Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Dining, Shore Excursions, the Vista Spa, "Others"
Dining at Disney
I have already mentioned the various kids offerings around the ship
. Besides this, there is a fairly nice buffet called Topsiders, which is open often. There is also room service, which is open ALWAYS. Really, always. I called a 2 am to get slices of white bread for a hungry and grumpy Seb. They delivered it within 15 minutes...and with a smile. But the heart of the Disney dining experience is your evening meal.
As you will read in any decent Disney cruise book, they have a rotational dining system. Every night you eat at one of 3 restaurants: Parrot Cay, Lumiere's or Animators Palate. But, the nice thing is that, as you rotate through these 3 restaurants, you have the same wait staff. Our servers, Grace and Laurent, got to know our kids so well by the end of the cruise that they automatically brought them strawberries as an appetizer without having to be asked. (My kids only eat red fruit...sigh). In addition, you also share a table with another family, who rotates with you. Normally, I am not super keen on eating with strangers but we were paired with a really lovely British couple, Emma and Jim
. They had two children very similar in age: a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old girl. Coincidence? I think not. This is the kind of attention to detail that makes Disney different. By the end of the cruise. Elliott and Lucas were chasing each other around the table screaming, and the toddlers were enjoying Baby Einstein dinner dates. "? This system also means that the boys automatically had someone that they knew fairly early on in "the club", and I saw Lucas and Elliott playing together there as well.
As an added bonus, I got additional insight on the excursions from Emma, as they were much braver than us and did the "Rome in a day" extravaganza. When they appeared at dinner that night, they both looked a bit like war survivors. In short, the takeaway seemed to be "what were we thinking"? They also had a bad Tunisia experience, but with the market in Tunis. I will she or Jim comment, if either feel inclined.
A note on dinner planning
. "READ THE PERSONAL NAVIGATOR", she says again. It tells you (on the top right heading for those who overlook headings) the dress code for each evening. There IS a formal night, and we completely missed that little piece of information. We showed up in rumpled sundress (for me) and rumpled khaki's (for Julien) as we had made zero effort. I won't even mention the state of the kids.
The staff was super attentive and fairly amazing during almost every moment of our cruise.... except for one. Here it comes. Our head waiter, Grace, asked me THE question...the one question you never ask a woman who has kids. The question you should really know better than to ask if you are a woman who has had kids. So, there I am, about to dig into my delightful appetizer of scallops when Grace says (loudly) "so I never asked you when you are due?" Yes, she did. Dinner suddenly turned to ashes. God, I hate this question. Mind you, I have gotten it fairly often because I am a fairly thin woman in all areas except the belly, where my muscle tone and cartilage have been shot to hell after baby number 2
. As I have been told by a doctor that this cannot be fixed with anything besides the longed for tummy tuck, I will have to come up with a better quick response to this question than " Uh, um, I'm not pregnant" which is what I said to Grace. I could not really see her blush, as she was from Jamaica, but she began stuttering like crazy and back pedaling.....but damage was already done. Really, one should know that one does not ask that question unless one has been TOLD that the woman is pregnant or unless she YOU SEE THE HEAD CROWNING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. I will say that she had the good sense to avoid me like the plague for the rest of the meal but the ego takes a huge hit after this sort of thing. In a way, I felt bad for her as she did such a lovely job otherwise, but still. Note to Disney Training folks: you need to train on this...end of story.
Overall , the restaurant experience was fun and lively. Be prepared for characters. Be prepared for parades
. Be prepared for Opera singers who may force you to sing in a microphone. I will say no more.
The Vista Spa
For the most part, were exactly what I would expect at your average spa on land...but they were not "Disney". They were polite but not particularly pleasant. The woman who did my pedicure was subtly hostile about her work experience, but didn't seem to take it out on me or my toes. The person who cut my husband's hair was irritable but did a good job. Thus, it was not unlike any other spa experience and better than quite a few. Happy Feet in San Jose comes to mind :). But none of this would keep me from going back because they offered at least one really unusual service...the Exotic Rasul.
The Exotic Rasul is basically where they take you and your husband to your own private room. This comes equipped with tiled floors, a shower and a plethora of body scrubs, lotions and oils
. The other area is a steam room. They spend about 10 minutes telling you about the products, close the door, and leave you alone to do whatever you will do for the other 50. At the 50 minute mark, they knock discreetly and you come out sheepishly whenever you can. Before going in, they stress that the couples LOVE this and that this is YOUR time. So, for us, this was a not so subtle way of saying "go , have sex, with our blessing". With that in mind, we didn't really need the 10 minute diatribe on the different oils but one must keep up appearances. Also, the steam room was a bit treacherous from that perspective. But, all things considered, this was a very lovely experience that couples can use however they see fit. From other readings, I have found that other couples did not take the hint and wore bathing suits, actually tried all the oils and tentatively played in mud. To my mind, all that is fine if you were doing this alone, but there is a reason your mate is there. Enough said.
I thought it was quite amusing that after we came out, the staff who wandered by merely smiled knowingly and avoided eye contact. No one said anything to us and they let us leave at our own pace. Tons of fun, and surprising from Mickey!!
Shore Excursions: Mickey is NOT responsible.
Let me make one BIG forewarning about the excursions. They are NOT, repeat, NOT run by Disney. They are run by vendors hired by Disney. As this was only the second season (I believe) for the Mediterranean cruise, there were definitely some vendor management kinks to work out. The shore excursions, on the whole, were spotty and bifurcated in range of experience. I will break down the ones we attended but there were many more, so do your homework before hand, and you may avoid some of the mistakes I made. See each of the individual ports for the full details on the Disney Shore excursions. For the non Disney Shore excursions, read on.
Non Disney Excursions
After the first two planned excursions, we decided that we would not do anymore planned excursions that we had not already bought. Instead, we did a few on our own, and all of those were wonderful. Julien and I got off in La Spezia and took a cab to Portovenere, where Byron was inspired and not too far from where Shelley died. It was a glorious lovers day, and definitely worth a visit. In Villefranche, we took the kids to the beach ourselves and all of us had a great time. It cost nothing and the boys were in toddler and preschool heaven.
So, the takeaway is 1) for simple pleasures, do it yourself and 2) for non simple pleasures, do it yourself. For the extraordinary things, like the winery or perfumery, you can't really do it yourself and it is well worth it. But be conservative as the shore excursions are very expensive and will eat up your budget faster than anything else.
Ratings:
Dining Experience: *** ( would be a 4 but for THE comment)
Vista Spa: **
Shore Excursions: *** (some were magnificent, some were tragic. See individual reviews)
Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Food, Excursions, Spa
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands
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