Magic 7-night June 2018 - Mediterranean Cruise from Barcelona to Rome

anricat

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 20, 2014
It's time for another trip report! This was our fifth cruise with DCL and our most epic adventure yet. With five countries in 2 weeks, we were constantly moving. We had a great time and I've got a lot of stories to tell you. But first, the pre-trip report is here so you know where we're headed.

And of course, I must introduce the cast of characters:
Summer - me, the über planner
Roger - my DH, wine lover
Emmaline - my DD, just shy of her 10th birthday (but we celebrated anyway)
Dru - a longtime friend of mine who lives in Geneva and met up with us after we disembarked in Rome

I'll get us started in the next post with our travel day and first day in Europe.
 
Travel - Austin to London, UK
June 12/13, 2018

We're off on another adventure, this time to Europe! We began our journey with an overnight transatlantic flight to London departing from Austin at 4:15 PM on Tuesday, June 12 with a scheduled arrival the following morning at 7:20 AM. For the most part our flight was uneventful, though we did leave a few minutes late. We began boarding on time, but for some reason, we got all jammed up and stopped in a huge long long long jetway. It was the longest jetway I’d ever been in and we were there for perhaps 15 minutes or more. We never learned the reason, but once we did get on board, things moved relatively quickly and we were underway and they served dinner shortly after we got into the air. We had sprung for Norwegian Premiere class and we had loads of legroom, a nice bit of recline on the seats, a leg rest that came up, and blankets.

After dinner, we all watched a little more from the entertainment options (Emmaline was delighted they had her favorite movie which is Singin’ in the Rain). I was exhausted having been up really early that morning for a workout (that I also work up extra early for and then couldn’t go back to sleep). So I immediately fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then I woke up and slept somewhat fitfully off and on for a couple hours. Finally a couple hours prior to landing, I threw in the towel. Roger was awake, though he did eventually go back to sleep for a little while and Emmaline woke up shortly after. She tried to sleep a bit more but gave up and asked to watch the end of Singin’ in the Rain so I let her do that.

A short while after, the lights in the cabin began to come up slowly to glow a faint blue, then a little brighter, then a little brighter, then they changed warmer and warmer until they were orange, then that got slowly brighter until it was light and they started serving breakfast, around 6 AM. Breakfast was a little odd (salad and cold cuts with a dinner roll for the meat eaters and salad, a couple of pieces of fruit and a muffin for me in the vegetarian category) but nobody was super hungry anyway.

I finished the end of my movie (Murder on the Orient Express) and it was wrapping up just as we landed. We arrived at passport control which was BONKERS. After almost an hour there, we were stamped and on our way. We grabbed our luggage and went to find train tickets. We purchased really crazy expensive tickets for Gatwick Express train to Victoria station and also picked up a reloadable “Oyster card” for the public transit system. All told we spent over $200 (US) for transit in the UK, which I had not budgeted for. Then we grabbed some muffins and headed for the trains. Arriving on the platform, we realized we saw our train on the next platform over. We quickly booked it over there just as it was leaving. Sigh. No problem, there would be another one along soon….on another platform. Moving platforms again, we waited. Then we heard an announcement that there was a train routing issue and there was a terminating train at our platform in the way. So we had to move platforms again. Finally on the correct platform our train came and took us on the 30 minute trip to Victoria station.

Once at Victoria station, we were a bit turned around, but eventually found our way to our hotel. It being 10 AM, our room wasn’t ready yet so we dropped out bags and went back to Victoria station to catch the train one stop up the line. We exited and followed some directions I found online for watching some pieces of the changing of the guard without being in the giant crowds of people at the palace. We made it just in time!











After the men in funny hats marched about a bit, we went over to Buckingham Palace to look around, but there were still oodles of people there and the guard was still doing their bit behind the gates and we couldn’t really see anything so we went to go eat. The cute tea and sandwich shop I had on my list to visit was closed for renovations so instead we took the tube back to a restaurant near our hotel. The food was fine, but the service was probably some of the worst I’ve ever had. I’m usually pretty forgiving. Being a waitperson is a tough job, but we were weary and after asking for water, I kid you not, four times in the span of 25 minutes and not receiving so much as a drop I was losing it. After our extremely long and tiring lunch, we went back to our hotel where we all crashed for an hour. It was hard to get up again, but we forced ourselves (or in the case of Emmaline, was dragged bodily of the bed) and went out for our reservation for the London Eye. It was a little early to go, but too little time to really do anything, so we just got off the tube and wandered around a bit. We checked out Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, which is completely and totally covered top to bottom in scaffolding. His little face peeks out and that’s it. That was sort of a bummer. I know it’s necessary to keep him in top form, but it was still too bad for us.













When it was time for our London Eye reservation, we went over and got right on with our timed tickets I had purchased in advance. It was a great day for the Eye which no cloud cover or haze or anything. We could see really far. Emmaline was pretty underwhelmed by the Eye and I think it might have been more fun if we had that iconic view of Big Ben and Houses of Parliament (which were also somewhat obscured by equipment and scaffolding).



After the Eye, we tried to book it over to London Bridge to see if we could gain entry before they closed at 5:30. Alas, we arrived at 5:35 as they were closing the doors. Instead we walked around the Tower of London and did a little shopping in their store. Then it was back on the tube to Victoria to grab dinner near our hotel. Dinner was unfortunately sort of underwhelming and overpriced (again). I was not doing well on the restaurant front! After dinner we returned to our room and all of us crashed out instantly.

 
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Really looking forward to this report! I learned quite a lot from your Alaska trip report (we were on the 5/21/18 cruise). Your London photos are lovely!
 


London and travel to Barcelona
June 14, 2018

I woke up at 4:30 AM. Um, body? I don’t need to go to a workout this morning. I tried to go back to sleep, but it never happened. I just sort of rested instead. Everyone else was able to sleep until a more reasonable hour. After we ate breakfast in our hotel (which was actually a decent spread of food for only £10.50 for adults and free for kids) we checked out, handed them our baggage and returned to Victoria Station to take the tube to the Tower of London. By this point we were experts and thank goodness because it was rush hour and the number of people was insane. We weren’t able to get on the first train that came, but we did make it onto the second train. After a few stops, it thinned out and we were able to sit down, which was nice because I’m trying to save my foot as much as possible after breaking it seven weeks ago. It’s mostly okay, but it still aches a bit and does a weird thing where if I move it a certain way, the bone fragment that cracked off will get into a weird position and hurt until I get it popped back in (lovely image, I know).

I didn’t really talk about why we were in London in advance of our Mediterranean cruise. When checking out airfare, it was really insanely, ridiculously expensive to fly to Barcelona one way and then back home from Rome one way. We looked at round trips into either Barcelona or Rome and those were cheaper, but not by very much. They also had a lot of stops. I couldn’t get a good flight into Barcelona without making either two stops or having really long layovers, usually in London. Then Norwegian announced nonstop service from Austin to London starting in March and I looked into it. Their prices were really really good. But then with their partners, we were looking at another really long layover in London because the flight to Barcelona wouldn’t be until 4:25 PM. Ultimately, we decided that splitting the travel into two days and not spending 7 hours sitting in the London airport would be better for our sanity and overall adjustment to the time change. At the end of the trip, I was really happy with how we arranged it. We loved our time in London and it really did make the travel overall so much nicer to just have one long non-stop for the transatlantic portion of our flying. I mentioned we sprung for Premiere class and it was about the same as the round trips we were looking at on British Airways to/from Barcelona. We perhaps ended up spending more money with the overnight hotel, food and transportation, but like I said, we had a lot of fun in London so I call it a win.

Back to our story! We arrived this drizzly morning to the Tower of London somewhat earlier than anticipated because I had given us a lot of time to get over there in case of difficulties with public transit. Since the weather was cool and windy with a slight bit of drizzle so we waited inside Starbucks when Emmaline noticed that people were lining up so we went over to get in line. At precisely 9 AM (and not a moment earlier) they began letting people inside and we went straight for the crown jewels (with just about everyone else). It was so great being there early without giant crowds. When we arrived, the jewel guards were in the middle of some kind of pomp - I guess setting up for the day. That was fun to watch and we were able to spend quite a bit of time in with the jewels there really getting a good look at everything. (Sorry, no photos of the jewels - it's not allowed!)





We spent quite a bit of time total at the Tower of London. Emmaline wanted to look at every since thing and read all the information about. She loved it and was completely entranced. She ended up buying a sticker book about the British monarchy that actually has quite a bit of history in it. She’s mostly read it so far and only done a few of the sticker activities. She’s always been interested in history and people, gravitating towards biographies when we visit the library. Roger and I, on the other hand, were getting tired and hungry so we pried Emmaline out of there and took the tube back, stopping at a café called Giraffe on our way back to the hotel. This one was a winner and everyone enjoyed their lunch quite a bit. Hooray!



Back at the hotel, we grabbed our luggage and turned back around again to Victoria station to take the train back to Gatwick for our flight to Barcelona. Our flight to Barcelona was mostly uneventful except for the three bros behind us having some kind of party the whole time. They were completely aggravating and boisterous the entire flight. Upon landing, when these 30-something blokes ran at full tilt toward baggage claim, I turned to a guy who had been near us on our flight and said, “and people think Americans are loud and vulgar…” His response was, “I apologize on behalf of the British people.” We smiled at each other with a little chuckle. I guess there are idiots all around the globe.

In Barcelona, since we didn’t have EU passports, we had to go through passport control and, much to Emmaline’s delight, earned another stamp. Then we picked up our baggage and made our way to the Aerobus service I had booked. We boarded the bus and it left just a few minutes later. The journey wasn’t too long and we got off and found our hotel fairly easily (only one wrong turn). We had already eaten a surprisingly tasty and fairly cheap dinner on the plane so we didn’t need to search for food and it was fairly late by this time so Emmaline got into bed while Roger and I organized our things for the next day until we too made our way to bed.
 
Barcelona
June 15, 2018

We woke up, got ready and ate breakfast in our hotel. Like in London, we had to pay for it, but that’s okay because it was a nice spread of hot and cold foods and was tasty and convenient. I’d rather pay for good breakfast than have a “free” breakfast that’s crummy. We went back to the room and gathered our things before making our way to the metro station. It was very close to our hotel and thankfully not at all busy. We bought a single T-10 metro card. It’s a 10 ride card for €10 that can be shared by multiple people so long as they are traveling together. We wouldn’t need all 10 rides, but it was still a better value for us because single rides are €2.20.

We found the appropriate platform and waited for a train to take us to Sagrada Familia. Upon emerging from the train, we all ooohed and aaahed at the impressive sight of the huge church. Because I wasn’t sure how long the metro would take us, I had again overestimated the time it would take and we found ourselves quite early for our 9:30 entry time. So we did a little shopping and bought an overpriced fridge magnet and an overpriced shirt for Emmaline. The later of which we purchased because they wouldn’t let me use my credit card for the magnet and we hadn’t yet found and ATM to try to get any Euros out yet.

After that, it was about time and we made our way over to the church for our reservation to go up into the Nativity Tower. We took the elevator up to the top of the tower and took in the view of the city, which was incredible. Then it was time to climb down down down 300 steps to the bottom again. After that, we picked up our audio guides and went through the 7 different areas with audio information. It was very informative, but I think at some points Emmaline had a difficult time understanding some of it. Partly it wasn’t geared towards kids and partly because, not being a christian, she doesn’t have context when it tells you to look for the three wise men and so forth.





The church is really incredible. At first glance, to me it seemed random in design, but then after hearing the audio guide, I better understood the eastern facade is the Nativity (birth of Jesus) which is warm, organic and inviting and the western side is his death (the Passion facade) and it’s more austere and difficult to take in. Ultimately, there will be a glory facade as well, but as the church is still under construction, it’s not there yet. It’s a little strange to visit a church that’s been under construction for over 100 years and still has another 8 years to go.




I wasn’t sure what to make of Gaudi before we visited Barcelona, but now I definitely appreciate his work. His love of nature and organic style, the fact that he thought about form and function and that he appreciated both the beauty of simplicity and could also make something unique that had a lot going on. In his time, while he was successful, he was a little ahead of his time and not appreciated by everyone.

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We left Sagrada Familia around 11:45 and went back the area of our hotel in search of lunch. We went to the lunch spot I had chosen for us in my initial research and sat down to eat only to be presented with a breakfast menu. We are often okay with breakfast for lunch (or dinner) but nobody was feeling like breakfast again and as they weren’t going to be serving lunch until 1 PM, we opted to go elsewhere. There were a few options nearby and we chose one of them. It ended up being terrible and nobody was impressed by it. Oh well.

From there, we went back to our hotel to relax for a little bit and regroup before making our way on foot on a little walking tour I had found online and modified somewhat to match up well with a book that we had found for Emmaline called Mission: Barcelona. In the book, it has pages dedicated to various sights around the city and then the kids are supposed to find certain elements at each site and kid-friendly information is given about them. We used it some at Sagrada Familia as well.



On our walking tour we started at nearby Placa de Catalunya around 2 PM. From there, we walked south down La Rambla and saw several small sights there. La Rambla was very busy and crowded with lots of tourists as well as locals shopping and moving through the city. Eventually we veered off into the Gothic Quarter which was much more quiet and beautiful. First stop was a chocolate and pastry shop where we enjoyed a delicious treat. After that we went into a cute little shop with handmade jewelry. Emmaline bought herself some earrings and I selected a gift for someone.





After treats and shopping we continued to see several other sites in the Gothic Quarter. If you should happen to be headed to Barcelona in the nearby future and you would like this tour, please let me know and I would be happy to send it to you. I’ll have to find the original source because bits and pieces of it are not mine and I would like to give credit where it is due! We ended our tour at the Disney Store in Barcelona where I bought myself a Barcelona/Mickey Mouse t-shirt that I love.

After this, we walked back to our hotel, stopping along the way to obtain some money from an ATM, arriving back around 4:30 in the afternoon. Until it was time for dinner, we relaxed at the hotel, did a little packing up and Emmaline watched some cartoons in Spanish. We were sort of uncertain about dinner but found a place that looked good so we made our way over there at 6:30 which is apparently really early for people in Europe. Back in Austin, it would have been hopping, but we were literally the only people in the entire restaurant. Our meal was really good. I had a bunch of tapas and Roger had an actual meal. Emmaline at most of Roger’s, not liking the tapas we had ordered for her. So he ate her tapas instead. It all worked out in the end.

After dinner, we went around the corner to a pastry shop and had some amazing dessert. Emmaline had drinking chocolate, I had a chocolate and orange cake/mousse thing and Roger had chocolate mouse with passionfruit. It was really really good.



We got back to the room and got everything packed up in preparation for checking out and embarking aboard the Disney Magic the next morning.
 
After dinner, we went around the corner to a pastry shop and had some amazing dessert.
I'm loving your report!

Was it this place?
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Our AirBnB was less than a block from there. Amazing.

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My daughter picked the rose and it was super yummy and big enough for 5 of us to share! I had thought we'd make it back, but we never did.
 


I'm loving your report!

Was it this place?
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Our AirBnB was less than a block from there. Amazing.

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My daughter picked the rose and it was super yummy and big enough for 5 of us to share! I had thought we'd make it back, but we never did.

Yes! That's the same place. We ate dinner around the corner at Telefèric Restaurant. How funny! That was probably one of my favorite desserts during our trip. It was so amazing.
 
Barcelona and Embarkation
June 16, 2018

Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast in the hotel again. Then we finished packing and checked out before waiting in the lobby for our tour to pick us up. I had arranged for Barcelona Day Tours to take us on a half day tour before dropping us off at the port to board the ship. They picked us up around 9 AM and we began the tour. First we drove past a block of historical houses that were originally part of an architectural competition. One of the houses was designed by Gaudi and is called Casa Batllo. (Gaudi didn’t win, by the way.) The house is really neat with it’s skull shaped balconies and dragon scale roof. From there we drove on to one of Gaudi’s other houses in the city La Padrera. Once again, it was not well-received in it’s time. It’s large windows and organic flowing design apparently made people think it looked like a quarry.



From there we drove onward to La Sagrada Familia. This tour didn’t go inside, but we did walk around a bit and see the two completed facades and got a couple of photos from a distance. We got back in the van and continued to Park Guell. This was a large expansive park that was originally intended to be a subdivision. But people didn’t buy any of the parcels of land there for various reasons so Gaudi was the only person who lived there and ultimately, after his death, it became a park. It was really beautiful and there weren’t too many people there as they limit the number of visitors the are allowed in the park at any one time.









We spent probably about an hour total there at the park before proceeding onward to Montjuic, a “mountain” there in Barcelona. Coming from Colorado, we would not really call it a mountain but it was certainly a higher hill. We stopped there to take in a view of the city before driving past the site of the Olympic games in 1992.

By this point, we were all feeling ready to get on the ship. I would have been perfectly happy to skip everything past Park Guell, but I can see where some people might want to see the view from Montjuic and see the Olympic sites (even though there’s not much to see, honestly.) We arrived at the port slightly after 1 PM and we were hungry and ready for the ship! The security line wasn’t long, but we did have to wait to check-in. At check-in they gave Emmaline her bracelet for the kid’s club, which was a new thing (usually that’s a separate line). The lady there didn’t seem super with-it otherwise. I had to ask for a Navigator and then she asked me what that was. Someone else told her what to do.

Then we had a fairly long line to get on board the ship. Usually we are early to port and we are in one of the first boarding groups and we get right on. While it was open boarding (meaning, they weren’t calling boarding numbers any longer and anyone could just board) we had to wait quite awhile for families in front of us to be announced. I would have thought that it would be easy to walk right on at 1:30 PM. We did skip the embarkation photo because that was quite a long line.

Once onboard, Roger and Emmaline took our luggage directly to the room (since rooms become available at 1:30) and I went to see if I could get a reservation for Palo brunch because I wasn’t able to get a reservation in advance. With only one sea day, there were limited spots, but I was hopeful that some reservations were held back (usually they are). Much to my surprise, they were all booked up so I put my name on the wait list. I guess since we boarded late, others had snatched them all up.

I went down to the room to meet up again with Roger and Emmaline and apparently they had just opened the rooms because Emmaline and Roger were just then going in to the stateroom area. I’m so glad I got to go in with them because Heather, our amazing travel agent (who is a great friend we met on our Alaskan cruise two years ago), had ordered a special room decoration just for Emmaline to celebrate her birthday. Even though she doesn’t turn 10 until we get home, we celebrated her birthday onboard and it was so fun to see the room all decorated. She was so excited by the decorations. I’m so glad we met Heather; she is a treasure.

We dropped our stuff off and then went up to deck 9 to Cabanas to each lunch. Lunch was still quite busy at that time, but we loaded up our plates and had a nice lunch. After lunch we unpacked and organized our things in the room until 3 PM, at which point Emmaline and I went to the Promenade Lounge for a meet up with others in our Facebook cruise group. Roger stayed in the room to have a rest and then start some laundry (which was quite busy already). At the meet, Emmaline met up with a friend she had been emailing with from our Facebook group prior to the cruise. They became fast friends in real life and asked to go to the kid’s club together so off they went.

After about an hour at the meet and greet, I returned to the room to finish organizing a bit before the muster drill at 4:30. Emmaline returned around the same time when they closed the club for muster. After the muster drill, we made our way up to deck 9 for the Sail Away party. I stayed for a little bit (until they played the “When You Wish Upon A Star” horn) before going back to the room to finish unpacking and organizing. Emmaline hung out at the party with her friend and another new one she met that day in the club. The three girls danced until around 5:45 when the party ended and she came back to the room. At 6 PM it was time for dinner. Normally we have late seating, but since we had seen all the shows and late seating is even later in Europe (8:30) we decided to go for early dining. Ultimately I think it was the right call this time around.

We were pleased to find we had the server we had requested, Jay from Jamaica, who had been our server on our cruise on the Magic last March. He had a new assistant server that we didn’t like quite as well, unfortunately, but Jay was still great. We were surprised to find that we had no tablemates and were seated alone at a table for three. We’ve not had this happen before and it was a little bit of a bummer because Emmaline didn’t have a friend at dinner, but ultimately it did make our meals a little faster, I think.



After dinner we did a little shopping in the stores and met a few characters dressed in their Spanish outfits in the atrium. I took some lovely photos of the sunset before we all turned in to get a good night’s sleep for our full day of touring the next day.

 
Oh man. I was hoping you'd gone in the castle so you would have awesome aerial shots of the Magic. :love:

We had considered going up to the castle the day before but we did our little walking tour instead. Ultimately it was the right call, but a great view of the Magic is always fun.

There were other things I would have liked to do in Barcelona like going out to Monserrat. Too many awesome things, too little time!
 
Marseille
June 17, 2018

I slept so well overnight. The beds on DCL are some of the very very few beds that aren’t my own that I get a good night’s sleep in. They are perfect. We got ready and ate breakfast in Cabanas before disembarking at 8:30 to meet our private tour guide, Cedric of Be A Guest Tours. This day was probably one of my favorite days of the cruise. We had arranged a custom tour with Cedric in advance, giving him three criteria: something related to Van Gogh, something historical and something related to wine. He built us the perfect day that included all of this and more.

Upon coming out of the terminal building at the appointed time, we did not see him so we waited a bit, but still he wasn’t there. Thankfully, one of our European SIM cards we got had calling and texting capabilities (the one in Roger’s phone had only data) so I tried to call him. We had a bad connection, but then I sent a text. He explained that the port security had not yet received the ship roster from Disney and as such, wouldn’t allow him access to the port until they could compare the names of his clients to the name on the ship roster. So we walked a little ways out and met him. He apologized so much, but really it wasn’t his fault. All the other tour guides were experiencing the same thing and were very frustrated. This was Disney’s first official stop in Marseille. They did stop here last year but only after being unable to port in Villefranche the previous day due to rough seas. So they had turned that day into the a Sea Day and on their scheduled Sea Day, they ported in Marseille instead. But this was the first “on the books” stop ever for DCL in Marseille. Clearly they need to work some kinks out.

So we have Cedric, our tour guide, who I immediately liked due to his skull print shoes, and he brought along another associate, Remy who was a sommelier training to be a tour guide. They were both very nice fellows and in Cedric’s nice van we made our way north into the beautiful French countryside. About an hour later we stopped in the small village of Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Our first stop was at a local patisserie where we ate incredible french pastries: croissants for Emmaline and me and an eclair for Roger. They were so delicious! Then Cedric took us around the little village, showing us some different sights around the town. The town as also notable as Nostradamus was from there.



Back in the van for a quick five minute drive up the road to some Roman ruins. The road we were traveling was once a Roman road: Via Domitia. The Via Domitia was the first Roman road built in Gaul to link Italy and Hispania (across what is now southern France). Glanum, the site where we stopped has two well-preserved ruins from the 1st century BC that are known as “les Antiques.” The first is a triumphal arch (the oldest in France) and the other is the Mausoleum of the Julii, apparently one of the best preserved mausoleums of the Roman era. The tomb houses a man who was recognized for his military service along with his wife and their three children. We only looked at these two ruins, not the rest of the ruins of a little town, of which there is very little left.



While we were at the site Cedric pointed out an almond tree. We found some almonds on it and cracked them open, which Emmaline enjoyed immensely. This was one thing that I really loved about the tour. He would point out little things along the way or pull the car to the side of the road when he saw something of interest. Early on, he had stopped and picked some lavender growing, which delighted Emmaline. Cedric has a young daughter the same age at home so he really understood what kids that age were interested in, which was great.



We left the ruins and a short drive up the road we came to Monastere Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, a psychiatric hospital where Van Gogh lived for about 18 months. It was a very prolific period of his life in terms of painting and you would probably recognize many of the paintings he completed while he was undergoing treatment there. Emmaline really likes Van Gogh and had asked if we could go somewhere related to him during our time in France so Cedric built it into our custom tour. Around the site they had prints of Van Gogh so you could compare with the scenery.

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Our next stop was to a small olive oil… farm? Orchard? Anyway, Moulin Castelas have olive oil trees there and they press and bottle olive oil. Cedric told us that they have the best olive oil in France, and supposedly many Michelin star restaurants use their oil. We tasted a variety of kinds of oils and made a purchase of a small container of oil to take home with us.

We left Moulin Castelas and drove up a small mountain where they have a show under the mountain in an old quarry. Carrieres de Lumieres in Les Baux-de-Provence is a projection show that changes every 6 months or so. The shows use projectors and music all over the inside of the old quarry to create an immersive multi-media experience. As you walk through there are different pictures all around you, including on the ceiling and floor. They have two parts to the show: a short that features 60’s pop culture and a longer show with Picasso and other Spanish painters. After about 45 minutes we finished the shows and then Cedric took us to another village nearby for lunch. (I actually do recommend clicking the link as the video there really does paint a better picture of what it looks like in the quarry than my little blurry photo does.) I do know that Disney does have this show in some of their Port Adventures and I do recommend it if you're looking to go on a Disney-offered excursion.



In the village Maussane-les-Alpilles at a small café (O Potager de Lisa) we enjoyed fresh locally prepared foods. I had a tart made with locally grown zucchini while Emmaline and Roger split a crepe with ham and cheese. Cedric had also purchased a large bag of fresh local cherries that we all enjoyed which were probably some of the best cherries I’ve ever eaten in my whole life.

After lunch, we drove for about 50 minutes to the village of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. On the way there we drove past Avignon and saw the famous walls and broken bridge before arriving at a winery, Domaine de Beaurenard, for a tour and tasting. At this part of the trip, Remy took the lead for the most part. First we had a little tour of the winery and then finished back in the main room for a tasting. Emmaline had a drink made from water and lavender syrup and was given a little activity book while adults tasted wine.





We left the winery and drove further up the hill to the remains of a castle. Chateauneuf-de-Pape castle sits on a hill atop the village (with a great view) and was once a retreat for the Pope during the period of time when the Pope resided in Avignon (about a 100 year period). The castle was not used for very long before the Pope returned to Rome. Since then, age, neglect, and war have taken their toll and only a couple of partial walls remain.





At this point it was getting late in the day and Cedric was mindful of our all-aboard time of 5:45 and wanted to make sure we would be back in plenty of time. It was no problem and we arrived back by 5 PM to reboard the Magic, saying goodbye to Cedric and Remy and thanking them for a wonderful day in France.

Upon returning to the ship, we returned to our room to regroup and get ready for dinner. Our first night we had dinner in Lumiere’s and this night our rotation had us in Animator’s Palate. I always love the little animation show and the appearance of Sorcerer Mickey. I’ve seen it many times and I know what’s coming, but I still love it and I love Emmaline’s face when she sees Mickey. It’s always so fun.



After dinner we opted not to go to the show, again, because we’ve seen it, but also because it was the same show as the night before. For some reason they are showing all the shows two times in a row in the Walt Disney Theatre and no movies or variety entertainers in there (except for one variety act later in the week). It’s not my favorite thing. I was really hoping for an evening where Incredibles 2 would be playing in the Walt Disney Theatre, but that wasn’t on the schedule either. I think a strongly worded letter is in order.

So instead we went to Fathoms (usually an adult nightclub venue, but sometimes it has family entertainment as well) to see a Magician/Ventriloquist. I thought he had a few funny moments and Emmaline seemed thoroughly entertained, so that was good.

After the show we came back to the room to prepare for the next day’s adventures and then go to bed.
 
Great trip report! I'm enjoying following along - what a fun excursion, too! I am sad about the double shows - I do hope you let them know how you feel.
 
Great trip report! I'm enjoying following along - what a fun excursion, too! I am sad about the double shows - I do hope you let them know how you feel.

I did. I spoke with Guest Services, the cruise director, and wrote it on my comment card. After the cruise we got a web survey via email and I put it there as well.
 
Villefranche-Sur-Mer (Nice)
This morning we had a little more relaxed timeline. I woke up first and went up to decks 9 and 10 to see the city of Villefranche-Sur-Mer. I took a few photos and took in the view from the little bay where we had dropped anchor. I came back to the room and everyone else got up and we all went and ate breakfast in Cabanas. After breakfast, we collected our items from the room and just as we were doing so, a little after 9, they announced that they had moved to open tenders. Prior to that, if you wanted to leave the ship you had to go to the movie theatre to get a ticket for the tender boat. Priority was given to Disney excursions and so once they had a break in excursions, the would collect those with tickets from the theatre and take them down to the tender boats to go ashore. But since it was now open tender, we could proceed directly to a boat on deck 1 aft or forward. We went forward and there was no boat so they sent us aft.



Once ashore in Villefranche, we made the walk to the bus stop. It wasn’t far, but it was a fairly steep climb at points. As soon as we arrived at the bus stop, bus number 81 arrived (which was one of two buses we could have taken to Nice, the other being the 100 bus). We got onboard and I only had a 20 Euro bill. The driver seemed annoyed, but gave me change back and our tickets and off we went.





(That's not a backdrop, there was a photographer at the tender dock.)

The drive to Nice wasn’t long, maybe 10-15 minutes and we got off at the end of the line and then tried to figure out where the tram picked up (tram being their version of light trail that travels in a U shape around the city). We should have gotten off at the second to last stop because that’s basically where we ended up going to get the tram. On the tram weren’t able to get off at the stop we needed for where we wanted to go, so we got off the tram and continued on foot, soon discovering the reason for shortened tram route. They were setting up for some huge music festival and due to this, we weren’t able to enter Promenade du Paillon at all. This was disappointing as spending some time strolling in this large park was one of the main things we were going to enjoy.



We made a detour around the outer edge of the park down toward the ocean to find the small tourist train that picks up at the base of the park to find…nothing. So we looked around a bit and I finally called the phone number on their website only to find that they were meeting elsewhere, presumably due to the music festival. The new location was, of course back up near where we had walked from tram stop where we got off. There just hadn’t been a train there at that time so we didn’t see it. We began the walk back, but took the other way around the park this time and found a cute little double decker carousel. I had found mention of it online during my research for things to do in Nice and I had been hoping to find it, but it had been an old article and hadn’t seen any recent reports of the carousel. So we stopped and Emmaline took a ride.





After the carousel ride, we arrived at the real location for the tourist train in time to take the 11 AM train (they run every 30 minutes). The train is about a 40 minute ride around the city with a 10 minute stop at the very top a big hill that overlooks all of Nice. We had time to look around, buy a postcard and Emmaline took some photos with some birds a man had at the top. There was also a gentleman up there playing top hits on an accordion. When we arrived he was squeezing away to the tune of “Uptown Funk.”











After the tourist train returned, we hunted down the lunch spot I had selected for us in my research, Femme du Boulanger, which I described in my notes as, “a French cafe serving breads with stuff on top.” And that’s pretty much what we had and mine was amazing. Mine was a large piece of toast with some deliciously seasoned and sauced mushrooms topped with some kind of gooey melted cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. It was served with a salad on the side. Delicious!



After lunch, we did a little shopping and stopped into a patisserie for some dessert. More yum! Then we set off in search of the post office to mail the postcard Emmaline wrote during lunch and Roger wanted to buy some wine. At the post office, I waited in the line only to get to the front of it and find that it was actually a bank counter. So I got into another long line and when I got to the front of the line I found that it was only for packages and I needed to buy a stamp from the automatic machine. I had considered those, but they were all in French and I didn’t know how much a postcard to the US cost. The man, who spoke no English (and I really don’t speak more than a phrase or two of French) seemed to take pity on me and took me over to buy the stamp and off we went.



We met back up with Roger and made our way back to the bus stop to catch the bus back to Villefranche and then the tender back to the ship, arriving back on board around 3. Thinking about our day and our choice for this port, we had a very nice lunch and the little train was cute, but I sort of regret not going to visit the village of Eze (which was another option we had from Villefranche). The other option from Villefranche is Monaco, which I don’t regret not visiting because I wasn’t interested in that at all. Too many choices, not enough time!



Back in the room, we relaxed a bit before Emmaline and I went to the Promenade Lounge for “Cogsworth Countdown” games. Initially we were the only ones who showed up, but eventually some other kids joined in. We had a collection of silly party games we played and Emmaline had a good time. After the games Emmaline and I went up to deck 9 for some snacks (aka ice cream) and then Emmaline went back to Promenade to play a wheel of fortune type game. When that was finished we met Minnie and Mickey in their adorable French outfits. When that was done, we went back to the room where Emmaline watched some Mickey cartoons on the stateroom TV while I worked on typing up my trip report for the first few days of the trip.

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Soon it was time for dinner and our first time in the new restaurant, Rapunzel’s Royal Table (which was super fun - the Thugs are fantastic). The prior evening, our head server had noticed me eating a vegetarian dish and asked if I was a vegetarian. He told me he’d have something special prepared for me for this evening. Sure enough, when the entrees came, I had a special Indian curry brought to me. There were two different curries, plus rice and some flatbread (it wasn’t Naan, but more like a tortilla, roti maybe?). It was really delicious and I would receive a new Indian meal every night thereafter!





After dinner, they were showing Tangled: The Musical in the Walt Disney Theatre but we weren’t planning to see it because we saw it already the last time we were on the Magic. But Emmaline wanted to see it again so she went with one of the friends she met onboard. While she was at the show, Roger and I downloaded photos to the computer and I worked a little more on the trip report. Once she returned, we got our things ready for the next day before going to bed.
 
Genoa
June 19, 2018

Our tour wasn’t until 9:30 so we got to sleep in! Well, two of the three of us did anyway. I got up and headed to the gym. I wrote myself a workout the night before which I did in a little bit of space I staked out in the busy gym. After I finished I went up to deck 10 to take in the views and get some photos. I went back to the room and showered then we all went to Cabana’s for breakfast before disembarking to meet our guide.



Michela was born and raised in Genoa and from 9:30 - 12 she walked us around 5 attractions of the city. We started by getting on the underground for a quick trip to the Ancient port which is now a sort of promenade area and Michela gave us some information about Genoa as an important port city.



Then we walked to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. The beautiful cathedral has a really interesting striped pattern and two incredible lions on either side of it’s steps. In order to go inside, I needed to have my knees covered (I was wearing shorts). Michela had a yoga blanket in her bag so I wrapped that around my lower half and I was all set. The church was lovely inside and Michela pointed out various aspects of the interior.







Our next stop was the Palazzo Ducale which was at one time the home of the Doge during a time when Genoa was it’s own republic from the 13th century until Napoleon conquered in 1797.



After this we went to see what remains of the house Christopher Columbus lived in when he was a boy. His house is right next to some remains of the ancient walls of the city (interestingly, the house is on the outside of the walls).



To end the tour, we walked to Via Garibaldi, a main thoroughfare of the old city with many old noble homes. One of the homes is currently the Chamber of Commerce so we were able to go inside and take a look around at several of the rooms. Once done there, we continued along the street looking at some of the other old houses along the way which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.







At this point we parted ways with our guide and she recommended some options for lunch. We settled in at a little cafe where Roger had a sandwich that he really enjoyed. Mine was fine, but not amazing though we both enjoyed the lovely atmosphere of the beautiful and quiet street while we ate.



We left lunch and went in search of dessert. Prior to our trip I read an article about gelato in Italy. It’s everywhere, but unfortunately, the majority of it is junk made from mixes. So I set about creating a list of legitimate artisanal handmade gelato. So we made our way over to a little gelato shop tucked in a teeny side “street” (more of an alley). As the slightly annoyed shop owner (who thankfully spoke English) translated the flavors for us, a line of irritated Italians formed behind us waiting for gelato. The gelato was excellent and worth every cranky look in our direction.



I finished our gelato and made our way back to the area where we began our tour, but Roger wanted to find a wine shop. We all looked and eventually he continued trying to look while Emmaline rode a really odd little carousel type thing that was there. Finally he gave up and we all rode the subway back to where the ship was docked. Upon arriving, he realized that there was another wine shop at the other end of the subway line that he had originally discounted since it wasn’t in walking distance. As our tickets were good for 100 minutes he decided to go in search of wine while Emmaline and I boarded the ship.



Once back onboard at around 2:30, I did some laundry while Emmaline watched something on the stateroom TV. After awhile we went to deck 9 to meet Goofy (in his Italian outfit) and have some snacks (aka ice cream) and Roger came back aboard around 3:30. Then Emmaline met up with a friend in the kid’s club while I worked on my trip report and Roger had a little rest in the stateroom.

After about an hour, Emmaline left the club to meet Pluto and then Goofy (again, apparently?) with her friend and then we all met up for dinner at 6 in Lumiere’s. Once again, I was presented with some amazing Indian food. The Indian food was a life saver this cruise because I actually found that I wasn’t as into many of the menu items this time around. Usually I can find things that work for me, but this cruise I had several nights where not much was appealing so it was super great to have the Indian food each night in case I wasn’t excited about the menu offerings.

I’ve touched on it a little bit in an earlier entry, but I feel I should stop and take a moment to further explain the evening entertainment. Traditionally on DCL there is a show each night in the Walt Disney Theatre (the main theatre on board). The show is opposite one’s dining time. So early dining watches the show after dinner and second seating watches the show and then has dinner. Normally there is a different show each night. Traditionally the first evening onboard is a welcome show, then there are three main stage shows (on the Magic they are “Twice Charmed: A Cinderella Story,” “ Tangled: The Musical,” and “Disney Dreams”). Then each of the other nights there is usually a movie one night and a variety entertainer another night. Then they have other variety entertainers in Fathoms (a smaller venue on board). This summer they have mixed things up a bit and they are showing each of the main shows two nights in a row. The first two nights were “Twice Charmed” and then the next two were “Tangled” and then they had a variety entertainer and then the final two nights were “Disney Dreams.” I found this annoying. We’ve seen all those shows and some of them multiple times. I was hoping at least to see “Incredibles 2” in the theatre one evening. So we skipped the shows every night (well, Roger and I did) except to see the variety entertainer.

At some point after dinner, Emmaline was off doing her own thing, maybe in the kid's club again, and Roger and I went out on deck and watched us pull out of port. It was quite a maneuver! We had pulled in forward and there was a long inlet. We backed out for quite a ways, then did a full turn and went forward the rest of the way. We watched as the pilot ship followed alongside and then eventually it pulled up alongside the ship and the local pilot disembarked and got onto the little ship.



This evening we went to see a variety entertainer in Fathoms (which turns into an adult nightclub after about 9:30 or so). Chris Cox is a magician/comedian who had a kind of “mind reading” thing. It wasn’t really mind reading, obviously, he said he used a variety of techniques to discern information about people. His show was entertaining and we enjoyed it. After that we were pretty beat so we made our way back to the room and got ready for bed, turning in somewhat early for the evening.
 
Livorno (Florence and Pisa)
June 20, 2018

This day proved to be exhausting and perhaps not well planned but was also marred by traffic delays, hot temperatures and some scheduling problems. It isn’t that I didn’t plan, but I think ultimately we bit off more than we could chew. The problem was that Emmaline wanted to go to Pisa and while I was curious to see the tower, ultimately, I thought that Florence was more intriguing, even if we’ve been there before (well, Roger and I had been there).

We got up, ate breakfast at Cabanas and made our way off the ship at around 8:40. In Livorno cruise ships dock in the industrial area of town so we took a 15 minute shuttle ride to the center of town to meet up with the bus service we had booked (Tuscany Bus) that would take us first to Florence and then Pisa. We arrived early and waited for the bus to arrive. When the bus arrived, there was some kind of issue with some ladies who I think had five people but had only booked for four or something and they were mad because the bus was full, but then it sounded like when they declined to board, the woman in charge sold some of their seats to someone else and then only two could get on because they were trying to sell their tickets to someone else. It was sort of a mess, there was a lot of yelling and we were delayed leaving by about 10 minutes.

Finally we were on the road and a little ways outside of Livorno we came upon a traffic jam. That delayed us another further 10 minutes or so, but I was relieved when it cleared up. Unfortunately, a bit later we happened upon another traffic jam and this one was really bad, delaying us nearly 30 minutes. Our time in Florence was very limited so I was rather concerned at this point. I had given us quite a bit of buffer to get over to our main destination, the Pitti Palace, but now it was getting really tight. Our tickets allowed us entry between 11-11:30 and we were originally scheduled to arrive in Florence at 10:45 so I thought that would be plenty of time. Unfortunately, we arrived at the bus depot in Florence at 11:20!

We raced off the bus, but Emmaline and I really had to use the restroom so we made our way to the Burger King we saw near the train station (which is sort of part of the bus depot). The angry lady behind the counter wouldn’t let us use the restroom without buying something so we joined forces with another American who was in line to order and said told Angry Burger King Lady that we were with her. Angry Burger King Lady scowled but let us into the bathroom.

After that, we raced to the other side of the train station and found a taxi. After about a 10 minute ride, we made it to the Pitti Palace around 11:40. I sheepishly handed them our tickets but they said it was no problem at all. I had originally allocated us from 11 AM - 1 PM there, which meant we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked, but we still enjoyed ourselves at the palace and it’s collection of items was really impressive. I’m glad we went.









We left a little later than I meant to, around 1:10, but I thought we were still doing okay on time. We walked to a nearby pizza restaurant, Gusta Pizza and had some amazing pizza. It was probably the best pizza I had the entire trip. There was a line out the door and it was bit chaotic (thus, not the best atmosphere) but worth it for the incredible food.



After lunch we made our way back to the bus depot on foot, buying a couple of small souvenirs and crossing the famous Ponte Vecchio. Then we stopped at a little bakery for some treats before taking a short detour to stop at a wine bar (of a famous Italian wine family: Antinori) so Roger could peek inside, but we didn’t have time for him to taste anything as our time was already getting really short. We made it back to the bus depot right in the nick of time at 2:30.

From there we journeyed to Pisa. We arrived in Pisa at 4:10 and were told to meet back a the bus in one hour. Busses park about a 10-15 minute walk from the tower so we all walked as a group so we would know where to go. Again, we had a little ticketing problem for our tickets to climb the tower. I had been half-heartedly stalking the Leaning Tower website for tickets to buy them when they went on sale, but life got busy in the month leading up to our departure and I missed the day the tickets went on sale and the time slot we wanted wasn’t available. I resorted to third party tour sellers as they sometime buy tickets for groups and sell them, so they often have different times available. I had found some for 4:30 from Viator which were perfect and purchased them. The thing about Viator is that they are a like Expedia or Travelocity or something. They are more like an online travel agent, so the third party company that had the tickets sent them to me and they were for 3:45 entry with an arrival time of 3:30 which was not going to work and I knew it. When I contacted the vendor they told me that there were no other times available and that on the website if I checked the "additional information" tab, the seventh bullet point down on the page indicated that they don't guarantee a time, they would just give you the closest available and that all sales were non-refundable. I found this sort of ridiculous so I contacted Viator and they said that there was really nothing they could do as each operator set their own guidelines.



So I had these tickets that I paid way way too much money for because, of course, the independent operator had marked them up like crazy beyond what the tower normally charges and they were for the wrong time and they wouldn’t help me and Viator wouldn’t help me either. (I did open a dispute with my credit card company, however.) So we arrived at the tower and I again sheepishly handed over the tickets and they sort of frowned at me, but ultimately took pity on us and let us climb. So up we went 300 steps around a tilted tower, which was very awkward at times. We got to the top and recovered a bit, took some photos and then headed back down, used the facilities, purchased more water and made our way back to the bus. Oh, of course we took the requisite photo, but it was hard to get Emmaline to hold her hands in just the right way so eventually I called it good enough and on we went because time was tight. In the end, it actually came out pretty well!




We got back to the bus right on time and had another drive back to the port, this time taking us directly back to our ship (at which we all clapped when they announced it) and back at 6 PM - dinner time.

So here’s the schedule Tuscany Bus gave me vs. how it actually played out:
  • Drive from Livorno to Florence - scheduled: 9:15 -10:45 (1.5 hours), actually: 9:25 -11:20 (nearly 2 hours)
  • Drive from Florence to Pisa - scheduled: 2:45 - 3:45 (1 hour), actually: 2:45 - 4:10 (nearly 1.5 hours)
  • Drive from Pisa to Livorno - scheduled: 5:00 - 5:30 (30 minutes), actually 5:10 - 6:00 (nearly 1 hour)
So as you can see, we had much less time than we thought we would at each location. They anticipated a total of 3 hours on the bus for the day and we were actually on it for 4.5 hours, even more when you factor in that we were 10-15 minutes sitting on the bus waiting to go (which isn’t even factored in the times above). Some of this is traffic, but I think also some of it is overly ambitious scheduling on the part of Tuscany Bus. Really, I think that there’s simply not enough time in each place once it really shakes down. We probably should have just picked one thing or the other. That said, I’m really glad I saw Pisa and the tower but also the Pitti Palace and lunch were both great in Florence, so I don’t know. It sure was a lot of time spent on a bus, though.

Back at the ship, Emmaline wanted to go right to dinner, but Roger and I wanted to stop by the room for a quick refresh so that’s what we did. Roger and I made our way to Animator’s Palate to meet Emmaline there, arriving around 6:10. This night was "Pirate Night" and we usually dress up quite a bit it, but space in the luggage was limited this time around so we all chose instead some pirate themed t-shirts. We did notice that the Navigator was showing pirate face painting in the kid's club so Emmaline went off to do that after dinner. On this evening we also had the a show in Animator’s which is a fun animation show where we each draw our own little stick figure type drawing and they are brought to life on the screens around the room. It was quite a lot of fun to see.

Roger went back to the room to shower while I went to see about sign-up for spin class the next day because they had put the sign up sheet out at 5 PM. Unfortunately it was already completely full and already had a pretty full wait list. Ah well. Next I made my way across the ship to Palo to see if we were still on the wait list for Palo brunch. Still on the list. It wasn’t looking good. On my way back to the room, I saw in the Navigator that Captain Jack Sparrow was going to be meeting at 8 PM. As I was wearing my “Sparrow is My Co-Pirate” t-shirt, I decided a meet might be in order and went to do that. He wasn’t as good as the last Jack I met, but it was still fun. From there I met up with Roger and Emmaline in the Walt Disney theatre to see the variety entertainer for the evening, JunNk.

JunNk is a lot of fun. We saw them on a cruise a little over a year ago, but it was a short 30 minute set in the smaller venue, Fathoms. We were excited to see a longer set on the big stage. They didn’t disappoint and put on an entertaining show of music and comedy.

After the show, we had some time to kill before the pirate party and fireworks so we went back to the room and watched some stateroom TV. At 10:15 we went to deck 9 for the pirate party. Emmaline found her friends in the “Kid Zone” near the stage, while Roger and I went to deck 10 where things are a little less chaotic. We enjoyed the show and fireworks and checked out the pirate buffet in Cabanas for the first time ever. It’s too bad we weren’t hungry because it actually looked pretty good. I grabbed a little bit of fruit and a cookie anyway because vacation. Emmaline danced until the party was over and then we all met back up at the room. I’m pretty sure I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

 
Looking forward to the rest. We are currently booked on the Barcelona RT in 2019. BFF and I have been to Europe a few times, but of this trip I've only been to Rome & BFF none of these places. We will be excited to celebrate BFF getting to Platinum on this sailing too.

Thanks for the reminders about the drawing option in Animator's and fireworks buffet in Cabanas. Initially I agreed about disappointment of shows being presented twice; yet the flip side is having an alternate chance to see them if one wants to retire early in prep for an early excursion the next morning. On that topic, I admit we tour quite differently. We are not as open to risk in booking our own excursions. Your posts have solidified that out of concern of possibly missing the boat or dinner/show!
 
Your posts have solidified that out of concern of possibly missing the boat or dinner/show!

That's definitely not an impression I meant to give. We were always very early back and never in any danger of missing the boat. We were back on the ship in plenty of time in every port. I think Marseille was the closest in which we boarded at 5 PM for a 5:45 all aboard time. In Livorno, all aboard was 7 PM and we were back by 6 PM.

I understand that everyone has to do what's within their comfort level. On 5 cruises we've done exactly 1 DCL sponsored excursion and it was...fine. I'm sure there are some great ones out there and I know a lot of people have fun on them, but for us, I feel that we get more flexibility on choices, cheaper prices, smaller groups and more personalized service on private excursions. Our absolutely favorite day was our private excursion in Marseille. We would never have had an experience like that if we limited ourselves to just DCL excursions. Just something to think about. :)
 
At Sea
June 21, 2018

Aaaah, a relaxing day at sea! Sort of. I feel like we had a nice mix of activities and down time on our sea day. It was a really fun day and honestly, I could have done with another sea day on the cruise. In the future, I think I’ll look for cruises that have more than just one day at sea.

I woke up, as per usual, before everyone else. It was 7:30 so I tossed on my workout clothes and headed for deck four. My preferred ship workout is a run around deck four. It’s so peaceful in the mornings, especially on sea days and I’ve never missed a deck four run (well, except on our first cruise, but it was only a 3-day). In an earlier entry, I briefly mentioned my broken foot. 7 weeks prior to our cruise, I landed badly from a jump and broke my foot. I was in a boot for nearly 5 weeks and was worried about how it would be during the cruise. I hadn’t run since the injury and there are still a lot of things that hurt it. It had mostly behaved during the cruise, but it was definitely a little achey at times.

It was feeling okay on this particular morning so I decided to go for a very slow, very light shuffle/jog/walk. I would shuffle/jog/walk a lap, then do a series of exercises (pushups, tricep dips on the benches, burpees, etc.) then do another shuffle/jog/walk. The sea was beautiful and I was so happy to be out there. In fact, the seas were incredibly smooth and calm our entire cruise. The movement of the ship was barely perceptible. Partly it was the Mediterranean. It was just really smooth and even glass-like at times. It was very similar to Alaska in this regard. But I also think with the close proximity of the ports, we simply didn’t move all that quickly and when we move fast, the ship does have the tendency to have a bit more motion. It’s also worth noting here that while my foot didn’t bother me during the workout, I did pay for it later and it really ached off and on the rest of the day. I regret nothing. It was 100% worth it. (And per my orthopedist, I can't mess it up further. The only repercussion is that it aches, I'm not making anything worse.)

At 8:30 I went back to the room where Roger was just waking up but Emmaline was still asleep. I got cleaned up and she woke up around 8:45 and we all went to breakfast at Cabana’s around 9:15. I didn’t get a call from Palo so I guess that was a no-go. Too bad. I really like Palo brunch.

At 9:45 it was our assigned time to meet Anna and Elsa so I took Emmaline to do that. Then we had time to squeeze Minnie in at 10 (in her princess dress) before our assigned time for the princess meet and greet at 10:15. By 10:20 we were back to the room and I noticed that Edge was having open house and Emmaline wanted to go so she went there, I worked on a trip report and Roger did a small batch of laundry, which ended up being a good thing, because I had apparently miscounted and barely scraped through (I ended up having to wash a pair of underwear in a sink near the end of the trip so I really really miscounted).



At 11:00 Emmaline came back from open house and watched some TV until 11:30 when she went to go meet Stitch. I took a break from my trip report and went as well. He’s always a fun meet. At 11:45 Emmaline and I went to the Promenade Lounge for DCL’s version of Family Feud, which is played with two big teams (of unrelated people). After that was over at 12:15 we went to Cabanas for lunch. By 1:00 we were back to the room to regroup.

Emmaline went to the character dance party at 1:15, which is always a favorite activity of hers. Roger and I hung out in the room (trip report for me, a rest for him) and then we all met up for the 2:00 showing of Incredibles 2 in the Walt Disney Theatre. The movie was fantastic and I’m so glad we got to see it there (vs. the Buena Vista Theatre which is too small and cramped).

After the movie, Emmaline wanted to swim so I took her up there and she met up with some friends. The parents all chatted while the girls swam and had a good time. At some point during this, we were all at a table near the big windows on deck 9 and Emmaline pointed at the water and said, “jumping fish!” I looked and saw that they weren’t fish at all, but a pod of dolphins jumping and swimming along the side of the ship. It was super fun to see and we watched them until we couldn’t see them any longer.

ent back to the room so Emmaline could shower before dinner. Tonight was a special night. Since the cruise was so close to Emmaline’s birthday, we decided to have a little celebration and tonight was the night we designated as her “birthday.” We had a lot of fun the second night in Rapunzel’s Royal Table and she enjoyed celebrating.





Right after dinner, at 7:30 was officer pin trading (dinner wasn’t really over until 7:40, but they were still trading when we arrived there). After that we killed some time in the room again until it was time for the evening’s variety entertainment in Fathoms, a Beatles tribute duo called Just John and Paul. (They were showing the first of two nights of “Disney Dreams” in the Walt Disney Theatre.) Hardly anyone was there, which was a shame because they put on an enjoyable show.



After their show we regrouped in the room (translation: Roger rested, Emmaline watched TV, I worked on the trip report) until Emmaline and I went to a class on how to draw Donald Duck. I thought it was fun, but Emmaline was disappointed with her drawing. I thought she did a great job, however. Back to the room, we tried to start organizing a few things in preparation for the next day’s packing. I was in disbelief that it was almost the last day. This cruise definitely felt like it went quicker than any of the others.

At 10:30 Roger and I left Emmaline in the room in her pjs watching TV to go to see JunNk perform an adult-only show in Fathoms. Again, they put on a really great show that we thoroughly enjoyed. When it was done, we came back to the room where Emmaline was still happily watching Disney TV and we all called it a night.
 

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