Disney Mediterranean Cruise: Malta = Small

Monday, April 26, 2010
Valletta, Island of Malta, Malta
This was not the first of the shore excursions that I booked but it was first on the agenda. Our adventure here is a prime example of how Lexy can sometimes overlook BIG details. Somehow, when I read the description of this excursion, which was "Island Panoramic", somehow my demented brain assumed this was by sea. I don't know why. There is no reason for that. Nothing in the word panorama implies ocean but my brain went there nonetheless. So, I had an expectation of us with the boys on a boat for a few hours, soaking up the sun and shoreline.    It wasn't until the night before that I re-read the description and realized that it was on a bus.   OK, on a bus for 4 hours with the kids was EXACTLY what I wanted to avoid.   So that morning I prepared myself for the worst. I brought multiple bottles of water and snacks. I brought Tylenol. I stopped at the notion of lugging around the portable video players but only because my purse (OK it is really a diaper bag- I'm a mom) already felt like concrete had been poured in the bottom.     

As it turned out, it wasn't great, but it could have been much worse . The tour itself was too long and tried to encompass the whole island..which is I guess what they meant by panoramic.   The result was that it ended up being quite boring in stretches between towns and cities. OK, I will be honest, it was also fairly boring in some of the towns and villages. The tour guide seemed to have a bit of an inferiority complex because she kept going on and on and on about the fact that Malta was SO SMALL At one point, she was discussing football (soccer) and she said that Malta got to play Italy or something. And that they lost, but not by too much and that they were so proud just to be able to play them.  It went on like this. I found it a bit depressing. I also got fairly tired of her pointing out petite strawberry fields and live stock. Really, more than once we got "on the right side of the bus you will see a goat".   Whoopee. Even the kids were bored at this point.   We did stop to see the Blue Grotto, which was really lovely. Apparently there was a boat trip that took you there, but I believe it was a non kid thing.   We also stopped at the old harbor where we found a cute little playground for the boys. They really enjoyed this.   And we got a cool picture of Lucas with a Maltese Falcon as we were heading back to the bus.

This is one of the stops that I think would have been much better if we had done a little homework before hand and just gone out in Valletta ourselves.   That was pretty much the take away for most of the planned "family" excursions. 

Comments

thorne
2011-05-09

We are taking this trip in July and I am concerned about some of the excursions and the children. Do you have any suggestions on other tours to take? I love your blog and it has really helped me. I just don't know which ones to do or not do. Thanks for any help you can give me.

selenapan9
2011-05-09

Hi,

Thanks! Feel free to forward the blog link to your 500 closest friends :).

On best tours to take, it would depend largely on the ages of your children, their tolerance for scheduled activities, and your tolerance for whining. My general rule is that I don't go on any excursions that have more than 1 hour's worth of total driving time. But my kids are age 2 and 5. And while my kids have a fairly high tolerance for being transported around, I have an EXTREMELY low tolerance for crying and whining. So I like to hedge my bets on that one and err on the side of caution.

Another rule I follow is that I don't book any excursion unless it is something that we could not easily do ourselves. For example, I would not pay to go to a beach in Italy or Villefranche. It is easy to do these things yourself, you have more autonomy about when you come and go, and it is obviously less expensive. On the other hand, I am not sure that I would feel comfortable wandering around the Bazaars in Tunisia by myself, let alone by myself and dragging two kids.
I know a lot of people who did the "let's see Rome in a day" excursion, but that seemed like it would be hell to me. Too much driving, too long a day, too many activities. The other families that we knew that went on this excursion were all fairly exhausted and annoyed by the end of the day.

What are the ages of your kids?

2025-02-15

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