Disney Mediterranean Cruise, Part 1

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Disney's 11 Night Mediterranean Cruise, April 24th, 2010: Adventures in Wonderland

Disney's Mediterranean Cruise, Part 1: Preparation, Reservations, Hotels and Flights
As an intro, let me cut to the chase and say that I loved this cruise. My somewhat skeptical French husband loved this cruise. My 4 year old was in preschool nirvana and even the 18 month old came home a Mickey convert who now makes "kissy" noises every time he sees a photo of Minnie Mouse. But, as those of you who know me are well aware, I have 5000 ways to say that I don't like something. So I am going to break down the cruise into the good, the bad and the stupid. Once again, there was enough good to make us book a Caribbean cruise on Dec 10th, 2011 while still on the boat, but there is always room for improvement. .. and complaining.

At the end of each section here, you will find a 1 to 4 star rating for all encounters.

Pre-prep and planning

To start with, I had not planned or foreseen that we would be going on the Disney Cruise this spring. I had not spent hours of time researching and plotting, like I used to do when I was young and childless. Now, with two boys under 5, plotting, obsessing and compulsive behaviors are purely leisure time activities. The initial setup for going on this cruise started something like this.


Julien: You know, Lucas has a school vacation.
Me: No, again?? He just went on vacation. When does it start?
Julien: April 16th
Me: Oh, sh#@.

We had this conversation sometime around March 25th. Now you must understand that school vacations in Paris are sacred family time, and therefore most of the interesting things to do were already booked by more organized parents ....or the extraordinarily wealthy. So, I got online and started researching options in somewhat of a blind panic. We had pretty much decided on going to Djerba la Douce Club Med for 7 days, but it was going to be 4500 Euros and honestly, I didn't really relish the idea of lying around feeling like "I am the Walrus" on a beach in Tunisia in lukewarm weather. In addition, the kids programs looked like they were great if your kids were 9 and above. It didn't seem so great for younger kids. I had looked at the Disney cruises, and even went so far as to call and ask about their childcare option but it just seemed too expensive.

So, I went to the Disney cruise site again just for hyucks and giggles. Once there, I found a standard inside stateroom on the April 24th 11 Night Mediterranean Cruise for 3500 US dollars if I booked through the US site! 3500 dollars vs. 4500 Euros. 11 nights vs. 6 nights. I thought it was a no brainer, but called Julien to see what he thought. Of course, he agreed. But by the time I went back to the site, the room was gone and the next nearest option was $5000...much swearing ensued before I was able to calm down enough to go to bed. But the next morning, the lovely husband got up at 5 am and checked the site again, and it was back, so he booked immediately. So, we were on! We decided not to tell Lucas until we got to the ship, which was really hard for Mom! I also had to have all the cruise info routed to my sister in Nashville, as that is the only US address we had, but my fabulous and organized sister was kind enough to forward all of our info to us in Paris, at some expense to her (love you, Myra!). All we had to do then was book our plane flight to Barcelona for the day before the cruise, get our hotel, and pre-book our "Flounder's Reef" nursery time. "No biggie" I thought....hmmmm. Let me take these one at a time, as some things I could have controlled but most I could not.

Hotels:

First, I tried to book one of the hotels that was recommended on the Disney site. All of them were fully booked. So, I called the customer service line to have us put on the waiting list. In the meantime, I did some research and could not find anything remotely decent for under 350 US dollars per night. I later found out from our friend Nick Lesser, that there was some sort of festival in Barcelona, but this resulted in us booking a fairly expensive hotel called the Hotel Boria. When I next checked on line with the Disney Cruise website ( which takes for *(*#@ ever to log on to and then can't reach your intended destination half the time) it told me that I owed 750 US dollars NOW or my cruise would be canceled. You can just imagine how bad my blood pressure went up during the 4 hours that I had to wait in order to call them. As it turns out, they had just added a hotel room once it became available without checking with me. Let me repeat that. They had 1) added 750 dollars to my bill 2) without telling me 3) for a HOTEL room and 4) had the audacity to come across with a threatening tone on the god awful website. Now, unless the room comes with , I don't know, Johnny Depp, who offers additional add ons, then I can't fathom a hotel room for 750 dollars for one night. I know they exist, but let's face it, with 2 kids in tow, there is nothing that will be worth $750 dollars a night...not even with sexy celebrity man because I would be too tired to make any use of him. So, I called, I shrieked and they took it off the bill sheepishly. So, Hotel Boria it was. After meeting Nick Lesser in Barcelona, I found out we could have gotten much cheaper if we had called him...so that was a learning.


Flounder's Reef Nursery: BE FOREWARNED.

This is a big development area for Disney Cruise and they are a bit evasive about it when you call. The Oceaneer's clubs are for children starting at 3 years old and are open from roughly 8 am until midnight ....and they are included in the price of the cruise. This is NOT true for the nursery, which is your only option for kids 3 and below. Your are fairly limited on the number of hours you can reserve ahead of time, and on the hours you can book in general. When I was researching the cruise, I found that the website did not provide any information on how many hours of nursery time you could book. They were upfront about the incremental cost ( 6 dollars per hour) but very evasive about the time. This resulted in the one bad phone call that I had with Disney customer service.

They allow you to reserve up to 28 hours or so of Flounders reef nursery time before you get on board for an 11 night cruise. I called to find out how many more hours they might allow you to book once you got on board. The customer service representative said , basically, that I should be happy with 28 hours. I told her that this was less than 3 hours a day if you could manage to split it up that way. If you happen to want to take one of their all day adults excursions, that eats up 10 to 12 of your hours and you are then left with roughly an hour a day. What I wanted was to be able to get and keep Seb on a schedule of spending the morning with us and then going to the nursery after his nap until dinner time.

The woman at customer service told me that SHE ENJOYED spending time with HER grandchildren and would never consider putting them in the nursery that long. I responded by saying, "Excuse me, but are you insinuating that I am a bad mother because I want a vacation?" to which she responded "Oh no, some people just don't like to be with their children as much as others". At this point, I hung up, called back and asked to speak with a manager and recounted the story with as much dry ice and acid as I could muster. I will say that they responded appropriately by falling all over themselves to apologize and upgrading my room, but really, how did this person slip through the cracks of the Disney armor.

Once on board, we did manage to wheedle enough hours to create a little bit of a routine for Seb, but it was far from easy. In addition, there are few, if any, places on the boat that are both contained and specifically for toddlers. They are not allowed in the pools unless they are potty trained, so be prepared to chase your toddler around the boat and put up with his protests when he can't get in the pool.

All this being said, the nursery itself was great and well designed. After the first couple of days, Seb stopped complaining about being dropped off and actually bonded quite well with the care givers.

Flights:

What can I say? Iceland blew up. Who knew? But our airline came through, so good on ya Iberia. So we had made it to Barcelona, to the hotel, and were ready to get on the cruise for the next day!!


Ratings
Disney Customer Service Line: *** (annoying grandma woman aside)
Disney Cruise Line Website:* (their website sucks, don't get me started)
Flounders Reef Hours:**
Flounders Reef staff and care: ****
Hotel Boria Customer Service Line:**
Hotel Boria:***
Nick Lesser:****
Iberia:****

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