Tips On Taking A Disney Magic Mediterranean Cruise

Many of you read the daily posts I wrote when my family and I were on our 15 night Trans-Atlantic Disney cruise this summer… and I made “virtual friends” who sometimes give me updates on their Disney cruises as well! This one, from Kelly, I thought was worth sharing! Enjoy!

We just got back from our Disney Magic Mediterranean cruise and it was amazing. I will admit though, I wished there were more “at sea” days to relax. We were in 4 ports 4 days in a row so we were touring pretty much 10 hours a day, lots of walking. By the end the kids were sort of “toured” out. But going all the way to Europe I felt we had to try to see alot, lol. It was the first time we had been on the magic, we liked it but missed our favorite ship (Fantasy). Though we did appreciate how small the Magic was when running around to get to all the fun activities. While on the ship it was pretty much a regular disney cruise like all the cruises but of course when off the ship we were in Europe instead of the Caribbean. 🙂

We were in Italy for 3 of the ports and the last port was in France. I booked 2 of the Italy ports with Disney port excursions which worked out ok. We booked a private tour when in Rome and it was amazing. I would book a private tour again in a heartbeat, we were able to go anywhere we wanted, spend as much or little time at each place, etc. I had done my research with Trip advisor and found a great tour group called Rome In limo, they picked us up in a mercedes minivan, a/c cranked up to a nice comfortable level, even had cold waters in a cooler for us and snacks of nutella and crackers for the kids. We also got a private tour of the vatican museum which again I would highly recommend, Rome in limo organized that for us as well.

One of our favorite places to see in Italy was Pompeii. Unfortunately because we were with a group of tourists we were limited to time there. I would suggest going there in the off season when the crowds are lighter and get a full tour of it instead of just th e 90 min s we had which was not enough time for sure. It was very hot there as well so off season would mean cooler temps. Another town we liked was the medieval walled city of Lucca, it is in the Tuscany region. This is how I pictured a town in Tuscany, it was wonderful! Very low key, temps were cooler there and lots of shade. Amazing leather goods there so shopping was great, we bought some wallets for us and our nieces which were made by the family that owned 3 leather shops in that town!

When in the France port we booked a disney port excursion to see Monaco, Monte Carlo and Eze. The tour guide was French and obviously disliked American tourists, it was actually pretty funny how brusk and annoyed she was at all of us. Looking back I wouldn’t take the kids to Monaco or Monte Carlo, it was lost on them and really nothing interesting to see at those places. Eze was the last stop at that tour which is a cliffside town that you had to wa lk up to see, exhausting to do but once up on the top it was amazing to see the sights. I would rather have done a trip to Nice and Eze instead of Monaco and Monte Carlo next time.

So over all my review is definitely try a Disney Mediterranean cruise, avoid Monaco and Monte Carlo, definitely see Lucca and Eze, book private tours if you can find tours that are highly recommended by many people (trip advisor is a great resource for me) and bring a big hat and sunglasses because all those Mediterranean ports are super hot and sunny in the summer (I think the sun felt stronger than it did in Connecticut, maybe it was closer to the equator, lol).

Oh, before I forget, I wanted to mention Barcelona. This was the port the cruise left from. It was fantastic! We spent 2 days before the cruise and 1 day after the cruise, it was our favorite city along with Lucca. Alot of fun things to see (La Sagrada Familia church, best best best thing to see in Barcelona for sure, amazing doe sn’t eve n begin to describe this place) and Park Guell. Lots of great restaurants around town. I would suggest getting there a few days early, getting used to the time change before the cruise for one thing but also to see this wonderful city. After looking into staying at hotels (which were very expensive and had weird set ups for bathrooms in the hotel rooms (showers were open to the room, what??!) so we booked an apartment instead. There are lots of apartment hotels, it’s the same price or cheaper than a hotel room (about $350/night) and you get a washer/dryer, full kitchen, living room, 2 bathrooms, 2-3 bedrooms, etc), amazing. It’s actually more popular to stay in those set ups than the hotels in that city. We stayed at the Erik Vokel boutique apartments for 2 nights and the Castro exclusive residences for the last night in Barcelona. I liked Erik Vokel better only because we had issues with our key card at Castro but both were equally nice. Castro residences were just 2 blocks away from the Sagrada Familia church and Erik Vokel Gran Via apartments were down the street from the Magic fountains and this huge mall that used to be a bull fighting ring, on top are several restaurants and the view from up there was really great to see the entire city. We used a car service to get us from the Barcelona Airport, to the port, then picked us up from the port after the cruise and then took us to the airport again. The car service was key because NONE of the taxis could handle taking more than 4 people (we are a family of 5) as well as all our luggage.

Otherwise to get around town to see the sights we did the on/off tour bus one day which took us around the entire city and we would get off when we wanted to and the other day we used the Metro (subway), it was a great way to get around for only $1 per person. The tour group we used to get the tour to the Sagrada Familia was Julia tours which is the biggest tour company in Barcelona, we had an amazing tour gu ide who was so enthusiastic about it.

Now time to unpack and do laundry and get ready for school to start next week!

Read the complete series from our Trans-Atlantic Cruise:

Day One, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Anchors Away

Day Two, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Medical Evacuation

Day Three, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: College Admissions Conversation?

Day Four, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: The Gut Punch of New York

Day Five, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Day at Sea

Day Six, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Nova Scotia

Day Seven, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: I Didn’t Know Cinderella Was Real

Day Eight, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: The Worst Thing About This Cruise

Day Nine, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Three Racial Moments with Naomi

Day Ten, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Frozen’s “Freezing the Night Away” and Internet Withdrawal

Day Eleven, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Birds