Disney Dream May 20 2023 7 Night Mediterranean - Trip Report - Complete

[Louise97]

Day 5 is done, phew! It's probably the longest entry, since we had the port adventure and Pirate Night. Some additional thoughts:

I absolutely recommend visiting Pompeii, and I appreciated the ease of doing a DCL port adventure but I can see why so many people book a third party tour. I was glad to have a guide taking us around the ruins, but booking with a third party or going by ourselves would have given us more time actually seeing the sights and might have given us the time to do the museum in the afternoon. Pompeii is also really popular so it's very crowded - which is another reason why it was good to have someone to show us around.

I'd have really liked to do Herculaneum but it's closed on Wednesdays - if we were going back to this part of Italy again, that would be on my list to check out.

I'm sure our experience of Naples would be different if we hadn't been hot and tired by the time we got there, but it just seemed busy and noisy. And I say that as someone who is definitely a city girl! It might have felt less chaotic if we'd had more time to adjust. If it wasn't Pirate Night I'd have spent a bit longer in the city as the all aboard time wasn't until 7pm, but I'd been looking forward to dressing up and wanted to allow plenty of time for that. Flights from Scotland to Naples are much cheaper than a Disney cruise so that logic drove a lot of our decision-making on this trip.

Pirate Night was so much fun. My outfit (particularly my hat) took up so much room in my suitcase but it was worth it. We had such a great time! It just would have been nice if it had fallen on one of the days where we didn't have plans - on such a port intensive itinerary, it would have been good to do it on our day at sea. I guess the logic was no one had an early ashore time after the late night fireworks show.

 

[TaraEve]

Your pirate outfit looks amazing! I’m enjoying following along. We are going to on the dream in July for the Barcelona to Southampton cruise.

 

[Flossbolna]

You look fantastic in your pirate costume!! And AP for Pirates Night is great with all the screens!

I totally get your thinking of how a flight to Italy is such an easy and affordable thing. So we treated our port days as getting a taste and that’s all we needed. We did Pompeii on our own and loved it. I think we got there when you left!

 

[Louise97]

Thank you for following along, and thank you - I was so pleased with how that pirate costume turned out! Just finished Day 6, our only day at sea.

I'd hoped to manage one write up per day, but I've fallen a bit behind We're popping over to Disneyland Paris for Pride this weekend so I'm aiming to get the remaining days written up before then!

 

[Louise97]

Finished Day 7!

One disappointment on day 7 was that we didn't get The Little Mermaid which premiered in cinemas that day. DH and I had packed themed outfits because we expected it to be shown, and it even appeared on the itinerary when we got onboard on day 1, but it was pulled from the schedule by the end of the first evening. There was no communication from DCL about it - though to be fair, they also hadn't told us we'd get it.

We later learned that it didn't make it onboard in time (just like the 25th anniversary merch didn't make it), which was a shame. That being said, we had such a busy day, even without going into Palma properly, that I don't know when we would have found two hours to sit in the cinema to watch it!

 

[Louise97]

Day 8 is complete.

We were sad to leave the ship, but I was so glad we had another night in Barcelona before we had to go home. It felt like we still had something to look forward to!

I originally wanted to do the Montserrat Half Day debarkation port adventure (BC09H) because it would have picked us up from the ship, taken us on the tour, then dropped us at the hotel. We stopped off at the Port Adventures desk early in the cruise to book it, and they said they were taking a note of who was interested while their tour partner was working on the arrangements. On our day at sea we got a notification in the app to go to the Port Adventures desk for an update, where they said the tour wasn't running because Montserrat had changed their policy on large tour groups. The only debarkation day tour was the Barcelona City Highlights option (BC04, with an option to drop off at the airport or hotel).

The Hop On Hop Off bus was ideal for letting us see a lot of the city in a short period of time, and the audio guide was very good. It covered a lot of the sights listed on the Barcelona City Highlights port adventure, and the other stops on the port adventure were places we already planned to see. If we'd had the energy, I'd have liked to hop off at Montjuic to take in the views but we were still able to see the highlights as we drove through - or I saw the highlights, DH had dozed off at that point!

 

[Louise97]

After a bit of a delay, Day 9 is done, and that's the end of the trip report! The last entry took a bit longer as we headed off to Disneyland Paris Pride last weekend, then work was hectic.

While it was sad to end the Barcelona trip, having La Sagrada Familia booked for the morning was a great way to spend a few hours before we had to be at the airport. We booked tickets on 30 April (so about 4 weeks in advance) and a lot of times had already sold out - I'd originally wanted to get there earlier but 11:30 was our earliest available timeslot. It worked well for us but if you're thinking of going, book as soon as you know your schedule! The official app stored our tickets and acted as a guide, so it's worth downloading.

The Metro was clean and quick, though I was still glad we took a taxi to the airport rather than trying to carry bags on and off public transport. The taxi ride was €49.51 including tip for the 25 minute journey, which was worth it to just sit back and relax.

I'm not sure what our next cruise will be. Next year's European schedule looks interesting, but we're trying to decide if we want our third cruise to be on a third ship!

 

[tinkerbell1991]

We were told to meet back at the Hotel Vittoria at 12:15pm. I was a little disappointed that we'd not had a chance to go to the gift shop, so planned to go back - then we realised that we would need to clear security again just to access the shop. So we just joined the line to get our gelato and waited to go back to the bus.

Oh no we're hoping to do this tour too but would love to go into the gift shop. Do you think you'd have had enough time to pass back through security if you'd substituted your gelato for doing so?

 

[Louise97]

Oh no we're hoping to do this tour too but would love to go into the gift shop. Do you think you'd have had enough time to pass back through security if you'd substituted your gelato for doing so?

Yes, I think we'd have had time to go through security again and have a few minutes in the shop if we'd skipped the gelato. If I was to do it again, I'd ask the guide if I could just go to the gift shop at the end of the tour instead of walking back to the meeting point.

 

[tinkerbell1991]

Yes, I think we'd have had time to go through security again and have a few minutes in the shop if we'd skipped the gelato. If I was to do it again, I'd ask the guide if I could just go to the gift shop at the end of the tour instead of walking back to the meeting point.

Oh that's good to know, thanks so much for confirming