OK so this blog hasn’t started off exactly as I had planned.
In reading my first post, I was going to do a review/recap of our Oasis of the
Seas cruise in April 2018. Well, life got in the way, work got hectic and I
haven’t done that. Plus during this time I was finalizing plans for our Vision
of the Seas cruise in September 2018. We were making final arrangements,
ensuring all tours were full and we had enough Euros to pay for everything. I
had wanted to do a little write up pre-cruise about what we were going to do,
who the tours were booked through and how I came to find and settle on these
trip purveyors. But again, life got in the way and I didn’t do it. So then my
intention was to do a daily recap of what we did, which whom we did it with and
the highlights/low points of the day. Well that got shot to hell halfway to the
airport the day we left! I realized that I didn’t pack my iPad (remembered the
keyboard, but not the device). We were too far away to turn around and I couldn’t
even stand to think of typing it all on my dinky little phone screen. So no
daily posts. The days were hectic and long anyways and by the time that dinner
was done each night, I was beat and ready for sleep, so the posts probably wouldn’t
have happened anyway. So here we are now, back home for a whopping 48 hours and
I will start composing this blog to try and get as much written down before it
fades completely from my memory! I’ll go through the trip day by day doing the
best that I can to remember and record what we did, with who, how it was
planned and what I got out of it. In the end, hopefully it will both help me
remember the trip and maybe help other plan for similar excursions over time.
Before we get on to the 2018 Europe trip, a little bit of history
to help explain how we got to this trip and why some of the decisions were
made. Our 2016 Europe trip set the stage for this trip and influenced much of
what we did. Rather than explain as I go, here is a recap of that trip which I
will be referring to along the way. I apologize for any rambling that may
happen along the way. I’m writing this in more of a “stream of consciousness”/story
style so there may be some jumping around. Basically, I’m not going back and
doing a lot of editing on myself as I type.
History:
Let’s do a little bit of recap. I had been planning this
European Family Vacation for about a year before we actually boarded the plane.
Back in September of 2016, my mom and I went on almost the exact same trip, so
I sort of knew what to expect and what kind of things we wanted to do while we
were there. Last time, the impetus for the trip was my 30th birthday
present to myself. A Mediterranean cruise has always been on my bucket list and
I decided that I was going to do it. It was a milestone birthday and
financially I was in a good spot. My friends on the other hand, were not. They
either didn’t have the time off from work to take a 20 day trip or the money to
travel the way I wanted to travel (or both!). So in stepped my Mom. She really wanted to go, and offered to pay
half so I didn’t have to pay double. Granted this meant traveling with my Mom,
but she’s not the worst travel companion. So it was basically settled. Mom and
I were going to Europe. While we were leading up to the cruise my Dad got
jealous and wanted to come too. Mom shot him down every time it came up, as him
coming would mean that I again would be having to pay double occupancy for the
room and would defeat the purpose of her coming at all (we’ll come back to this
later in the story…). At one point Dad was saying he would book an inside cabin
for himself, but that was getting crazy expensive again. So Dad stays home and
Mom and I are going. The 2016 cruise was on the Brilliance of the Seas, sailing
a 12 night Mediterranean Greek Isle cruise, departing on September 23 out of
Barcelona, Spain. Along the way, we would visit ports in France, Italy, Greece,
Turkey and Malta.
We had booked an Owners Suite for the trip. Usually we get
Grand Suites, but, when looking at the price difference, it was only about $500
more (I truthfully can’t remember if that was total or per person) to get the
Owner’s, so we went for it. It was 12 days…the larger space would be nice and
the Owner’s Suite has a dining table where the Grand does not. With the early
mornings for excursions we were figuring that we would be doing mostly room
service for breakfast and the table would be good to eat at. So we booked it. A
few months before the cruise, I was poking around on the RCI website, seeing if
there was a price drop for the cabin and noticed that the Royal Suite was
showing up as available to book. The price was about $1500 more than the Owner’s
Suite that we had, so joking around, I texted my Mom…”Guess what! The Royal
Suite is available for $1500”. I was joking. She was not. She called the travel
agent and booked it. So…now we’re in the Royal Suite. About 1000 sq ft of space
for the 12 night cruise, complete with a baby grand piano. It was a very nice
week. I’ll talk more about the suite and all that came with it a little bit
later.
We’ve cruised the Caribbean many times and at this point,
have the places we like to go picked out, we know how to get there and
certainly don’t go on any ship excursions. But Europe is a different animal.
Most of the ports are an hour or so from the cities you want to visit. You’re
traveling when normal commuters are going to and from work or about their days,
so traffic is a major concern. In the research leading up to the trip, people
were talking about how they “almost missed the ship”, “traffic was a nightmare”,
“god forbid if the bus broke down!!” Putting the traffic and distance concerns
together, along with the “horror stories” that you read on the internet, Mom
and I were nervous. We didn’t really know what to expect at each port and we
decided to take excursions through the ship in most of the ports we were visiting.
We knew that we would pay more than if we did them on our own or through
private/small group tours through independent vendors, but we wanted the
guarantee that we could get back to the ship on Royal’s dime if something
happened. Well of course, nothing happened, but we did learn a few valuable
lessons. Ship excursions can be great, they can suck, and you can get really
sick of 55 person buses! We looked at all that was offered in each port and
found things that we wanted to do. Some excursions jumped out right away, while
some others went along for the ride. At the time, Royal was offering a 5
excursion “package”. Most of what we wanted was included in one of them
already, with a couple of other that were OK thrown on to round it out. Looking
at the cost of the excursions separately, the savings wasn’t amazing, but there
was nothing else that we really wanted to do instead, so we went for it. The 5
pack excursions included the following tours:
- · “Discovering Monaco & Monte Carlo” for our day in Cannes, France
- · “Coast of Cinque Terre & Portovenere” for our day in La Spezia, Italy
- · “Imperial Rome” for our day in Civitavecchia, Italy
- · “Best of Ephesus” for our day in Kusadasi, Turkey
- · “Blue Grotto Boat Trip & Marsaxlokk” for our day in Valetta, Malta
We were on our own for Santorini and Athens. Everything I
read about those ports was that they were really easy to do on your own. We
were scouring Cruise Critic prior to the cruise to find things to do in these 2
ports. Along the way, we also joined the Cruise Critic roll call for our
sailing. I didn’t really get into it that much with talking to others, but we
read every post. In the end, we ended up joining someone else’s private tour in
Athens, so we only had to worry about Santorini on our own. There, we rented a
car and planned to drive around, seeing what we wanted to see.
So what we were doing on the ship was planned (mostly), now
we had to figure out some logistics. We are both of the mindset, that if you
are going to travel that far for a vacation, you should make the most of it and
see all that you can. Because of the ship schedule, we were able to plan for a
few days of extra sightseeing both before and after the cruise. One of the main
“problems” we found when trying to book the flights was that you cannot fly
direct from Boston to Barcelona on any airline…you have to connect through some
city. I can’t remember exactly how we found it, but Aer Lingus allows
passengers to have an extended layover in Ireland (up to 14 days) while
traveling on the same transatlantic ticket. This may not seem like a huge deal,
but flights booked out of the US have a few more “perks” than those within continental
Europe. Things like baggage fees, “picking your seat” fees and baggage
allowances are very different when you start to do a little investigating. The
only downside to this…you have to call Aer Lingus to make the reservation and
you cannot do anything online. No check-in, no modifications, no nothing. They
don’t charge any extra though, even though the website says that booking over
the phone has an added fee, because there is no other way to do it. So we call
and book the tickets. With the ship sailing on a Friday (23Sep16), we added 2
days before the cruise to explore Barcelona. So we flew out on 20Sep16 from BOS
to DUB, then DUB to BCN. It was an early evening flight out of Boston, landing
at an ungodly hour (5am local!!!) in Dublin, to then trudge through the airport for a
couple of hours layover to get a morning flight out of Dublin to finally arrive
in Barcelona about 10am. The return flights were a little more complicated.
First of all, the only fight on Aer Lingus from BCN to DUB that we could have
possibly made was at 1045 in the morning (if I remember correctly, there was
another early morning flight out). That is cutting it a little too close for
comfort to make it on debarkation day, so another night in Barcelona it is!! (We’ve
been burned in the past with a late port authority clearance of the ship when
trying to catch a morning flight, so we just don’t even try any more. There is
nothing worse than ending your vacation stressed out, missing your flight,
hanging around the airport trying to get on another one, not being able to and
having to try again tomorrow, knowing that you would be on standby the entire
time, but your luggage would make it home!) So, we booked a flight to Dublin on
06Oct16, landing midday to have 2 and a half days to explore Ireland. Our flight
home to Boston was on an afternoon flight on Sunday 09Oct16, so I can go to
work on Monday 10Oct16 and not lose any more vacation days. Now, we just needed
to plan and fill up all those extra days.….
One more things about Aer Lingus transatlantic flights…they
have Business Class. And this is the Business Class with the lie flat seats! When
we were booking, Business Class was way out of our price range. Our Economy
tickets were in the ballpark of $850 round trip…not too bad at all! When we
booked, Business was going for around $3100 round trip! Keep in mind that
Business is only on the BOS-DUB legs of the trip…DUB-BCN is cattle call air! So
we booked economy. BUT, we found out that they offer a way to bid for an
upgrade to business class. You basically offer a price and if they accept it,
you move up. If not, you don’t! The downside is that you don’t know until 3
days before your flight if it was accepted or not. Long story short, we bid for
both transatlantic flight legs and WON! So our ~$850 tickets became ~$1850
tickets and we had 12 hours of flight time in the Business class cabin…it was
SO worth it!
Another reason to fly Aer Lingus (or at least make you last
stop in Europe Dublin before heading back to the US), and no I don’t work for
them or get any perks, is US Pre-Clearance. Within Dublin Airport, there is a
small section of US soil. Yup, you heard that correctly, US soil…or at least
when it comes to airports. They have a dedicated area of Terminal 2 with about
5 or so gates that is past US customs and immigration. You get into the
airport, go downstairs, through TSA security, Passport control and to your
gate. Then BOOM! When you land in the US, you walk off you plane as a domestic
flight. Benefits: MUCH shorter lines at immigration checkpoints. It was also
nice to finally not be in the “All other Passports” line! There are only 10 or
so flights out a day so there is never really a big line, unlike when landing
as an international flight and there could be a bunch more and lines forever!
Cons: once you go through Pre-Clearance security, there really isn’t anything down
there. 1 little shop, a grab and go place and 1 restaurant. Oh, and a lounge….51st
& Green is a nice place to spend a couple of hours if you can…
The rest of the story on this trip will be explained and
remembered on a day by day basis. I’ll walk through the memories of it all
starting with packing and leaving Massachusetts, to finally arriving back home.
We’ll end here for the moment and I’ll start again with the story tomorrow…
