Trip Report Our 19-Day Mediterranean Adventure – Greece, Turkey and the Search for Free Wifi

Finally, right? It seems like I’ve been waiting forever to start this, but really we’ve only been back three weeks! And in that time I’ve lived in a hotel for two weeks and driven across the country from Washington DC to our new home in...wait for it...Las Vegas! For some reason I have chosen now, surrounded by boxes that need to be unpacked, as the time to start my trip report. Stalling maybe? :D So here it goes!

What: A massive 19 day (13 days on the cruise with 6 more including travel time and extra days in Europe) trip extravaganza. A 12 night Mediterranean cruise with a day in London beforehand and a few days in London and Barcelona afterwards. So yes. This is going to be a long stinking trip report. Oh, and I took 5239 pictures. On my camera! That doesn’t even count the Instagram/iphone photos you’ll see scattered throughout the report.

Great day in the morning.

Why: Because cruises are awesome mostly. But also because I was able to do a last-minute 11 night Med cruise back in April of 2010 with my daughter and some other family and friends, so this was a makeup cruise for my son and husband. It worked nicely as a graduation trip/present. :)

When: June 13-July 1, 2013

I booked this cruise the day it came out, back in January of 2012.

As time got closer we realized it was going to get crazy. My daughter was going to have to miss the last day of school, my son was graduating from high school the Saturday before the trip, we had a house full of family that whole weekend and a big graduation party on Sunday, he then left and was coming home one day early from his senior trip to make it on time, and we were moving across the country to Las Vegas so our household goods were all moved the day before we left. Then the kids were traveling with their youth group to Scotland 3 days after the cruise ended, so it really didn’t make sense for us to come all the way back home and we needed to stay in Europe for three more days before we dropped them off in London Heathrow. Got all that? Yes. Like I said, a little crazy.

Totally worth it though. :)

Who: Us! Here we are a few days before we left! This picture is a celebration of the whole Whiting family – but mostly Chase. The high school graduate. Also appearing in this photo are myself-Tammy, hubby-Stephen, and daughter – Ally.



My parents! My parents were on our last Med cruise, and have been in several of my trip reports. They had quite the trip in store for them. Here they are in Monaco:



My in-laws! My in-laws were also on my last Med cruise, as well as a few other cruises with us, so they may look familiar if you've ever read one of my reports. Here they are in Palo:



My brother-in-law! Scott has appeared in a few trip cruise trip reports as well. He’s the oldest of three boys with my hubby falling in the middle. Here he is in Mykonos:

 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tammy,
Your pictures are gorgeous!!!
Does Disney offer excursions to the sights you are seeing on your own??? Just curious.
Loving the report!!!

Thank you, Lisa!

They do! They had excursions to all of the same places. Sometimes they didn't see as much as we did, sometimes more. Without exception they were a lot more expensive! In Rome, transfers to Rome were $99 and out train/bus/metro ticket was 12 Euros. Big difference!

But some people do prefer the security of booking through the cruise line, which I definitely understand. Most days my in-laws were booked on Disney excursions and were doing something similar to us but without as much walking. :)

We are at a volleyball tournament today, but after we finish I'll post up Ephesus where we did our only Disney excursion. After researching, it seemed difficult to get to Ephesus on our own, so the excursion was a good option.
 

Camelot

Active Member
Hi Tammy,
Wow, what a fantastic trip report. Thank you for sharing this experience with us. The photos are fabulous. I admire that you ventured out to see the sights on your own. I've never traveled abroad, and think I'd be a bit overwhelmed to go out on my own. How long have you been in the travel agency business? I'm going to have to check this TRIP REPORTS section to look up some of your past trip reports...I'm enjoying this one very much, too.
I'm so sorry that your Mom took ill on the cruise, and gosh, I hope she's all better now...
OMG...my mouth started to water looking at all of those POLY food photos. Everything looks so delicious!

Looking forward to reading more when you have the chance to continue...:)
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hi Tammy,
Wow, what a fantastic trip report. Thank you for sharing this experience with us. The photos are fabulous. I admire that you ventured out to see the sights on your own. I've never traveled abroad, and think I'd be a bit overwhelmed to go out on my own. How long have you been in the travel agency business? I'm going to have to check this TRIP REPORTS section to look up some of your past trip reports...I'm enjoying this one very much, too.
I'm so sorry that your Mom took ill on the cruise, and gosh, I hope she's all better now...
OMG...my mouth started to water looking at all of those POLY food photos. Everything looks so delicious!

Looking forward to reading more when you have the chance to continue...:)

Thank you, Camelot! I was more intimidated the first time I did Europe, but it was easier this time.

My mom is so much better, thank you! :)

I've been at Kingdom Konsultants for about 5 years now. I've got a ton of trip reports out there! I went looking them up a while ago and my first one is one of the worst ones I've ever seen, lol. I hope Steve burned that link.
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 10: Turkey

We were going to Turkey today! Stephen’s family actually lived in Turkey before he was born, so my in-laws were extra excited about this stop. We were all (except Dad and Mom now) on a Disney excursion today. We wanted to go to Ephesus and nothing looked easy about getting there on our own. So we found an excursion that went there, to a small village, and included lunch.

I woke up at 7 this morning and we were all at Parrot Cay at 8.



Look, juice! I don’t always have juice for breakfast, but when I do, it's followed shortly by a Coke.



Our tour meeting place was Rockin’ Bar D.



We exited the ship with our tour group and found a lovely welcome!





Hello, Turkey!



There’s our bus!


Every seat had a bottled water and a little bag of gifts:



Water. I must have taken this in case my trip report readers weren’t sure what that looks like :):

 
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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We rode to Ephesus while our guide introduced himself and told us some things to expect.

Once we got off, he gave us all our tickets:





Inside!







Inside we would walk a little and then stop while the guide talked. Then we walked some more.



Ephesus was full of cats!! They were everywhere!

 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
While we were sitting, something very cool happened. Three guests (from the cruise I’m pretty sure) stood on the stage area and sang “How Great Thou Art”. Everyone stopped what they were doing and listened or joined in. When they finished everyone clapped. It was very touching!

In this picture they are the two men and woman (in the pink shirt) near the top right of the flat area:



After we were done there, we walked to see a live show that was put on by the cruise line every 15 minutes:


Looking back at the amphitheater:

 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Next was an unadvertised stop, or so I thought. I knew that most excursions included a stop at a Turkish rug store, but I thought they were close to the port and optional. Ours really wasn’t optional because we were nowhere near the port.

I wasn’t too worried about high pressure sales because I had no interest in carpets. I would have no idea what to buy and I’d be afraid I’d get it home and realize I had picked an ugly one! So the word “no” would be easy to come by.

The demonstration started with a very interesting talk on how the carpets were made.



It was cool!

Then we went downstairs to the showroom where a very interesting phenomenon occurred. This was the biggest no-pressure-but-totally-full-of-pressure sales pitch I’d ever seen. It started with the owner getting us all tea and cider, chatting with us, talking about where we were all from, etc.

He was smooth as silk. He gave us the normal speech about how some people discounted their carpets, but theirs were already discounted heavily, and because of the quality, really couldn’t be discounted more, yada yada yada.

Here’s our group of non-buyers.



Then four guys in green shirts started bringing out carpets. And I audibly gasped with the first one.



Is that gorgeous or what?!!!!

 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
They brought out more and wanted us to walk on them:




And more and more and more:







When he finished there were dozens of carpets out there. Most all of them gorgeous.

And then the salesmen descended. There were probably 20 groups of people on our excursion and there was easily one salesperson per group. They worked the room like pros, being friendly and waiting for someone to express even the slightest interest.

I loved that first carpet so much, but I knew it was probably a $10,000 carpet. So I was good and avoided all eye contact with sales people. :D

Although, lets be honest. If Stephen had been even slightly tempted I would have whipped out the credit card then and there. :)
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
My in-laws expressed non-interest interest, and were whisked off to a sales room before you could say boo. :)

I watched the sales people for a little while and Stephen and brother-in-law made their way out.

When the kids and I were ready, we were directed through a different exit. An exit through the biggest jewelry store I’ve ever seen!!

We wound through room after room that was about this size:





The sales people took one look at how fast I was walking and the fact I had two teenagers with me, and didn’t even try. It was like a maze that took 5 minutes to find our way out of!

After we’d been on the bus waiting for a while, my in-laws reappeared and confirmed they had, in fact bought a carpet. For them it was a bit of a memento from their time in Turkey. They also promised to will it to me one day, so I was good with that.
:)

Finally, we were back on the way to the ship. There she is!



When we got off the ship, the kids saw a Nike store in port so the three of us went there while everyone else got back onboard.

After some browsing, we stopped in Starbucks and bought a Frappuccino in the hopes of using their free Wi-Fi. No luck.

We discovered if the Wi-Fi worked by entering a code that they had to text to you, it did not work. We never got the text even after trying multiple ways to enter our phone number and country code.

The view was nice though!





We also stopped in a candy store and bought some amazingly fresh gummy bears. I wish I’d bought a couple pounds more!

Chase did buy a FC Barcelona hat at the duty free store.
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
While we were in the terminal, there was an officer from the Celebrity ship docked next to ours asking everyone who passed if they were on Celebrity. Right as we passed him, a man came running up yelling, “Yes!! I am!!”

The officer immediately turned and started walking with the guy and got on his walkie saying, “I’ve got him”. The man was apologizing profusely for being late.

They were literally pulling up the lines seconds later as they rushed on the ship.

Dude. I would have been so stressed. :eek:






We went back to the room for a few minutes to drop off bags and found our bathroom had flooded again. We called maintenance and went to dinner.

Animators again tonight, and Mom came! All of the IV drips and antibiotics were definitely helping. She didn’t have much energy, but she felt okay.
:)





Mom told us how in the hospital they called her “The Pneumonia”. She could hear them in the hall saying, “The Pneumonia is in room 3” or things like that. Of course we all thought that was hilarious and she was henceforth known to us as “The Pneumonia”. :D



Bread!

 
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Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tonight Ally ordered fried crab. Well she had no idea the crab was going to actually look like a crab. She was so shocked when it came out, that she started crying! Like she had personally killed a crab! Of course my heavily medicated emotional mother joined in and they both laughed and cried and laughed and cried.

The rest of us just laughed. :)




http://tammywhiting.smugmug.com/Tra...39059_ZgN8pH#!i=2734249221&k=j765MVL&lb=1&s=A

My typical red meat dinner:
http://tammywhiting.smugmug.com/Tra...39059_ZgN8pH#!i=2734250062&k=nzHnrHr&lb=1&s=A


Dessert!



Photo bomb –





 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We checked in the room before the show.



Tonight’s show was a local dance troupe. I haven’t said much about the shows lately because they’ve all been Disney’s usual standard of great.

Tonight was – something else entirely.

This show was so bad. It was like a middle school talent show. No, I’ve seen some better middle school talent shows.

It’s not that the dancers were bad, it’s that they were completely unspectacular. I’m not sure they did anything that I couldn’t do and I can't dance! And it went on and on and on. Between each dance, a narrator with sketchy English, came out and read off an index card about what was happening next. I mean he read off a card. And apparently he hadn’t practiced, because he didn’t always know what the card said.

There was also a guy on the side taking pictures whose hands you could see coming out from behind the curtain.

It was amateur hour all around. Some people actually got up and left.

Normally the cruise director comes out after the show to say thank you, encourage more applause for the performers and remind us of upcoming events.

Tonight there was no cruise director. He couldn’t face us.

We were all pretty tickled by the whole thing when we stood up to leave.

I went up top for a coke afterwards and the kids went to see Miracle on Funnelvision:




http://tammywhiting.smugmug.com/Tra...39059_ZgN8pH#!i=2734251079&k=QdHVnCd&lb=1&s=A


Look who was in the lobby!



How adorable is this?



Bedtime! Tomorrow we’re back in Greece!
:)
 

Joshua&CalebDad

Well-Known Member
This amphitheater was amazing. They said it would have held around 25,000 people. The story of Paul and Demetrius in the book of Acts happened here.




Very cool...I am an adult Sunday School teacher and have covered the Book of Acts and the Book of Ephesians before so to see pictures of this is awesome. I am going to have to put Mediterranean Disney Cruise on my Disney bucket list for sure now! Don't worry Tammy, I'll make sure you book it for us when the time comes. Wouldn't have it any other way. :D
 

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