2024 Europe and Westbound Transatlantic

 2024  Europe and Westbound Transatlantic
October 4 - November 2

This will be another long trip!  We are starting in Orlando, because the flights on Norse Atlantic (which doesn't fly from Chicago) were so much less than any other airline going to London.  Of course, this added several days to our trip, so even with saving hundreds on all seven of our airline tickets we probably only break even in the end!  Then we will fly to London, spend 2 nights in Canterbury before boarding the MSC Preziosa for a week.  That cruise will take us to Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands.  Not necessarily in that order!  We've been so busy at home that it's been hard to even think about this trip.  Anyway, after that cruise we spend two nights in Southampton before sailing on the Disney Dream for a 13 night cruise which makes stops in Spain, Portugal and the Bahamas before ending back in Florida.

Hello! In case you've never read our blog before, this is Kyrie. I'm the picture taker and Marc is the blogger. I love looking back at our trips and being able to remember more details thanks to recording it like this. We're feeling very blessed as usual to take this great trip with all of our "kids." Jacob (19) and Max (18) are both doing college online. Ella (15), Zoe (13), and Zach (11) homeschool with Marc's guidance. This certainly could be the last time we can take a trip like this with all of us together.

Day 1 - Chicago to Orlando, Trying to unwind

I wasn't kidding when I said that we've been too busy to think about this trip.  We've had construction going on at our house all summer, we are trying to start construction at Kyrie's chiropractic office, we've had two new employees start new positions for expansion over the past two months, plus we've had a lot of side projects going on with the kids' homeschooling and college.  We always keep ourselves very busy, but this has been extra even for us and it lasted right up through the day before the trip. 

 Yesterday at 5:30am Kyrie was leaving for work and I noticed leaking in our garage which is right under one of the bathrooms that we've just about finished construction on.  I didn't even tell Kyrie because I didn't want her to stress about it while she was at work.  Thankfully our amazing contractor came right over when I told him (I waited until 8am) and figured out the problem and the plumber came right out and fixed it.  It turned out that it was an old drain pipe that didn't even get touched during the construction.  There were several small issues during the day to keep me on my toes, but nothing too major.  I thought we were finally ready to get into vacation mode, but then Kyrie called from the car wash on her way home from work because after she vacuumed the car it wouldn't start.  I drove over there with a portable jump starter, but it didn't help so we called a tow truck.  They came right out and luckily were able to jump the car with a more heavy duty jump starter.  Still not sure what the problem really was, the car isn't that old, but I guess that's a problem for when we get back.  This process ate up two precious hours though. Still, at least my car is at home at the end. 

So, this morning it was hard for me to even feel like we were on vacation even when we were on the way to the airport, but gradually throughout the day I have started to settle in.  Same!

One thing we did differently this time was park at the CTA lot in Rosemont.  It was $8 per day which is at least $4/day cheaper than other off-site parking in the area and it was really convenient.  I dropped everyone else off at the airport first, then parked the car and took the blue line which ends right in the airport.

Our flight was uneventful and we made it to Orlando by 3:00pm.  We are staying at Universal's Cabana Bay resort which is one of our favorites.  I love its 50's theme.  We unpacked then spent the afternoon at the pool. It was 5pm by the time we got to the pool, but 4pm on our internal clocks. We swam a little but mostly hung out and ate dinner poolside.

The kids and I (minus Zach) walked over to Universal's Citywalk to check out the Epic Universe Preview Center to see what the newest Universal park is going to look like.  It looks pretty great, but maybe not enough rides?  Hard to tell and I guess the other parks don't really have that many rides either.

They left after 8pm to do this which is definitely the time I get ready  to go to sleep. Zach was already in his PJs when the others left too. 

By the way, if anyone is still following along who was with us on our first transatlantic cruise (2016) where you were all making fun of my laundry troubles...I have already done one load of laundry!  Luckily we're still in America and I know how to work the machines here!  

Day 2 - Islands of Adventure and Magic Kingdom

We went to early entry at Islands of Adventure this morning.  Most of the group went to the Hagrid's coaster first, but Zach wasn't ready for that yet this morning so he and I went on the Hippogryph coaster instead.  We all went on the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey ride together and then had breakfast at the Three Broomsticks.  The breakfast was decent, but the best part was that all the meals came with Butterbeer - my favorite!  It was a smaller size than they sell at the carts, but that was just right.

Then we went on the High in the Sky Trolley Ride and finished with Spiderman.  Our group split up after this.  Some of us had Disney Annual Passes that haven't quite expired yet, so we went to Magic Kingdom.  Kyrie and Zach went to the pool at the hotel.  And Jacob met up with one of his friends who is working at Disney and spent the day with .her

At Magic Kingdom, several big rides were closed:  Space Mountain, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and the Jungle Cruise.  This made the lines for the other rides extra long.  It was also very hot and humid.  We tried to go on the Tiana replacement for Splash Mountain since we haven't been on that yet, but weren't able to get the morning virtual queue and our afternoon virtual queue number seemed unlikely to be called before late at night if at all.  We did enjoy the updated Country Bears Jamboree though.  In some ways it's a shame to lose the original version, but Disney did a decent job of making Country Bear versions of some traditional Disney songs which I'm sure appeals a lot more to the younger crowd.  

We had lunch at Pecos Bill Cafe where they have a new menu.  The food was better than before, but still very unimpressive.  However, I did have an amazing dessert there - Corn Mousse.  It may end up being my favorite food from the trip!  Get it while you can because on the menu it just looks like a cob of corn with cheese and chili pepper on it, so I'm guessing most people skip right over it if they are looking for dessert.  It's actually some kind of Mousse that they shape to look like a corn cob and it has white chocolate and maybe cinnamon on top.  It's really good and hard to describe the taste.  Very sweet though, it won't appeal to everyone.

We didn't stay all that long after that.  Went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Tea Cups, and watched the Carousel of Progress and then headed back to the hotel.

Zach and I checked out the Epic Universe preview center that the others visited last night. It was pretty cool to see the big model of the park if you used the app along with it to visualize the rides. We went to both pools at our resort. The lazy river at the farther pool is nice, but otherwise the pool near us with the slide is bigger and better. Zach mostly ate his lunch, and took a nap wrapped up head to toe in towels. I love sun and summer pool weather and this seems like it could be the last of the year as clouds and rain roll into Orlando before the next hurricane!

We met up with Kyrie and Zach for dinner at a restaurant "across the street" at Sapphire Falls, another Universal hotel.  Amatista Cookhouse. It was not an easy walk to get to.  They don't put a crosswalk at the most obvious place between the entrances to the two hotels so you have to walk pretty far out of the way to a bridge that crosses the road.  The dinner was very good though.  Kyrie and I split the Rotisserie chicken and sides, Zach and Ella had pizza/flatbread and Zoe had chicken sliders.  Everyone seemed to like the food. 

After we got back to the hotel Kyrie and I had a drink at the lobby bar which is Halloween themed.  I had a Halloween themed drink with whiskey and pumpkin puree which was quite good.  

I think we're pretty well into vacation mode now. 

Day 3 - Universal Studios & Halloween Horror Nights

Well, as Kyrie mentioned, there is a hurricane headed our way.  It isn't supposed to make landfall until Wednesday, but our flight doesn't leave for England until Tuesday night.  That's cutting it pretty close and it's making us a little nervous.  We checked with the airline (Norse Atlantic), but they won't let us change our flight without paying the difference in fare which at this point would be more than $4,000 extra for the seven of us.  So we're taking our chances and hoping for the best.  

 Jacob went to visit some of his Disney College Program friends last night and didn't get back until 12:30am which meant I didn't get to sleep until then either.  Plus, we knew we would be out late tonight, so most of us slept in this morning. 

Eventually, we all headed to Universal Studios and went on some rides.  We hadn't been on the new Minion's Villain Con ride.  The line was really fun with lots of good gags from the movies.  The ride itself was pretty boring though.  

We had an early dinner at Cowfish which is one of our favorites (except Kyrie).  After dinner Kyrie and Zachary went back to the hotel while the rest of us went to Halloween Horror Nights.  I want to like it as much as they do. Maybe I'm not ordering the right thing. I got the bento box with a mini burger and vegetarian sushi. The sweet potato fries were cold and there was too much edamame. It was fine, but not great.

It was a bit rainy all day and that kept the crowds to a minimum.  This is our third year in a row going to HHN and it was the first time that we made it into all 10 houses.  The rain was annoying, but it was nice to not have to stand in long lines all night and it wasn't hot and humid like it often is.

The first house we went into was Ghostbusters.  That was enough for Ella.  She realized that she wasn't up for it this time around.  She went with us last year and went through all the houses with the rest of us, but even then I asked at the end of the night who wanted to go again next year and her and Max weren't sure.  This year Max seemed to really like it, but Ella joined Kyrie and Zachary at the hotel.

The next house was based on the movie The Quiet Place.  I haven't seen it, but that was the scariest house for me.  There was one point where it was just completely dark and I didn't want to touch the walls or anything because who knows what's there, so I just grabbed the backpack of the stranger in front of me and let them lead us through.  Once we could finally see again it wasn't much better.  It was just a creepy concept.  

We all agreed that our favorite house was The Goblin's Feast.  The costumes and sets were very good and it wasn't so scary that I just felt like I was trying to get through like it was with some of the others.

We ended up making it through all 10 houses, watched the stage show, and even went on a few rides before we left at midnight.  I would rate it as the best of the 3 years we went so far even though we had to deal with some rain.

Day 4 - More Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure

Today, Kyrie, Jacob and Ella headed to the parks early while the rest of us slept in.  When everyone else woke up and took Zach and Zoe to meet up with the others and then I went back to the hotel to catch up on some work and laundry.  I've had plenty of the parks already for now.

Max has been spending most of his time getting his schoolwork finished.  We will have wifi on the cruise ships, but hopefully he can get most of his school done beforehand.

I tried again to see if the airline would let us switch flights today without charging extra, but they wouldn't.  Kind of a dumb policy since they could move us to the empty seats tonight and then have extra seats available to move people to tomorrow from the Wednesday and Thursday flights that they will probably have to cancel.

Anyway, at this point the projections show the storm force winds hitting Orlando around midday on Wednesday, so hopefully we will be long gone by then. The Orlando airport has announced they are closing Wednesday at 8am. This actually makes me a bit less nervous. I've been praying for the hurricane to slow down and in fact the timeline has pushed back about 12 hours. Nevertheless, it feels like we're just waiting to get to England vs. being on vacation already...not to complain...really we realize how fortunate we are and just hope we get out as planned.

We had dinner tonight at Bigfire.  I think everyone enjoyed their food. 

The laundry challenge today was trying to dry shoes.  Still in progress, we'll see how it goes.

Day 5 - A little more Universal and then off to England

Our flight to London doesn't leave until 8:35pm, so we spent the morning at Universal.  It seemed like every ride we got in line for broke down while we were in line, but we still had a good time.  Mostly we are just anxious to get on with the rest of our trip. 

This was actually our best group time together. Everyone made it to early entry. We wanted to be tired enough to sleep on our flight since we land at around 10am local time and can't check in until at least 4pm. There is a 5 hour time difference from Florida to London. Other than rides breaking down, the wait times were minimal and we rode the most rides today. I was extra patient today which is not my norm, just knowing the only ride that mattered was our flight out which was looking more and more certain.

Our stay at Cabana Bay was pretty great.  We got connecting Family rooms with the exterior entry and it was really convenient.  Each room had a sitting area and kitchenette.  We had plenty of room.  The bus service was outstanding.  There was always a bus waiting for us in both directions and it is only about 10 minutes from the park.  We also walked it a couple times and it was a nice 15-20 minute walk.  I would consider Cabana Bay to be the equivalent to a Disney Moderate Resort.   

The hurricane has been upgraded to a category 5 and then downgraded to category 4 after it hit Mexico briefly.  Fortunately for us it isn't expected to make landfall until Wednesday night or early Thursday, so I think our flight should be good.  I was relieved when I saw that the plan from London took off and is expected here on time at 6:30pm.  The airport is closing at 8:00am tomorrow and a lot of flights on the board are cancelled.

Unfortunately, it looks like the hurricane will be pretty bad for Central Florida since it's path takes it straight across the state.  Without much land to go over, the hurricane may remain quite strong even inland.  Hopefully, everyone will be alright.  While preparations were being made around the hotel, it didn't seem like people were evacuating the area or anything. 

I'm writing this from the airport because we got here so early.  Just didn't want to leave anything to chance. We were uncertain whether Uber/Lyft drivers would be plentiful or not and whether roads would be jammed up, but everything seemed to be as usual. The airport was super calm too. I did get a sinking feeling seeing delayed and canceled flights. That would be rough. Hotels are fully booked and locals looking to shelter inland were filling the lobby as we left.

We are flying on Norse Atlantic, which has one flight per day from Orlando.  It's a low cost airline, but the premium tickets to London were quite a bit cheaper than even the regular seats on other airlines.  It definitely won't be the same as first class, but should still be better than regular economy.  It's an 8 hour flight, so I'll take all the room I can get.

Day 6 - Flight to London, Driving in England, Pooh Corner, VRBO near Canterbury

Our flight to London went very well.  No delays and we probably even arrived a little early.  I think we got in about half an hour early. The pilot stated we had "strong tail winds" which makes sense. 

I was really impressed with the premium class service on this airline.  Considering how much it cost even compared to regular economy on other airlines I figured that at best it would be like Economy Plus, but with some food included.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  The seats were like other airlines first class seats.  They weren't the lay flat kind that is typical of overseas flights, but they were very roomy seats with plenty of legroom.  We bought the Premium Light version, so it didn't include checked bags and certain snacks and drinks.  But it did include most drinks and both dinner and breakfast.  The meals weren't great and they weren't served on real dishes or anything, but they were sufficient and for the price it more than made up for it.  I would absolutely recommend Norse for anyone traveling to one of their cities.  It's basically (almost) first class for the price of economy.

We fly into London-Gatwick airport which was perfect for our itinerary and I felt was more convenient than the other London airports which are much closer to downtown.  Obviously, if we were going into the city that might have made a difference.  After a very quick passport process we went to Alamo to pick up our car rental.  Prior to the trip, I was kind of panicking because we pack a carry on bag and backpack for each person and I was worried that they wouldn't fit into the minivans in Europe which are smaller than the ones in the US.  I even did research to see how much smaller their "boot space" was (room in the trunk).  It wasn't so much different, but even still I was concerned that we wouldn't fit everything.  So, when Alamo listed a full size passenger van for rent I went for it.  We have a large conversion van at home, so I wasn't concerned about driving a large vehicle and figured this was a solution to our problem.  Well, I definitely made a mistake there.  England's country roads were clearly all built during the time of horse and buggies and are extremely narrow.  In most cases, they have no shoulder and have very dense hedges on each side.  So there is NO wiggle room whatsoever when traffic is coming both ways (which was most of the time today).  Before the trip, I was worried about having to drive on the left side of the road (which was very challenging), but the width of the vehicle was definitely a problem.  Usually, I prefer country roads, but today I was so happy the few times we were actually on a highway.

Sleep deprived and sitting to the far left of the van - like really squished to the side with two seats to the left of the drive's seat- I was the most annoying passenger but I couldn't help it. I tried closing my eyes, but maybe this was my version of a haunted house. It was bad with my eyes open, but worse with my eyes shut. Other than the riding experience, this was a wonderful day!

We had a really nice afternoon in the area where A.A. Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh.  We started at Pooh Corner which is a Tea Shop/Winnie the Pooh museum in the building where the real Christopher Robin used to buy sweets.  We had lunch and tea there and briefly looked in the museum.  Then we continued on to the 100 Acre Woods where we eventually found Pooh Bridge after a long, but nice walk through the woods.  It was really good family time and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The food and tea was SO good! The small gift shop had cute, well priced souvenirs. I'd wished I'd known a baby or toddler so I could buy something for them.

The forest is beautiful and it was a cool sunny day. The walk was a little muddy. It also turned out to be a pretty long hike especially after drinking like five cups of tea.

Then it was back to the car for more nervous driving to the VRBO we rented near Canterbury.  It's very nice and has so much room that we feel spoiled.  Kyrie and Jacob went to the restaurant next door for dinner.  The rest of us didn't feel like going out so Max and I picked up a few groceries at the store.

We arrived to our VRBO at around 5pm. It's a very unique property, a six bedroom, seven bathroom "Bed and Breakfast." Since we are renting the whole house, there is no breakfast included. We get to use the whole kitchen instead. Of course, I took pictures of everything before we moved our luggage into the rooms and began settling in. 

Every bedroom has it's own Nespresso machine and kettle along with an assortment of Nespresso capsules, tea, and condiments. There are also robes and nice thick towels. This place was a bit of a splurge, but sounded so good to spread out and get a good couple nights' sleep while we get used to the time change. And honestly I feel like I adapted right away, I went to sleep at 10pm and woke up naturally at 5am but stayed in bed until 6am.I think my "super power" is having an internal clock that wakes up at 5am no matter the time zone.

Marc's super powers include patience not only for me but also for all of our mini-mes and being happy living in constant work mode taking care of us. He started laundry right away and went to the store. Five of them just wanted to stay in for dinner. My "lunch" was two delicious scones, but I was ready for some real food. Plus I had researched good restaurants in this area and Tyler's Kiln came highly recommended and is right next door. 

Jacob and I ate at Tyler's Kiln. Chef's Pie for me and Sausage and Mash for Jacob. We split a Apple Crumble with a runny custard sauce. It was just okay but added that little bit more to satisfy our hunger. The atmosphere was very British. 

Allister who owns this VRBO property offered the use of a "private spa" on this property during our stay for an additional fee of 120 pounds/ It took awhile to work out the payment due to various obstacles but  eventually we agreed we would just leave cash. Receiving access around 8pm, Jacob, Zach and I spent a couple hours in the sauna and hot tub. Marc joined us for a bit at the end too. Finally my legs aren't sore from all the theme park walking even though we had a long hike today, so I think the sauna and hot tub get credit. 

This was really a wonderful day!

Day 7 - Canterbury, towns along the coast, and more about driving in England

After a really good night's sleep, we spent a good part of the day in Canterbury.  All I knew about Canterbury before coming here was reading Canterbury Tales in high school.  I remember it being a really difficult book to read since it was written so long ago.  Seeing the real place was kind of cool though.  The Canterbury Cathedral is great.  It is similar to other cathedrals we've visited over the years.  The most interesting things to me were the stories about Saint Thomas Beckett and the odd helm that was displayed over the Black Knight's tomb.  It has a rather large lion or leopard or something on top and it looked like it would be really hard to wear.  It was only ceremonial, they also had his battle helm which was more reasonable.

Outside of the cathedral is a really nice shopping area filled with very medieval looking buildings which were probably built hundreds of years ago.  We ate lunch at The Pound which is an old jail inside the city gates.  Our table was in Cell #5.  It was fun and the food was good.  Then we got a free museum tour of the tower.  

After we left Canterbury, we drove to a couple of the towns along the southern(ish) coast.  I can't think of the names at the moment.  Whistable and Ramsgate. It was rather chilly today (mid 50's), so we found an indoor place to stop and have some hot cocoa  where we  could still watch the ocean.  Then later we had dinner at an Italian restaurant which was quite good.

Driving was better today, mainly because I didn't have nearly as many "Hedge roads" (as I would call them) to deal with.  There were still plenty of tricky spots, but not like yesterday.  Another thing that is interesting are the number of roundabouts.  At home we only just got our first roundabouts a few years ago, but here they seem to be at every intersection and most have 2 lanes.  I still don't really know the proper etiquette for dealing with the 2 lanes, but mostly these go okay for me.  At home, I am sure I would have been honked at a lot by now.  Driving on the "wrong" side of the road hasn't been quite as bad as I thought.  I still have to actively think about every turn I make to be sure that I stay in the proper lane and I often have to convince myself that it really is correct to be driving on that side of the road.  

 Day 8 – MSC PREZIOSA

We drove to Southampton this morning and thankfully dropped off our rental van.  Somehow, we got it there in one piece!  Boarding the ship was pretty easy since they board people at each port instead of all at the same time.

While initially planning, I’d hoped to go to Sandwich, Kent, England. It’s the namesake of my hometown in Illinois. It also was the one time home of Thomas Paine who had a role in the American Revolution, wrote the pamphlet The Rights of Man, and coined the phrase “The United States of America.” This excursion would have added about 90 minutes to our overall driving time though which was the biggest deterrent even more than delaying our happily anticipated embarkation.

We took an MSC cruise last summer for just three nights in the Bahamas and the ship was terribly dirty.  That’s not the case at all with the Preziosa.  It’s very clean and well taken care of.  Our rooms are typical of a cruise ship.  One queen bed and in this case a double size pull out couch.  Most of the cruise ships we’ve been on had two separate single beds for the kids – either bunks or a trundle bed, which I’m sure they would prefer.  The rooms are probably about the size of other cruise lines we’ve been on.

I’m not complaining, especially because I get my own bed in our room for three with the girls. I do have to say though, that there is less storage in this cabin than any other I remember.  The shower walls collapse in by design to make more room in the tiny bathroom. The shower itself is decent sized. Part of the issue of the cabin seeming/being extra small is that our cabin steward prefers to leave the sofa bed made up as a bed all day instead of giving us sitting/moving space. We even requested at embarkation that he make it back into a couch each day, but that has not happened yet. Currently we are folding it back up ourselves hoping he catches on. Pretty sure this is just how it’s going to go the whole week.

On previous cruises both on MSC and other cruise lines, they’ve been able to open the partition between our adjacent balconies to allow us to get into each other’s rooms. Our cabin steward says this is only allowed while at port now, then opened it for the last 30 minutes of our port day. We’ve barely used the balconies anyway as it’s been too cold. But we have no way to access each other’s cabins as they also cannot make us an extra key. Oh, well.

We’ve been on Disney and Royal Caribbean.  I would say the MSC ship layout isn’t as interesting as either of the other lines.  Basically, there are 2 guest areas – the pool deck and a deck around level 6 and 7.  Deck 5 is the lowest level of the atrium which has a lot of seating and a bar too. Technically, there are parts that go on a few of the other floors, but most of the action takes place on just a few decks.  Most of the lounges and restaurants are in the mid levels of the ship.  The pools and kids clubs are on the upper decks.  One thing that Preziosa has, which we haven’t had on other lines is an indoor pool area.  Considering the weather is going to be in the 50’s the whole week, that is definitely a plus.  However, based on the size of this ship, that pool will be very crowded if it’s the only one anyone uses.  The pools on every cruise ship ever are too crowded.I think MSC has more lounge areas than either DCL or RCCL, but whatever. The only thing I miss is being able to be on the open-air decks as it’s been too windy, often wet, and cold.

The kids’ clubs are pretty basic.  Ella and Zoe aren’t interested at all (even though they basically lived in the kids’ club on the Disney ship).  Zach still likes his club, but the hours are kind of sporadic and it’s a little disorganized as far as where the kids will be at any one time.  My biggest complaint is that kids under 16 cannot connect to the chat feature of the MSC app, so we have no way to communicate with them.  That makes them hard to find if we split up.

Food – we’ve only had one buffet and one dinner so far, so it’s too soon to make much of a judgement on this.  I’ll write about it as we continue on.  My dinner was pretty boring (Turkey and vegetables), but it tasted fine and I’m holding out hope of better things to come.

Entertainment – We didn’t go to the main show.  The kids tried to do karaoke, but it was total chaos.  Everyone basically pushed and shoved their way to the DJ booth to put in their song requests, so even though the kids got there early it took a while before they could pick a song.  Zoe and Jacob picked out a song, but their microphones wouldn’t work for about half the song, so they didn’t really have a good time.

Apparently my first impressions are a lot better than Marc’s. lunch buffet on embarkation day is always too chaotic on every ship, so no thoughts about that. Buffets aren’t my thing anyway. MSC is known for excellent pizza and freshly made pasta. My dinner the first night was pasta which was excellent.

I was most impressed and relieved though about the way the head waiter is taking care of satisfying Max’s dietary requests. They made him a specially prepared steak and sides the first night and gave him the lunch and dinner menus for the next day so that he could indicate his order and it can be specially prepared for him.

Day 9 – At Sea

My favorite part of the day was the Port lecture about Hamburg, even though I fell asleep.  It was a really interesting talk about the ancient history of the North Sea (it was once land) and about the city of Hamburg.  However, the rocking of the ship and something about the way the lecturer spoke worked together to put me right to sleep.

Other than that, I was shocked to find every seat taken at breakfast considering how huge the buffet is here.  Zach and I ate outside.  Kyrie and the other boys went to breakfast at the main dining room.  Not sure what the girls did.

I had some time to relax today (not just during the port lecture), so that was nice.  The weather is pretty cold.  They have blankets on deck, but there isn’t much to do out there anyway, so I found an indoor place to read my book.  We had lunch in the main dining room because the chef in that dining room is making sure that they always has something for Max.  He has a bunch of unusual food sensitivities and MSC is doing an amazing job of accommodating him – much better than I do!

My dinner tonight was lasagna.  Still not impressed, but there is plenty of other food available around the ship.

Max caught up on some of his schoolwork today.  The other kids did some trivia and they are going to try out the karaoke again tonight.

 

Day 10 – Hamburg, Germany

We spent the morning in Hamburg, Germany.  For some reason, this MSC cruise comes here every Sunday even though most things are closed.  If they shifted the cruise to be one day different they would spend Sunday at sea and not have this problem.  Anyway, we still had a reasonably good time exploring some bits of the city.

The highlights were the outside of City Hall.  It’s an interesting looking building and has a fountain in the courtyard.  We walked to the train station, because it was one of the only places that had stores that were open.  We spent A LOT of time in the grocery store looking for unique treats.  Then we walked to the Warehouse District which was kind of interesting with canals and some sort of interesting buildings. 

There really didn’t seem to be much to do in Hamburg even if we would have arrived on a day that it was open.  Unlike most cities we have visited, there didn’t seem to be anything truly unique about it.  I might have just been put off by the cold, rainy weather.  Hoping that we enjoy the other ports more.

Hamburg seemed like a pretty clean city and the street we walked from the Rathouse (City Hall) to the train station had dining tables and umbrellas like other European cities we’ve visited. I’m sure it would have been hopping Monday through Saturday. There were many retail stores, cafes, bars, etc.

The ONLY stores open in the whole city on a Sunday are at the train station, so that was the main thing for me. I want to buy an assortment of food gifts and other items to give as gifts for Christmas. Seven of us trying to not block aisles is my biggest concern and it slows me down. We should probably split up.

The Ubers back to the ship were the most interesting thing today. Jacob, Ella, Zoe, and I got the first Uber that was supposed to be a Mercedes Benz while Marc’s Uber was a Kia and arriving after ours. Well, this weird looking taxi pulled up and said they were our ride and verified his name and Jacob’s, so we got in. Sazan explained that he had been in an accident recently, so he is driving a different car. This was foreshadowing for craziness of our ride for sure.

When traffic was backed up due to the Elbe tunnel being closed, he zoomed around looking for other streets with moving traffic getting further and further of course. He got up to 100km/hour at times which I’m not sure what that is in mph, but considering the speed limit was 60, it was too fast! Anyway, we arrived back to the cruise terminal 10 minutes after Marc, Max. and Zach even though their car didn’t pick them up until 20 minutes after ours! I just prayed for our safety and everyone else’s the whole time.

Our Uber driver was apparently the opposite.  He managed to get past very long lines of cars several times and got us to the port very quickly.

Back onboard we had lunch in the dining room and then spent the afternoon in various ways.  Zoe took a nap because she was starting to get a cold.  I’m sure that walking all morning in the cold and wet didn’t help, but we didn’t know she wasn’t feeling well until we were in town.  I can’t really remember what I did the rest of the afternoon (I’m writing this a day later).  I do know that I’ve been wanting to spend some time reading a book, but never seem to find time for this during the day.  The kids did some trivia.

My dinner still wasn’t great, but I blame myself this time.  I chose a beet risotto, which was really a questionable choice.  The steaks that some of the others had, looked pretty decent.

After dinner Zach went to the kid’s club.  He really enjoys that even though he is probably the oldest kid in his category and many of the kids don’t speak English.  He plays some video games and foosball (they said he was the King of foosball) and always participates in whatever they have going on.  He basically wants to be there whenever it is open (which is sporadic and hard to figure out).

Kyrie and I hung out in the lounge for a while and the kids went to watch some shows.  They were disappointed in the ABBA tribute because there wasn’t a live bank doing it.

Last night, the boys and I were delighted to find the German toast character on the TV.  We watched one episode of it over and over on our first MSC cruise when we went to Norway.  It was funny even though we couldn’t understand any German.

Day 11 – At Sea

The ship was supposed to leave Hamburg last night at 9pm, but didn’t leave until sometime after midnight to avoid storms.  Even with waiting, the seas were very rough this morning when I woke up.  I think we were traveling at higher speed to make up for lost time. There was a rumor that we would dock late in the Netherlands, but it’s not true.

I joined Max for breakfast at the MDR (Main Dining Room) at 8am. They can accommodate Max’s dietary preferences here and I am happy to hang out with Max each morning. Others occasionally join us. Max gets two egg white veggie omelets cooked in olive oil every morning. At least one of the waiters knows us and Max’s standing order.

I pre-paid a lava stone massage that I booked for this morning at 9am. The spa is nice and the massage was one of the best I’ve ever had. I can’t remember what I paid, but it was less than I would have at home due to a great deal before the cruise.

The kids’ club did Master Chef Junior this morning.  Zach got to make some dessert thing and then a Chef came around and “judged” all of the kids’ creations.  Zach seemed to have a good time with it. Zach was certainly proud of the hat he made for the competition and certificate he received for participating in Master Chef.

Max has had to spend a lot of the cruise doing schoolwork.  He seems to be enjoying himself in between.

Zoe is feeling better today.  We finally found a good spot on the ship to sit around indoors since it’s too cold on deck.  There is one lounge with windows to the outside, but doesn’t have anything going on during the day.  So, we spent a lot of time there today trying to plan out what we are doing at each of the ports. This is called the Diamond Lounge. It’s a bar on Deck 6 surrounding the atrium. It starts to get busy around five as people are looking for a drink before dinner at the Golden Lobster adjacent to the bar on this deck as well as deck five.

There was a lecture about the different ports today, but they had to cram in 4 different ports in 45 minutes and it just didn’t work.  The speaker kept speaking in half thoughts and assumed that everyone knew things that at least us Americans did not.  So, it wasn’t that helpful, but it was still interesting.

I did find some time to read my book today, so that was nice.  I really don’t even know where the time is going.  It doesn’t seem like I’m doing very much, but I somehow stay busy all day.  I agree with this! At least my mind is pretty well off of work, so mentally I am rejuvenating.

 

Day 12 – Rotterdam, Netherlands

The illness moved on to Zachary today and he just wanted to stay in bed, so Kyrie and I took turns going ashore with the other kids.

I took the first shift staying with Zach and it was very relaxing.  I booked a couple of trips for people and finally got plenty of time to read.  I don’t know how it works out that I always get bookings to do while I’m on vacation, but it never fails.  If I wanted my travel agency to really take off, I should always be on vacation!

The first group came back at lunch time and we ate lunch together at the buffet.  For me personally, I prefer the buffet to the regular restaurant. 

After lunch, I went ashore with Jacob and Max.  They took me to the Cube houses that I wanted to see.  They are a very unique set of houses right by a large market.  They are shaped like cubes, which isn’t that unusual, but the way they are situated is (pointy side down).  We paid to go in the model one, but I almost wish I hadn’t.  The model was very unimpressive.  I expected the model to be a great example of how cool that house could be.  But inside, it was barely furnished and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live in that space.

The market was cool, but we had just had lunch and I don’t really shop, so we moved on pretty quickly.  The kids and I spent the majority of our time at Markthal, so I am sure they were shopped out too. We bought a lot of Gouda and a few other things.

Then we walked over to Delfstand, which is maybe more of an old version of Holland?  Not really sure, I didn’t read up on it, but the buildings were sort of older and there was a windmill that they said used to be used to grind malt for their beer.  The most interesting thing to me was finding the spot that the (American) pilgrim’s church was and finding out that this was where they boarded the ship Speedwell which took them back to England to board the Mayflower.

After dinner, some of the kids and I went to the Theater show which was Rock music themed.  Wish the songs would have been more modern, but otherwise it was alright.

I realize Marc is not appreciating this cruise as much as I am. I think of an MSC cruise as a floating hotel taking us to cool new places to explore without having to unpack. I did not like the MSC cruise we took in Florida last year; the ship was dirty, crowded, and the service was lacking. I did like our cruise on the MSC Poesia to Norway in 2019 and I think the Preziosa has been even better regarding the dining and bar service including the quality of the food. The ship is clean. I don’t love all the décor, but it’s well maintained. My only “complaint” is that our cabin is small and our steward is inconsistent, but fine.

The weather has been cloudy, cold, and sometimes rainy. I think this affects our overall enjoyment since we’re not using the upper decks which is a great part of a cruise. I may also be enjoying this cruise more than Marc because I did a lot of research ahead of time anticipating the ports. No one seemed interested in doing tours at these ports, opting to just walk around and explore. I think Marc is missing learning more about the places we are visiting.

I agree that not being able to use the pool deck has been a bummer.  On previous cruises, even when it was sort of cold, the deck was still a good place to hang out with a blanket.  This time it has been wet most of the time we are sailing, so even with a blanket it’s no fun to be up there.

Day 13 – Brugges, Belgium

Today was my favorite day of the cruise.  Brugges was great and I would like to spend some more time there.  It was a very pretty city with really interesting looking buildings and canals around the main squares.

The first thing I noticed when we were driving through smaller towns on the way into Brugge was that all of the houses were made of brick.  I didn’t see any made of wood.  That continued when we got into Brugge.  The buildings in the old part of Brugge were all right against one another and they circled various squares.  They had small shops on the street level and apartments above.  They had a stepped façade on the top of each building. 

We took a canal tour and saw some of the buildings that were actual houses. 

One very unique thing was that we went to the Church of the Holy Blood.  There they have a relic is claimed to contain the blood of Jesus.  It is a glass container that has very elaborate glass ends on it.  It seems very odd and unlikely that someone would have thought to take some of Jesus’ blood while he was on the cross, but it is still very interesting anyway.  I had no idea that this church was here.

We bought a lot of chocolate here and Kyrie really wanted to buy a Cuckoo clock, but somehow I talked her out of that.  We also bought some lace Christmas ornaments because Belgium is also known for lace.  Oh yeah, and we had a Belgium waffle which was pretty amazing actually.  No waffle that I’ve had in America has any business being called a Belgium waffle.

We had a good lunch on the square where the church of the Holy Blood was.  Max has enjoyed being of drinking age in Europe.  He has wanted to try a different beer in each country.  The restaurant we ate lunch at had a beer sampler of Belgium beers, so Jacob, Max and I each had a different kind. 

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I stayed up later than usual and regretted it. Lol! I don’t like crowds and this was the busiest time I’ve experienced this week. We lost Zoe for a bit when she told us she was going to the bathroom and will meet us in the Safari Lounge. That lounge ended up being closed though and Zoe didn’t go the closest bathrooms, instead she went back to our cabin. We don’t have a way to communicate with Zoe onboard. Eventually, we all found each other then decided the moment to hang out had passed.

The kids did their own thing and Marc and I ended up having a cocktail on our balcony on this lovely evening. OneIt all ended well since this was one of my favorite moments of this cruise. So peaceful and relaxing.

Not having connecting rooms or a way to communicate with anyone under 16 (which means 3 of our kids) means I’m spending half the time trying to figure out where everyone is and how to tell them where I’m going to be next. 

 

Day 14 – La Havre, France

This day ended up being kind of a bust.  We walked a pretty good distance to a shopping mall nearby, but it didn’t have any interesting shops and we spent way too long in a grocery store here.  Actually, we ended up in the grocery store twice.  We went there when we first walked by it to check it out, but decided that we didn’t want to carry everything around and decided that we would just come back after we checked out everything else.  The only problem was that in this store, you have to scan a receipt in order to leave.  Well, we didn’t have a receipt since we didn’t buy anything so we had to track down a store employee and try to explain in English that we wanted to leave but didn’t buy anything.  He figured it out and basically just pushed the door open which set off the alarm and let us out.  Ironically, when we did go back and buy stuff, our receipt got jammed in the machine, so we had to find someone to fix that so that we could leave the store.

Marc didn’t mention that I was able to walk out of the store right behind others who had a receipt. They could have too. I would have felt weird about that the second time though when we actually bought something.

I had researched enough to know that there was nothing good to do in Le Havre. I suggested traveling to Rouen where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake or to Hon Fleur a picturesque city on the coast. Everyone decided to sleep later and make it an easy day.

I enjoyed shopping in the grocery store. The “souvenirs” I was after were specialty food items and specific wines to bring onto the Disney ship- Champagne, Bordeaux, and Chablis. Got them all. Our bag was so heavy and we didn’t want to split up so we ended up getting an Uber back to the ship.

The other parts of the town that some of us were interested in were way on the other side and we decided not to bother at that point. 

I’ve found the entertainment on this MSC ship to be better than I remember it being in the past.  I did skip the first few production shows because I figured I wouldn’t like them.  Since then, I’ve gone to their Rock show which I mentioned earlier, a magician, a comedian and an ABBA show.  All of these were decent.  I find it interesting how often I come across ABBA shows on cruises.  I have been to at least 3 different ones on different cruise lines over the years and I’m sure there are some that I skipped as well over the years.  In comparison, I’ve seen only one Beatles show and no other individual bands that I can think of.  I just wonder why it’s always ABBA, I don’t think they are just hugely popular or something.

 Day 15 – Drinking Bath Water

Today was the last day of our MSC cruise.  We returned to Southampton and woke up in complete fog.  It’s amazing that they are able to dock the ship under these conditions.  I literally couldn’t see the dock from our balcony. 

Kyrie and I have different opinions of MSC.  She likes it much more than I do.  I agree that it’s a decent way to get to various ports in Europe and that the price is right.  It’s much less expensive than the alternatives that we’ve been on before (Disney and Royal Caribbean.)  I think the main reason we chose this cruise was because of the ports and because the timing worked best with our Disney cruise that starts in a couple days.  However, if this was our only cruise of this trip or if this was the main part of our vacation, I would be disappointed.  I didn’t especially like the food (except the pizza.)  I thought the service was fine, but not great.  The one exception was the head waiter of our dining room that took care of Max’s special dietary requirements.  He really did an amazing job.  The rooms were definitely a bit smaller and less comfortable than Royal Caribbean or Disney.  There were a decent number of activities, I guess, but they didn’t really appeal to me.  I guess I don’t even know exactly what was missing, but it just felt like things were lacking.  It was probably a bunch of small things more than and one big thing.  Anyway, I would cruise on MSC again, but I would rather try a different line to see if it appealed to me more.

I really enjoyed seeing some more places in Europe and look forward to exploring more in the future!

I’m not even sure how our opinions can be so different. I actually think Marc would have had a better time on this cruise if he had researched and therefore anticipated the ports more like I did. We’ve been SO busy the last 6 months or so, that it just didn’t happen. The difficulty communicating on the ship and the strain Marc felt with that probably added up too.

We’re on Day 5 of our Disney cruise now as I add my comments about this MSC cruise but they aren’t much different than what I was thinking during the cruise. This MSC cruise, like the first one we took to Norway, was nothing more than a place to sleep and way to travel from one destination to another to explore Europe. The first MSC cruise exceeded our low expectations by being a really nice ship with decent food and service, so our hopes/expectations were higher this time.

The cabins are small, the beds are hard. The housekeeper was fine but it was annoying that he wouldn’t make the couch bed into a couch during the day. He was also a stickler about closing the balcony partition between our adjoining balconies. He said it’s a rule to have them closed while sailing. There was only one day that we had it open then and had to ask him (again) that day. Having this one connection between our rooms would have helped us feel more together, Maybe MSC is strict about this now (but it was not in the past and Disney allows our balcony partition to stay open too.)

I agree that the entertainment was better and more plentiful than our past experiences, which was a nice surprise, but not something I will expect in the future either.

The food quality and service far exceeded my expectations. So far, I’ve had one dinner and one lunch on DCL that I would call good.  MSC was speedier and good. Their bread, pizza, pasta, and coffee are all far superior to DCL. Breakfast service in MSC’s dining room was SO much better! And I wish we had anyone on DCL as committed to Max’s food enjoyment/preparation as our head waiter and MSC’s kitchen team were. Max can’t even get sea salt to sprinkle on his tasteless food on Disney so far. I’m working to help improve this.

Now, on to our day in Britain.  So, we got off the cruise ship right after breakfast and walked over to Alamo rent a car.  This time we had reserved what they call a Full Passenger Van and the picture shows a smallish minivan that holds 8 passengers and a decent amount of bags.  I researched this thoroughly while still in America and had to learn all about “boot space” to make sure it would hold all of our baggage.  This sounded good to me after trying to drive a “bus” around the English countryside earlier in the trip.  However, when we got to Alamo they took us out to this Mercedes SUV kind of thing.  I don’t know exactly what kind of vehicle it is, but definitely not a minivan.  It technically had seven seats, but if you use the 2 backmost seats, then it has about 6 inches of space in the trunk (I would say about 2 boots).  I explained to them that there are seven of us and a bunch of bags.  They said sorry, but their system doesn’t get all of the information when we reserve it and this was the equivalent.  They said all they had was one of the buses like we had before, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but I probably would have accepted it as an alternative since at least we could all fit.  However, they wouldn’t just give me that one, they would have charged a hefty upgrade fee, so I figured out a different plan.  Since our hotel was very close, I first loaded the car with luggage and drove it all to the hotel and then came back to pick everyone up.  This ended up working out fine and it was a nice car and even that was still a little large to try to park around the city or in the parking garage.  Zoe is still trying to unfold her legs though from sitting in the back!

After we worked out all of that we drove to Stonehenge which was probably about 45 minutes away from the port.  It was more interesting than I expected and kind of cool to see something that was built so long ago.  I think they said something like 3,000 BC?  Crazy to imagine that.  I can’t understand why they would move those huge rocks so far away and on top of each other like that.  Mostly what I learned was that they have no idea how or why they did it, but it was refreshing that they admitted that. 

After that we drove to the city of Bath, which took forever because the main road there is closed and our GPS didn’t know it and just kept trying to make us go that way.  Bath is named after an ancient Roman Bath that was built there around 50AD when the Romans lived there.  Before heading to the bath we stopped in a local pub and had a decent lunch.  The Roman Bath has been updated various times over the past 2,000 years, so we had to pay attention to the museum signs and audio to figure out what parts were really old and which parts were newer (like 1800’s).  The museum did a good job of explaining everything and there was a lot more to it than I expected.  The baths themselves were created using a hot spring that is on the site and still today produces over a million litres of water each day.  The water bubbles up and most of it is diverted into a nearby river.  One of the highlights of the museum was at the end where they have fountains with paper cups for you to drink the warm bath water.  We all did it and it was awful – but fun!

Later we walked over to the river where there is an elaborate bridge over it.  It has shops on the bridge, but we were tired at this point and just looked at the bridge from a distance.  What I found more interesting was the river itself.  In this part of the river is some manmade structure that has several levels in the river itself, creating kind of a sunken portion of the river which looks really cool, but I can’t describe it well.  Hopefully, the pictures will capture it well.

Then we drove home which didn’t take quite as long as getting there did, but still took too long.  Also, driving in the dark was a little unnerving because of the narrow roads and not wanting to scratch up the rental car.

We finally got back after 7:30pm and then had to find a place to eat.  Luckily our hotel is right next to a major shopping area, although it is mostly not visible from our hotel.  We did find a good pizza place though.

Day 16 – Laundry Day

Jacob and I started the day by driving around Southampton looking for a laundrymat that would take credit cards (since we didn’t bring any local currency).  It took a while, but we finally found one and the guy who ran the place was very nice.  He told us exactly which machines to use and how much laundry to put in each one and how long to run the dryers for.  It really helped a lot and we were out of there in a couple of hours despite (somehow) having a massive amount of laundry to do.

After that we met up with the rest of the gang and walked to High street where we had lunch in Poppins Diner.  It wasn’t great, but it was food.  We checked out an old city gate right by there and then drove to New Forest Wildlife Park.  Kyrie was in a lot of pain when we got there because she has been out of alignment for weeks and all the extra walking and uncomfortable beds finally caught up with her.  So, she stayed in the car and rested while the rest of us checked out the park.  It was a small park with a LOT of types of otters and owls, as well as some other animals and play structures.  It was a nice little park and the kids and I had a good time.  It seemed like they fed the animals rather “directly”.  Like, food that isn’t processed at all?  Basically, many of the cages had small dead chickens or furry things in them as the food.  I’m sure it was good for the animals that were eating it, just not something that I normally see at zoos.

After the zoo, Kyrie was feeling better and we headed back to Southampton to a historic area near the shore.  We were a little early for dinner, so we went into The Dancing Man pub for a drink and then went to The Duke of Wellington pub for dinner.  Both were good and were in buildings that looked quite old and interesting.

Day 17 – Boarding the Disney Dream

This was definitely the day that we’ve all been looking forward to the most.  I’ve enjoyed seeing Europe (not the driving so much!), but I’m really ready for the relaxing part of our trip.  The check in process took a while, but mostly because we got there very early.  We still got on the ship within a half hour or so of when our boarding time was.  Ella and Zoe had already found one of their friends from our 2023 transatlantic cruise before we got on the ship.

Later on a FB group for this cruise, I read about how chaotic and disorganized boarding at this port was. People waiting for hours past their boarding times. My family will never truly appreciate how much I research and plan and insist on early arrivals to save them from that kind of chaos.

When we got onboard we were really ready for lunch because we mostly skipped breakfast.  We made the mistake of going to Animator’s Palette for lunch.  We usually go up on deck and either get the buffet or have something in the quick service area.  There were so many people on board ahead of us that we thought we were better off in the dining room, but that was wrong.  It took hours by the time we finished lunch.  I’m not even sure what took so long about it. 

The main reason we chose the dining room was to try to accommodate Max’s food requests. Anytime we mentioned sensitivities/allergies the cast member would stop taking our order and go somewhere. This happened a couple of times with big gaps of time between.

The ship has been in dry dock for about a month.  The biggest changes were that they built a fancy new suite in the forward funnel and moved the Edge (11-14 kid’s club) next to the Vibe (Teen’s club.) That is not at all complete yet. They also added a Mexican food restaurant to the quick service area.  Otherwise, they replaced a lot of carpet and painted the ship. 

After lunch we went to our rooms which seem so spacious compared to our MSC cruise.  We actually had room for everything – with a little to spare.  The configuration is also so much better. DCL is known for having the largest standard staterooms of any cruise line. The split baths really help make it more livable too. DCL also has THE best stateroom attendants. They keep things so clean and are so quick. They do their best to learn our habits and slip in and out around the times we choose to occupy our staterooms.

Dinner went better than lunch and was good.  There was no stage show tonight, but the younger kids went to their clubs and Jacob and Max went to the 1820 Society which is basically a group for 18 to 20 year olds where they get free coffees and things like that.  Kyrie and I checked out the rest of the ship since we hadn’t really had time yet. 

DCL feels like “home.” It has the subtle Disney fresh smell, Disney music everywhere, everything shiny and clean .Oh, and the beds are so comfortable!

 

Day 18 – A wavy start to the cruise             

We are on our way to our first port which is Vigo, Spain.  It was very wavy last night and continues to be that way today.  We’ve been on a lot of cruises and I don’t think I’ve felt one this wavy so far.  The captain said that the waves were from a cyclone nearby and that they were going to be up to about 18-20 feet which seems pretty big to me.  He assured us that this is perfectly fine. 

I vaguely recall the WBTA where we skipped the two Canadian ports due to weather had one really rough night where they asked us to stay inside. It’s certainly was rough today. I think nearly everyone felt a little bit seasick. I feel sorry for those who really had issues with it. Ella is the most prone in our family and it was a tougher day for her and Zoe also.

Everyone is having a good time so far. The girls are so excited to be back to the kids club reacquainting with a couple old friends and making new ones.  Zach graduated to the Edge which is for 11-14 year olds.  It has a lot less things to play with than the Oceaneer’s club, but he was still eager to go there again this morning.  They do a great job of keeping everyone involved in activities.

Today I tried out the new quick service restaurant on the ship, Ramone’s.  It was very good.  It is tacos and taco bowls that are served “Chipotle Style”.  It was much better than the other quick service options.

As the day progressed, the waves got a lot more reasonable and the sun eventually came out to make for a nice late afternoon.  Dinner was good and the comedian, Jonathon Burns, was really funny even though he was on the last Disney transatlantic cruise we were on and his show didn’t change much.

Day 19 – Vigo, Spain               

We had a pretty sail into Vigo, Spain this morning.  There are a lot of rocks in the water and houses on the small mountains.  Kyrie and I went into town first on our own and did some shopping.  The town is pretty, but plain.  It’s kind of a hike to go anywhere because it is uphill from the port.  I don’t think many cruise ships go there and the town was definitely not very touristy.  In the afternoon, I went back with Jacob and Max and we hiked to the top of the mountain where the fortress is.  It was quite a ways up.  There wasn’t much to see up there, but it was a pretty view and better than not going up there.  We had a funny experience while we were at the fort.  We were sort of reading the signs, but they were only in Spanish, so we basically decided for ourselves what they said.  Just as we were about to walk away this local lady came out of nowhere and started speaking to us in Spanish.  We had no idea what she was saying, but she was very insistent.  She pointed at the tourist information and was apparently trying to tell us about some old house foundations that were mentioned on the sign.  We thanked her even though we had no idea what she was telling us and she walked away – seemingly satisfied that she had conveyed the information.  We looked around a little to see if we could see whatever she was talking about, but didn’t find it.  Later, on our way back down the hill, we did come across a small area that had the house foundations and a replica of what the ancient houses would have looked like, but it was in a fenced in area which was closed, so we couldn’t see much.

The weather was beautiful today and many people enjoyed the pools which have been closed most of the time and too cold the rest of the time.  The entertainment tonight was a ventriloquist who won America’s Got Talent.  His act was best when he wasn’t using the puppet. 

Day 20 – Lisbon, Portugal and short 25-Hour Days

One great thing about a westbound transatlantic cruise is that you get an extra hour on many of the days.  On this one, since we stopped in Spain and lost an hour, we end up with 6 days where we gain an hour.  We had the first of those days yesterday and it was wonderful.  25-hour days suit me much better.  It gives me enough time to do all of the great things there are to do aboard the ship and still get a reasonable amount of sleep.  That’s especially true on this sailing because the girls insist that they need to stay at the kid’s club until it closes every night at midnight AND THEN hang out with their friends in the Atrium for an hour after that!  And of course, I can’t/won’t sleep until they are back, so it means a lot of late nights for me as well.  I don’t mind, but those extra hours are really going to help.

So, our port today was Lisbon, Portugal.  We were here last year on an Eastbound transatlantic cruise and toured it thoroughly at that time.  So this time we just sought out the Custard tarts (Pastel de Nata) and cappuccino that we had last time and only walked around a short while.  That was just as well because we were anxious to enjoy the warm weather by the pools. 

I really need the kids to write their stuff in here now because I have no idea what they do each day.  I know the girls had a Mocktail class which they were way too enthusiastic about.  Zach played some gaga ball, but I’m not sure what else.

Kyrie and I met David and Andrea on the deck who have also been on a lot of cruises.  It was interesting to compare experiences.  I mostly mention them so that I can remember their names.

Jacob and I went to trivia and lost by one point. (Came in second.)

The entertainment tonight is the movie Deadpool and Wolverine in the main theater. 

Everyone seems to be having a great time.

 

Day 21 – A Pleasant Day at Sea

Wow, three weeks of our vacation have just flown by.  Thankfully, today had almost zero plans.  Most of us slept in.  Max did a little bit of school online.  Not sure what most of the family was doing all day, but I enjoyed walking on the jogging deck and reading.  I also watched the movie “The Greatest Showman” in the afternoon.  Tonight, Kyrie and I have bartending class about Old Fashioneds.  Not sure what that’s going to be like.  At the other classes we attended on past cruises, we have made like 5 drinks.  I’m not sure I could walk back to my room if we made 5 Old Fashioneds. 

The weather today was cloudy and in the 60’s.  A little too cool for the pool, but nice enough for being on deck.  Yesterday we made some more specific requests of the Dining staff to try to get Max some better food that still fits within his very strict dietary requirements and it went quite a bit better today.  I still wish that Disney had been more proactive about it the way that MSC was, but at least they are doing a better job now.

Okay, the Old Fashioned class is over now.  We did get five drinks, but each one only had 1 ounce of liquor, so it was reasonable.  It was an interesting class, but I would definitely only do it once.  We had Old Fashioneds made from Blatins Bourbon, Whistle Pig Rye Whiskey, Rum, Cognac, and Mescal.  It was interesting to try all of the variations, but the Bourbon one was still my favorite and most of the others I wouldn’t want to try again.  The Rum one had chocolate bitters and spicy cherry bitters which was interesting and the Cognac one had maple syrup as the sugar part which made it a good dessert drink. The Cognac Old Fashioned was my second favorite. I wanted to remember what was in it to make it at home this winter….but I may have waited too many days to try to recall which bitters were used. At least Marc recorded that it had maple syrup in it.

Day 22 – Day at Sea – Palo Brunch - Pirate Night

We had another nice day at sea today.  Kyrie, Jacob and I had brunch at Palo today.  They like that kind of thing more than I do.  I really liked the celery soup and the panna cotta for dessert.  We had a lot of other good things in between, but those were the highlights.

It was a cool and windy day today with a lot of clouds, so we stayed out of the pool.  I watched Emperor’s New Groove on the Funnel Vision.  Wow, must have been a slow day if that makes the blog!  I guess I could start talking about laundry again?  Just kidding.

Tonight will be Pirate Night.  Before going down to dinner I was wondering if most people on this cruise are bored with Pirate Night since almost all of them have already been on a multiple Disney cruises in the past.  But, I was definitely wrong.  There were a million people lined up to get a picture with Jack Sparrow and almost everyone had some pirate attire on.  I believe these people might actually like pirate night more than the average Disney cruiser.  Not me though.  I found it mildly interesting the first time we cruised and not at all since.  I wouldn’t have minded some pirate movies on the funnel vision (they will have Muppet’s Treasure Island tonight), but I’m definitely not interested in the little stage show they do or the fireworks.  I’m for sure in the minority on these thoughts though.  Judging from what I saw downstairs, there will be a huge crowd on deck tonight.

Day 23 – Ponta Delgada, Portugal – Food Tour

Our port today was Ponta Delgada.  Part of the Azores islands, Sao Miguel is a finely manicured island about a third of the way between Lisbon and New York.  Even the mountains have hedges on them that seem to go all the way to the top.  We found out that hydrangeas are an invasive species on this island. I would prefer those over the Honey Suckle bushes that invade our landscape at home.

Since we have been here two other times, we decided to do a food tour this time around.   Only Kyrie, Jacob, Max and I went on the tour.  The other kids stayed on the ship and seem to be having a great time without us.   Our tour guide took us around the town sampling various foods from the region and sharing some of the local history.   The tour lasted about four hours.  Here are some of the foods we sampled:

-            Various cheeses, including one with an interesting pepper sauce to put on it

-            The first wheat bread they made on the island. It looked like an English muffin but was softer and had a sweet taste. It was served with a slice of cheese similar to Gouda but local. Finally a little local honey to drizzle over the cheese to complete the sandwich.

-            A tart that is similar, but different than the custard tarts we had in Lisbon. It had orange, pineapple, and cinnamon.

-            Local pineapple – you can eat the core of this pineapple and it’s smaller than the pineapples that we are used to.  It’s also sweeter.  They told us that these pineapples are grown in greenhouses.  They trim the leaves off the pineapples to focus the plant’s energy on growing the fruit.  Then when it’s the right time they burn leaves in the greenhouse and close the doors for like nine days.  When they open the doors again the fruit will start growing.

-            Local green tea

-            Chorizo that they lit on fire at the table

-            Fried Taro

-            Roast beef & Fries

-            Saffron Potatoes

-            Whole tempura maceral which are meant to be eaten whole (head to tail).  Jacob ate two of them, the rest of us did not try them.

-            A volcano inspired dessert

All of the food that I tried was good.  Nothing was amazing, but it was definitely a good tour and it was interesting to meet the other people in our group.

Day 24 – Lazy Day at Sea

The weather was nice and sunny today and warm enough (barely) for the pool.  Most of us spent some time in it.  Kyrie and I watched a movie on the Funnel vision while in the pool and while we were still watching the movie we saw Zach swim with some of his friends and later Jacob and Max got in for like 2 minutes with people from their 1820 group.

The presenter on this cruise is Don “Ducky” Williams.  He is a retired Disney artist who worked for the company for nearly 40 years and still does some work for them.  He showed us how to draw Mickey and Minnie and told some stories about his time with Disney.  It wasn’t as interesting as some of the other presenters that we’ve seen over the years, but it was still good.

Max finally got a decent dinner tonight.  He pre-orders his food each night for the next day and he gives them choices off of the next day’s menu that he would like if they can make it within his dietary restrictions.  Basically, every night they end up giving him a bland steak with steamed vegetables because they say they couldn’t make his choices.  But tonight, I’m not sure what happened because they ended up making ALL of his choices, they looked decent, and even made up a dessert for him.  He ate all three meals.  He’s probably been starving since breakfast is about the only meal that has been working out.

The show tonight was called “The Award Goes To…” and it was really not good.  The idea was that the show would showcase some of the award winning music of Disney, but it was not put together well at all.  The music choices were not great, and the arrangements made some of the songs almost unrecognizable.  I’m not the best judge of this stuff because I don’t typically like stage shows anyway, but even Kyrie agreed that this wasn’t good.

Day 25 – My Daily Routine, Not Knot Tying, Magician

I have purposely not made any kind of schedule or plans for myself.  To me, that is vacation.  But, as these sea days have been going by, I’ve realized that I have started a routine.  Here it is:

9:00am - 1^st Breakfast (with Max)

10:00am - 2nd Breakfast (with Zach)

11:00am – Lecture

12:00pm – Lunch

1:00pm – 3 or 4 laps walking around the jogging track

2:00pm – Reading time on Deck 13

4:30pm – Cheese Platter in the room

5:45pm – Dinner

8:30pm – Show

Wait up for Zach to come “home” at midnight and Ella and Zoe to come “home” at 1am.

That looks boring, but it’s really fun and relaxing and sometimes there is some trivia or other entertainment mixed in.

Today’s other entertainment was another lecture from Don “Ducky” Williams which told the (surprisingly long, but entertaining) story of how he began working at Disney.  And then after that Kyrie and I went to a Knot Tying class, but didn’t stay for long.  The crew member who was teaching the class admitted that it had been years since he took knot tying during college and he wasn’t too good at explaining how to tie the first couple knots that he did.  We decided to bail out mainly because it was clear that even if we learned the knots we wouldn’t be able to make them again.

Tonight’s show was a magician.  He was really good.  He mostly did slight of hand stuff, but he had a lot of fun with the audience and put on a good show.

Day 26 – Not much to write about

The day started out very cloudy, there was rain in the early morning, but turned sunny later.  It was quite windy though, so not very warm.  Stayed in the room to read today because it was too windy on deck. 

I still haven’t become bored of my routine, but I am starting to feel guilty for being on vacation so long.  Also, I can only go so long without being productive.  Probably just my brain’s way of helping me deal with the fact that the vacation is ending in a couple days.

Kyrie and I did the gin tasting today.  The drinks were good, but the instructor wasn’t great.  In previous tastings they had certain side items (like lemon peel, etc.) out with the drinks and they would tell you which drinks to put them in, but this time they had some things (rosemary, orange, lemon, juniper berries) but never told us it was time to use them.  Anyway, it was interesting trying some different types of gin.

Zach and I are going to the theater to watch the second Black Panther movie tonight.

 

Day 27 – Another Day at Sea, Time Changes, More Fireworks

Well, not much to write about today.  My day has been much the same as it’s been for the past several days. So I decided to figure out how many times we’ve changed time zones on this trip.  If my count is accurate, which is a big ‘IF’, we will have changed our clocks 12 times by the time we get back to Chicago.  Plus, the day after we get back the time changes, so we will have had 13 time changes in a month!  Luckily, we got most of the bad ones (losing hours) out of the way on our flight to London while we slept.  Since then, we’ve mostly been getting hours back little by little.  It has actually been pretty great.  Despite staying up very late waiting for the kids to come back to the room, I’ve been able to wake up at a reasonable time each morning and still feel like I’ve had enough sleep.

The entertainment tonight was an acapella group called Moonstruck.  I enjoyed the show.  Later in the evening they had a dance party on deck called Mickey’s Color Wheel or something like that and the Disney’s Ever After fireworks.  The fireworks were better than the ones they do for the pirate show.

Day 28 – Halloween at Sea

This was the first time we have spent Halloween on a cruise ship.  Throughout the day they had Halloween music playing instead of the regular Disney music and had Halloween movies playing.  One of the guests arranged a trick or treating session on the jogging track.  That was a lot of fun.  All guests who wanted to participate brought a bag of candy or treats and then they setup stations all around the deck for kids to stop at to trick or treat.  There were a lot of types of candy since the guests came from all over.  We bought our candy while we were in France.

Disney also had trick or treating later that night.  The kids ended up with so much candy that they have given much of it away to the cast members.

 

Day 29 – Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point

We went to Disney’s new beach in the Bahamas today.  This was the first time that the Disney Dream has gone there, so it wasn’t 100% smooth.  The bartenders didn’t know the drinks and some of the items weren’t stocked.  Unlike Castaway Cay, Disney only owns a small portion of the island and it is rather far from where the ship docks.  It is a 10 minute walk down the pier and then another 10 minute tram ride to the beach area.  It’s completely fine, just different.  The buildings that they created look nice and the food was excellent.  Unfortunately, it was too windy and wavy to swim today.  The lifeguards were constantly having to tell people not to go in the water.  The waves were very rough.  It looked completely dangerous to me. I don’t know why people were trying to swim in the first place. 

I think we all had a great time on this trip, but at dinner we all compared this to our three other trips to Europe and everyone ranked this one last.  I think it was mostly because we didn’t go to any major cities and see big sights like we have on our other trips.  We designed this trip to be easy more than interesting.  It was much easier and relaxing than most of our trips, we just didn’t see as many sights as we usually do.

It was definitely a lot of fun and even our worst trip is still pretty great!