car. I was, once again, very impressed with the trains in Italy. Dd stood on her chair to take this. You can see my hand on her waist in the mirror:

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We ended up on the train with a ton of people from the cruise. When we got off, we all followed each other around looking for the correct bus. There were about 25 of us on the bus and when one person found out which stop, we passed it around! :)

The tower was great. Disney had some of their photographers stationed there to take passenger pictures. I'd seen some passenger pictures in front of the colisseum and other things earlier in the cruise. I just assumed that these were all taken on Disney excursions. I was excited to see them waiting for any passengers. We weren’t too hard to spot with our Castaway Club lanyards and dd’s DCL shirt. :lol: They took some great pictures.

We took the standard, hold up the Tower picture.

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Several times actually :lol::

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Then we just walked around for a while:

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After that we caught the bus back to the train station and rode back. When we got back in town, we decided to walk again. We tendered back:

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We got back at 4 and dinner was at 6. In fine cruise tradition, we had a pre-dinner-dinner of chicken fingers and fries.

Our second dinner was in Lumiere’s for pirate night! The girls wore some fun outfits we bought in Tunisia:

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This is Brent our cruise director:

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The show was a magician who had some so so tricks, and a couple of amazing ones.

Afterwards we went up on deck for the pirate party and fireworks. We were way too stuffed for the buffet though.:(
 

tiaragirl

Well-Known Member
Wow, the outfits are beautiful! Shame on you for not going to Florence.. it was my fav ;) Just.. make sure not to stay at Hotel Ferdy.
 

HollyBelle

Well-Known Member
Wooohooooo.... Ally held up the tower all by herself!! I'm so glad you were able to get the Pisa pictures. Seriously though, the tower doesn't even look real. Was the scaffolding up just for general maintenance?

The town you happened upon is just gorgeous. Especially in that first photo of it with the mountains in the background.
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Love the leaning pics! :lol:

It's a picture everyone should have at some point in their life!:lol:

Wooohooooo.... Ally held up the tower all by herself!! I'm so glad you were able to get the Pisa pictures. Seriously though, the tower doesn't even look real. Was the scaffolding up just for general maintenance?

The town you happened upon is just gorgeous. Especially in that first photo of it with the mountains in the background.

I think it was general maintenance! It was just crazy in person. You wonder how on earth it is still standing.

I love the fact that she just looks so at ease, it's like "yeah I'm holding up the tower of pesia but really it's not a big deal, see I even have my sunglasses on." :lol:

:lol:Really she was saying, "Good grief, mom, how many pictures are you going to take of this!":lol:

She took one of me holding it, but I was leaning back and my money belt was so stuffed under my shirt that I looked pregnant! I had to quickly delete that one.:lookaroun
 

HollyBelle

Well-Known Member
It's funny... looking back at the very first one you posted I can now see many of the other people in the background doing the same thing. They've all got their hands/arms raised in mid air. Too funny. :lol:
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It's funny... looking back at the very first one you posted I can now see many of the other people in the background doing the same thing. They've all got their hands/arms raised in mid air. Too funny. :lol:

Yes! Everyone was doing it! It was so funny.

^^^HAHA!!!! That's so funny!!

Wow, this whole vacation just seems unbelievable!! I'm so enjoying it, and living vicariously through your experience I might add!!:sohappy:

Thank you takemethere! I'm happy to share!:)
 

eagles

Active Member
wow!

i really can't think of anything to say, i just don't have the words for it.

amazing pics, and i too am amazed at the restraint of not taking the pics inside. love, love the colliseum pics. (rick has been there btw).

the pic of ally holding the tower is adorable, another clasic.

more more pics. love em all.

these reports are making me so excited for our cruise, even though i know it will not be anything like yours.:wave:
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
wow!

i really can't think of anything to say, i just don't have the words for it.

amazing pics, and i too am amazed at the restraint of not taking the pics inside. love, love the colliseum pics. (rick has been there btw).

the pic of ally holding the tower is adorable, another clasic.

more more pics. love em all.

these reports are making me so excited for our cruise, even though i know it will not be anything like yours.:wave:

Thanks, Louella! Your cruise will be awesome!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Saturday, May 1st, Day 10 – Sea Day!

This morning was our character breakfast. We’d been up so late the night before, Dd and I were the only ones who made it. It was yummy and the characters were great. Our servers made us lovely napkin hats.

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After breakfast I met Debbie for another cooking lesson. Today it was an entrée, and it was yummy! Apparently while we were in there, my parents were watching a pod of dolphins playing next to the ship.

After we learned about entrees, we stayed for a napkin folding class. That was awesome! I can make so many cute napkins now. At least I think I can!:lookaroun

Parrot Cay was having a steakhouse lunch. While we were eating, some of the servers called us to the windows. One of the dolphins had made another appearance.

After lunch we all went to see Alice and Wonderland in 3D. I’ll admit, from everything I’d seen, I was not very excited about it, and would not have paid to see it in the theaters. But wow! It was great! I was so pleasantly surprised. I’d definitely recommend it to people.

We went swimming afterwards, surprise, surprise.:)

After we swam, I noticed Pluto’s was serving Philly cheese steaks. I couldn’t pass that up! So again, I had a pre-dinner-dinner. I was beginning to feel like a hobbit.:lookaroun

Tonight was semi formal night at Animators. We got all prettied up again:

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We met some very spiffy ducks:

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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The show afterwards was a new one, Villains Tonight. I had read some mixed reviews of it, but I really really liked it. Half the audience gave it a standing O!

Here's Hades:

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Ursula:

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Izma and Kronk, who was HILARIOUS:

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Evil Queen:

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After the show, the girls went swimming and we went to bed!

We had a sea turtle waiting for us:

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eagles

Active Member
thank you for telling us what the towel animal was :ROFLOL:

sounds like tons of fun for a day at sea! i wanted to see some napkin hats on you though. :wave:
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
thank you for telling us what the towel animal was :ROFLOL:

sounds like tons of fun for a day at sea! i wanted to see some napkin hats on you though. :wave:

Oh, did I forget to post one of me in my dorky hat? Shoot, must have deleted it.:lookaroun:lol:
 

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