Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Civitavecchia & Rome

Today was the day that I felt excited and sick. We would be doing Rome on our own. No Disney guides, no private transportation, no Rick Steeves, at least not in person... Well I guess there are some things to be thankful for... This was the port of call where I had done the planning and the research. This was the stop that we had the highest expectations for. I mean it's Rome for goodness sake! How many times had my 12 year old watched the Lizzy McGuire Movie and sang along with Hey Now, Hey Now... How many times had my father probably seen Roman Holiday or some other black and white dinosaur of a movie on TCM? We are talking the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon... And we are trying to do it by ourselves, with two kids under the age of five... We were either courageous, or delusional!

As I mentioned in a previous post, my wife had done most of the research and planning for our day in Villefranche and Monaco, so this one was mine. I read dozens of trip reports on the DIS boards, studied up at AllEars, and visited countless other websites. But then like manna from Heaven a fellow DISer posted about her website/podcast Cruize Cast I went to the site and saw that they were sharing their experiences doing ports on your own, and low and behold a couple weeks later they did an entire podcast on doing Rome on your own just for me (at least that is how I felt)! They took you through the entire day step by step, and their information was spot on! They planned out a much fuller day than we would be able to do,, but they important stuff was there! I bet I listened to it five times before we left, and at least once on the flight to Barcelona.

We planned ahead and pre-ordered breakfast from room service. We knew it would be a very full day and we wanted to get off the ship early so we never felt worried about getting back to the ship on time.

***On a bit of a side note... I heard more announcements for certain parties to call or visit guest services around departure time on this cruise than all of our 6 previous ones combined!***

We ate and got off the ship pretty early. It was nice that we didn't have to tender, but we did need to catch a shuttle bus to the entrance of the port. That was no problem and before we knew it we were walking to the Civitavecchia train station. I can't remember what time we arrived, but there was a short wait for the next train into Rome. Soon our train had come in, and we boarded. The train ride was about an hour and twenty minutes in the main station in Rome, Termini. We were lucky that we had boarded pretty early, because many people on the train did not have seats for the entire journey into Rome. From Termini we took the metro (a bit of a hike, but very well marked, and my wife was able to grab an espresso) two stops to the stop for the Colosseum, aptly named Colosseum.

Now I am a seasoned metro traveler. I've ridden the rails in Washington, New York, London, Barcelona, and some other big cities, but I have never experienced anything like stepping out of the Colosseum metro station. When you step out into the daylight you look up and there it is, what you have seen on TV and in movies so many times... The Colosseum in all her ancient glory. And what is the first thing that pops into my head?

"Wow having a metro stop this close to the Colosseum must have made it really easy to come see the gladiators!" Please hold the applause until after the post...

We were smart and pre-paid for our entrance online... we paid a little extra for the convenience, but after seeing the line it was money well spent. We buzzed by the stand by line like Fast Pass holders and soon we were in the Colosseum looking for our sons shoes... Just like Audrey Hepburn right?

Per Cruize Cast's recommendation, we had downloaded Rick Steeves' audio guide for the Colosseum an we had enough iPods for everyone ages 12 and up, but it was tough to follow because he wasn't very clear where we should start. My Mom seemed to continually be saying, "oh that is what he was talking about" throughout the tour. I never even bothered to start mine. It was really neat to be there, but when it really hit me that we were in Rome was after we came out of the Colosseum and saw the rest of the ancient city. Before my research I couldn't have told you anything about the forum, but here we were standing at the base of the Colosseum, looking at it. Just like people had said, pictures just can't do Rome justice.

Our next stop was the Trevii Fountain. I had my map, and I was ready to lead the way! I had

read that there were some good places to stop for a quick lunch near the fountain, so we planned

on eating somewhere close to there. The walk was a little longer and not as direct as I had thought, and it was a pretty hot day, but we got there eventually (probably about a half hour later). We saw signs for a McDonalds, but never saw it, so we trudged on looking for the fountain. We walked down an alley and it suddenly appeared in front of us! It wasn't as out in the open as I had thought it would be, but it did not disappoint! The gellato and Coke Zero that we got there didn't either! We all took turns fighting through the crowds to toss our coins in the fountain, and I treated everyone in ear shot to my rendition of "Three Coins in a Fountain. " As we all tossed our coins in I wondered what they would think when they found our Romanian Bani in there!

At this point we were all hot and sweaty, so rather than walk to the nearest metro stop, we decided that we would hop a cab back to Termini station. After talking our cabbie into loading all 7 of us into his Peugeot, we were on our way. He was worried about the local police seeing his full car, so he dropped us off around the corner from the station, right next to a cafe. So we stayed and enjoyed a couple of Roman pizzas in the shadow of the train station.

After eating we started our voyage back to the ship. we were able to decipher the schedule to figure out when the next train to Civitaveccia was, but figuring out which platform was more of a challenge. We found the platform just as the train arrived, and we hopped on and grabbed our seats.

We got back to the ship around 6 o'clock. It's all a blur, but I think we grabbed a snack from Pluto's Dog House, took the kids to their respective clubs, showered up, and went to dinner.

There was a real sense of accomplishment after today. We did it... To Rome and back, with two little ones. We enjoyed the day, but I on't think that any of us would say it was our favorite day of the vacation. We were so happy that we did it, and found Rome to be awesome. But I don't know if it lived up to the (maybe unfairly high) expectations...

Next stop, Naples, Sorrento, Pompeii and the kidless excursion!

Disney Mediterranean Cruise: La Spezia

Our second stop on our Mediterranean voyage brought us to La Spezia, Italy, gateway to Florence and Pisa. This is one of those Mediterranean ports where cruisers get off the ship and scatter throughout the Italian countryside. We would be doing things a little differently however...

Early on in our planning we had decided to use one of our port days as a second day at sea. The decision was made for a couple different reasons. The first was that with so many ports to visit, and only one sea day, we knew that we all, and the kids in particular, would need a take it easy day. For us, we knew that after being in a very foreign country for 6 months, and not having been on a Disney ship in over a year, we would want to spend a day taking advantage of everything the ship has to offer. La Spezia was chosen as our second sea day because it made sense to have a good day of rest before we tackled Rome, which was sure to be a tiresome day for everyone. Another reason was because that Florence was at least a 2 hour trainride from the port, and since it was Monday the museum where the statue of David is located would not be open.

We started the day very leisurely, we slept as long as the younger kids would allow, grabbed some breakfast and checked out the navigator to see what was going on and when. Today would be a good day for the kids to hang out in the Oceaneer Club, and for the adults to hang out at the Quiet Cove pool! Nobody put up a fight with this plan, but we promised the kids they would get some pool time today as well! We wanted to make sure that our daughter got to see her favorite character Stitch, so after she got some pictures with him, we dropped them off at the club.

I was a little surprised how many people stayed on the ship. I thought that we would have the place pretty much to ourselves, but apparently, our idea was not as novel as I had thought! The Quiet Cove was active, but not busy, and we were able to get a couple loungers in the sun. We nabbed a couple of decent magazines from the Cove Cafe (although my wife enjoyed her Smithsonian magazine more than my Everyday with Rachel Ray), and some sweet treats, and just relaxed. It was pretty warm in the sun so we grabbed some lunch after about an hour and a half. We grabbed the kids so they could have some pool time, and I think that is when I decided that ice cream would be a good idea!

After some pool time, we thought our oldest daughter might like to do some family crafts. Theywere making buttons in the Promenade Lounge, so we grabbed some drinks from the drink station and headed down for craft time. The crew member who was running this activity was Matthew from Canada, and for the first 15 minutes or so, we were the only people there. We got a chance to really talk to him, and he really seemed to love what hewas doing. We always appreciate Disney Cast Members, but on the ships they just seem to be the best of the best! I think that there is so much guest interaction in a smaller (than a theme park at least) setting, you have to be really good with people, and the Disney Cruise Crew Members are just great at it!

My number one thing for this day was seeing Cars 2 as a family. You might remember that I wrote this post a couple months back about Cars 2, and how I was really looking forward to taking the kids to see it. Since Cars 2 has been out for awhile now, I won't bother with a full review, but the family enjoyed it. It was a little loud for my son, but he watched intently the whole time. Our youngest daughter fell asleep (I guess she was having lots of fun in the club)! Everyone above the age of 12 really liked it too. While I didn't like the story (or felt it was up to the high standards Pixar has set), I thought it was the best looking animated film I had ever seen (we saw it in 3D)! It was also really cool to see places we were going to see very soon!

After the movie it was time to get ready and head to dinner. I have to say that the food was very good on this cruise. Every night we really enjoyed our meals. This was also the first time that I taken part in the time honored cruise tradition of ordering 2 entrees. I usually split the second one with my Dad, but it was still fun to do it! I also ate more seafood than usual on this cruise. I guess my body decided that it missed fish living in Romania! I'm usually such a steak eater on the cruise... Sometimes I surprise myself!

for the rest of the evening we followed the theme of the day, and took it easy. I think after the kids were in bed we put the grandparents in charge, and checked out some of the evening adult activities. We weren't very impressed with the piano lounge singer in Sessions, so we just strolled up on deck before we turned in.

The next stop is the eternal city of Rome. Adventure awaits!

Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Villefranche & Monaco

Our first port on our cruise was Villefracnhe, France, gateway to Monaco, Nice and Cannes. This port represented a couple of things

to me. On one hand I was very much looking forward to seeing Monaco and Monte Carlo. On the other hand I was a bit nervous about this being the first port that we would be "doing on

our own."

Our plan was well researched (mostly by my wife), and we knew pretty much how we were going to execute our plan. Our plan was to get off the ship pretty early -- but not rush as it was our first morning on the ship-- and catch a tender to the port. From there we had well described directions to the train station, and we would catch the train to Monaco, about a 15 minute ride. Once in Monaco, we were going to take a ride on their tourist train, The Little Train, and then possibly if the little ones were in good spirits check out the Royal Palace. It should have been a pretty simple day, especially compared to what we had planned for our day in Rome.

Well you know what they say about the best laid plans... The first parts went off without a hitch. We got up leisurely, had a nice breakfast, and about that time the announcement came that they had just started open tendering, meaning we didn't need to wait at a meeting point until our turn came up. So we packed up our day bags and headed for shore.

Villefranche is a picturesque little marina town. Cafes and cutsie shops line the waterfront with flower boxes in the windows. There was a small public beach that we thought might be a nice activity after we returned from Monaco. This was one of those times when the pictures we ha seen perfectly matched what we were now viewing with our own eyes!

We found the train station with little trouble. We followed the signs up the stairs to the platform heading in the direction of Monaco. It was about 10:30 in the morning at this point, and we heard that the trains came about every 20-25 minutes. When we made it up to the ticket booth there was a sign in the window saying that the next train to Monaco wouldn't be until 1:30. After

speaking with the Frenchman in the window we were not filled with confidence when he said, "it should be here at 1:30, but it is Sunday so..." Well we knew that as pretty as Villefranche was, it was not going to hold the interest of our 3 and 4 year old for three hours, and the 1:30 train

apparently wasn't a done deal either... So we decided that we would catch a taxi in Monaco. It was less cost effective, but at least our day wouldn't be ruined, and in looking back it worked out well.

The 30 minute drive into Monaco was beautiful! Driving along the French Rivera with sweeping views of the Mediterranean, and our ship anchored at sea. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any photos of it, but you'll just have to take my word for it! The taxi driver took us exactly where we needed to go, and we got his card so we could call him for a pick up in a couple hours.

We bought our tickets for the Little Train, and we had a while until the next departure, so we ventured out to find a restroom. We had heard horror stories of disgusting public pay toilets in Europe, but we were in Monaco, the Beverly Hills of Europe, surely that wouldn't be the case here right? Wrong. Not far from the train was the restrooms. A woman sat out front with a plate full of Euro coins. I figured that the plate was for tips, and it wasn't actually a pay toilet, so I didn't add to the pile. She didn't hassle me, but apparently she hassled some other folks. I'm glad that I didn't pay because the place was dirty and almost stereo-typically, there was no seat on the toilet... You have got to be kidding me!

On the plus side there was a lovely little park across the street with even more lovely views of the water. I did get some pictures here. We had a snack and the little ones ran around for a few minutes before we headed back to the train.

The Little Train tour was everything that the Barcelona Bus Touristic was not. Interesting and only about 40 minutes. It took through Monte Carlo and by all of the major sites. Except for the cheesy background music, it reminded me a lot of the tourist train ride we took in Key West on our Western Caribbean Disney cruise a couple years earlier. After the train ride the little ones were ready to head back

to the ship for chicken and french fries from Pluto's Dog House, and some quality time in the kid's clubs, so we called our cabbie and headed back to Villefranche.

We were greeted at the tender dock with the welcome site of Disney crew members with orange and lemon flavored ice water! It was a nice touch, and you could see the envy in the eyes of other cruise ship passengers in adjacent lines!

The tender ride to and from the ship was nice. The marina in Villefranche had some really nice yachts and antique looking ships. But as always we would be boarding the most beautiful ship in the harbor!

We spent the rest of the day lounging around the pool deck while we waited to see Twice Charmed. I had missed this show on our first cruise on the Magic, so I was looking forward to finally seeing it. It did not disappoint. The show was great, probably my favorite of all the shows I have seen on Disney Cruises.

While Villefranche was not without its challenges, it was a good start to our cruise. Luckily, we would have better luck with train stations in Italy than we had in France. It wasn't as easy as a day as we had thought it would be, but it was a success. We made it where we wanted to go, and made it back! We got a taste of the "high life" in Monaco, but were more than happy to retire at the end of the day, back to our staterooms on the Magic!

Up next La Spezia...

Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Barcelona

Like most American basketball fans, I was gluedto my TV set watching the USA Dream Team dominate their opponents on their way to the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. I remember pictures of huge billboards featuring Michael Jordan, and majestic aerial shots of a church under construction that looked like a sandcastle. I was only 16 years old, and had never left my home country, but I knew that one day I wanted to visit that city...

Fast forward 15 years into the future. Now married with two children (back when it was just 2 Dis Kids), we are in the middle of experiencing what would be a life changing vacation, our first Disney Cruise! Our stateroom attendant has delivered a Disney Cruise schedule (for future booking purposes) and I learn that they don't just sail from Florida... In fact they will be sending their other ship, the Magic, to the Mediterranean for the summer of 2007, sailing out of Barcelona, Spain. That was it, I had found my dream cruise! At this point I hadn't turned into an all out cruise junkie. I didn't know that cruise lines often send ships to other parts of the world for special seasonal itineraries, I thought that Disney would always be there. I had my vision.

I began to soak up as much information about Disney Cruise Line as I could. I learned all about their sailings in the Caribbean, and that in fact their Mediterranean itinerary was only for the summer of 2007. I was disappointed that I had missed out, but hopeful that they would return because then president, Tom McAlpin had said that the season was so successful.

Luckily in May 2010 the Magic did as promised, return to the Med. And one lear later I was booked on a seven night sailing, leaving from Barcelona!

So thats a lot of lead up for the port of departure, but I wanted to give some background to why I was not just really looking forward to the cruise, but to Barcelona as well.

Luckily, our schedules worked out so we would be able to fly to Barcelona 3 days before the cruise departed, and I was really happy to be able to spend a couple of days exploring the city. I had read more trip reports, watched more vlogs, and listened to more podcasts than I could count about other people's Disney Med cruises from 2007 and 2010. My excitement grew with each one as we got closer and closer to our departure date. I had built up this vacation so much in my head, I hoped that I had not set myself up for disappointment. But as it turns out, Barcelona met and surpassed all of my expectations!

I had read and researched a lot about what to do in Barcelona, but had not really done the same for where to stay. My Mom actually found the hotel that we ended up staying at. We had originally booked a room at the Novotel Barcelona City, on the recommendation of fellow cruisers, but when my parents tried to book a room for their arrival (two days after us), there were none available. So in looking for a place close to the Novotel (it wasn't), she booked at Hotel Diagonal Zero. Not wanting to be split up at two different hotels we followed suit, and boy am I glad we did!

Diagonal Zero was a great fit for us. Modern and clean, at a reasonable price. It was very close to the subway, and there was a large shopping center across the street. It wasn't that close to the touristy parts of the city, and it wasn't as close to the port, but we figured we could make it work.

We were able to do more than make it work. We loved it. Since it was a little further from Las Ramblas and the rest of the city center it was more quiet. The hotel has a more business feel, but it was still warm and inviting fortourists. Thebeach was about a 10-15 minute walk, and the shopping center (Diagonal Mar) was very nice, and had a hypermarket where we could get stuff for in the room. And while it might net be a big selling point for most American visitors -- but it was huge for us who have been living in Bucharest, Romania for 6 months -- there was a Subway sandwich shop!

We spent our first full day in Barcelona just kind of taking it easy an stayed close to the hotel. We hit the beach, walked around, enjoyed lunch at Subway, and pretty much eased our way intovacation. Other than venturing out to visit the Magic Fountains(more later) that night we kept it pretty simple.

The beach was great! After a short walk we got there around 10:30. People (mostly locals) were just starting to stream in. It had not gotten crowded yet, so we found a good spot pretty close to the water. The water was a little cold, but refreshing. The beach was great! there were a couple of bar/tapas places right on the beach, places to shower off, and free public restrooms that were not spotless, but by American public beach restrooms standards exquisite! I did post on my Facebook status that I was concerned about the poverty in Barcelona. Apparently the women there can't afford to buy a matching top to go with their bikini bottoms... Some of what we saw was not pretty... I had been warned of this, but thought that it would only be on more rural beaches, not a public beach in the city!

That evening we had decided to head into the city center to see the Magic Fountains. I had read mixed reviews about it (DISers raved, Rick Steeves didn't), but this was one of the things I really wanted to see. The subway in Barcelona is very easy to navigate so we used it to get us there. It took us about a half hour, and when we exited the station it was a sea of people. This was the only time on the entire trip that I was worried about being pick-pocketed. We trudged our way to the fountain (which was much larger than I expected), and found a pretty good place to sit and watch. To our surprise the entire "show" was set to Disney music (in the video below it is kind of hard to hear over the crowd, but it is Circle of Life), albeit in Spanish. It was a great warm up for our cruise in two days! If you are in Barcelona over the weekend this is definitely worth seeing! Gorgeous!

The next day was going to be our big tourist day. We had pre-purchased our tickets for the Barcelona Bus Touristic, and I had high hopes. My parents were coming in to meet us that morning, and they were going to join us on the bus! There was a bus stop right by the shopping center, so after they got to the hotel and showered up, headed back to Subway and then to the bus.

This was the one disappointment in Barcelona. We have toured around on "Hop On Hop Off" buses in a couple different cites, and have always found them to be a great way to see a lot of the city. The Barcelona Bus Touristic was reviewed well, but it just didn't work for us. The bus has three routes, and there aren't enough places to switch. We went on the Blue route to see La Sagrada Familia (AWESOME!), but then we were stuck on that route for more than an hour. Then we would have had to switch to red and then to green to get back to our hotel. We abandoned ship er... bus and took the subway back. That night we walked over to the shopping center and had some "very fresh" seafood at one of the restaurants.

The next morning we boarded the Disney Magic! Originally we had planned to take the subway to the Christopher Columbus monument and catch a port bus to the ship, but since that would have required lugging our bags, and 2 train changes, we decided to take a couple taxis to the ship (25-30 euros each). We were very excited and wanted to get there as quick as possible! We'll pick up there on the next post.

I despise using the phrase "in conclusion", but, in conclusion, we loved Barcelona! from the moment we got to the hotel we felt like we were on vacation. Coming from Bucharest it really almost felt like being back in the US. The people were so nice, there was so much to experience. There is so much more of the city that we have to explore. We can't wait to go back! Maybe for a long weekend, or maybe a couple years!

Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Back to Reality...

Greetings from home! We have been back from our Mediterranean cruise for about a week and a half, and adjusting to everyday life off of a cruise ship has been as fun as ever!

I'm sorry that it has taken me awhile to get my first post cruise post up, but with the start of middle school, schedule changes, and internet outages I am just now getting some real time to reflect and write on a truly magical (but not without some challenges) vacation!

Since Disney won't be back in Europe until at least 2013, these reports might not be very beneficial in planning your next Disney Cruise, but hopefully it will help give you a vision for the future, when DCL returns (hopefully sooner rather than later) to the Med!

I'm going to start with an overview of sorts. Some differences we found while cruising with Disney in the Mediterranean compared to the Caribbean. Some of these things we had prepared for (no stop at Castaway Cay), others not so much (debarkation hassles). One thing for sure there were some surprises -- for better or worse -- along the way! I'll be more in depth when we come to those parts of the trip.

We had read and heard that cruising the Med is a whole different monster compared to the Caribbean, so we embarked with a different set of expectations. we had prepared ourselves for early mornings, longer days, and public transportation. We knew that this would be a port intensive cruise, with 5 ports in 7 nights, we we ready to be busy, but we were also realistic. we know our children well, and how they prefer to spend their Disney Cruises. We looked at our itinerary and found a day that we would treat as a second day at sea. Going commando throughout Western Europe was not the most effective use of our time. We chose carefully what we would try to do when we got off the ship. We prepared ourselves that since members of our family ranged from ages 3-69, there would be things we would miss. We were prepared for all of this, but I don't think I fully appreciated how different this Disney Cruise would be from our previous six.

I think that the biggest difference in cruising the Caribbean compared to the Mediterranean is the ports themselves. For the most part in the Caribbean the ports are your destination. Sure if you are in Nassau you might have an excursion or hop a taxi to Atlantis, but you are there. Even if you just walk off the ship you can hit the Straw Market, or find one of 900 women who will braid your daughter's hair. In the Med the port is just the start. Monaco is (in theory) a 15 minute train ride from Villefranche, Rome is almost an hour and a half from Citvitavecchia! A lot of our time was spent on European public transportation going to and from the ship.

The attitude and culture of the region is also a big difference. Many of the places we visited were large metropolitan areas. "No worries mon!" was not something I heard when trying to circumnavigate Rome in search of the Trevii Fountain! Again, this was not unexpected, but as I look back on it, it did have a real effect on the vacation. There were also a lot more European cruisers on the ship. This should not have been a surprise to me, but it was. I guess I underestimated the international appeal of the Disney Cruise Line!

Another thing that a Disney Cruise vacation has when leaving from Florida compared to Barcelona is Walt Disney World! Something that we learned after our first two cruises was that is was too much to go straight of the ship to the drive home. With cruise #3 we began tacking on a day at Disney World, and soon it became a couple days pre-cruise followed by a couple days post-cruise! A few of our fellow Dis Board cruisers coming from the States visited Disneyland Paris during their vacation, but with school and work schedules we just couldn't afford the time. Unfortunately it would be back to Bucharest (and reality) the evening of the cruise. It is always a nicer transition when you can ween yourself off being pampered on the ship with a couple nights at Disney!

So eleven days off the ship those are my first thoughts. Coming up in the next several posts will be our port and ship experiences!