cruisegal415

As a follow up of the above post, if I were to do it again, without a tour guide, I think I would do it this way:

1) Buy tickets a week in advance for the train and the tram on line.

2) Take the ship's shuttle or a taxi from the port to the center of town (Palma), then take the 10:10 train to Soller to get the most out of the day.  Alternatively, explore Palma a little and wait for the crowds to thin out and take a later train.

3) Spend about an hour or so in Soller, then take the tram to Port of Soller.

4) Eat a leisurely meal in Port of Soller.  There are a lot of nice looking restaurants right on the water that looked very inviting. 

5) Take the tram back to Soller, and catch the last train at 2 pm back to Palma.  That would give adequate time to explore Palma and see the Cathedral (really not to be missed).

This eliminates the trip to Valldemossa, but it makes for a more relaxing day.  I felt rushed trying to do Soller, Port of Soller, Valldemossa, and see the Cathedral in Palma.  We really didn't have enough time to even explore Palma, which we would have liked to do.  The drive from Soller/Port of Soller to Valldemossa is beautiful, if not scary, but I felt we were trying to fit too much into one day and still get back to the ship in time for all aboard.  Maybe if we had more time there (all aboard was 5:30, but because of the distance from Palma to the port, and the fear of traffic, we had planned on leaving Palma no later than 4:30).  

Our ship docked at 7 am, but there was no point in rushing out because the first train to Soller wasn't until about 10 am; the Cathedral in Palma doesn't open until 10 am; and I'm not sure but I think I read that stores don't open early, either. If you plan on visiting Valledemossa in addition to Palma, Soller and Port of Soller on your own, be mindful of the train and tram times, as well as the bus schedule.  But while Valdemossa was nice, and the right there was beautiful, we didn't really spend more than 45 minutes there, an hour in Soller and a half hour in Port of Soller, so that's really not enough time to enjoy those places.

I just wanted to follow up to update everyone on what we ended up doing in Palma. Our ship docked at 7 am; on board time was 5:30 pm.  My original idea was to take a taxi to Valldemossa, then to Port of Soller, then the tram to Soller, then take the train back to Palma and explore Palma/see the Cathedral.  Thanks to suggestions from Roger, we switched the itinerary to start from Palma, to Soller, to Port of Soller, to Valldemossa, back to Palma and see the Cathedral. 

I played around with the idea of doing it ourself, taking a taxi to Palma town center to catch the train to Soller at 10:10, booking the 12 pm tram to the Port, then taking a taxi or bus to Valldemossa and taking the bus back to Palma, but my husband was nervous about doing it on our own.  We ended up booking an excursion with a private tour company, which turned out to be worth the expense for the following reasons.

(1) First of all, it is a long drive from the port to the town center.  Celebrity did offer shuttles, for a fee, but it was nice to be picked up at the port.  There was a lot of traffic.  We were picked up at 9, and had a 9:50 am train reservation.  I learned that if you do it yourself, you get on one train, where there are a lot of people, and the first train doesn't leave until 10:10.  If you are only buying tickets one way, I think you have to purchase them the day of, in cash.  There were an awful lot of people buying tickets and waiting on the train, and it looked crowded.  One thing I found out was that if you book a private tour, the tour guide gets the tickets in advance, and there is a separate train running on a parallel track that seems to be only for tour people. Our tour guide booked us into a private car on the train (for an extra amount of $, but I think it was worth it) so our group had our own car on the train.

(2) When we got to Soller, we had some time to explore the town and taste the orange ice cream. We had tickets on the 12 pm tram to Port Soller, again, if we did it ourselves, it was quite crowded and some people didn't have seats.  Our tour guide managed to get us on the tram first, and made sure we had seats.  If we did it ourselves, we may not even have had seats.

3) We only had about a half hour in Port Soller, which was more than enough time.  There isn't a whole lot there, but there are lots of restaurants on the water.  If I were to do it again, I might skip Port Soller to give us more time in Soller, Palma, or Valldemossa.

4) The drive from Port Soller to Valledemossa was amazing! But scary! You are on mountain roads, very curvy, and quite close to the edge, which is a long drop.  We passed quite a few buses, which was very scary as it doesn't seem like there is enough room for two cars (or a car and a bus).  I don't know if we would have found a taxi in Port Soller, I didn't see any.  There was a bus that we could have taken, but I don't know if the bus schedule would have lined up to when we left.  

5) We didn't spend too much time in Valldemossa as we were concerned to return to Palma in time to see the Cathedral and get back to the ship on time.  Since there was so much traffic coming out of the port, we didn't know if it would take as long to get back to port from Palma (it didn't). But it was reassuring to have our own guide and driver to make sure we left in time and had enough time in Palma.

6) Our guide took us through the Cathedral, which was nice. Some of our group did not care to see it, so they had more free time in Palma.  We did a tour of the Cathedral in Valencia with just the audio guides, and it is a big difference to have a real, live, guide instead of just the audio guide.

This is a long post so I am going to post my recommendations for a true DIY visit separately.

14 hours ago, niksmom630 said:

It was an early start to the day with last minute packing  / rearranging, 

but I managed to make it into one suitcase, one carry on, and one “  personal “ item. 
 

All are definitely what you would call “oversized” , including the main suitcase which weighed in at 61 pounds. United premier silver status came in handy. 
 

Because we are extending our stay a few days post cruise in Barcelona, I quickly learned its nothing like picking for 7 days in the Caribbean. 

We are on this cruise and also were on your plane from EWR! Packing for this trip was as tricky as when we went to the British Isles in late August/early September. My husband and I also traveled with one large suitcase each, one carry on each and one personal item each. I tried very hard to limit what I brought but I kept checking the extended forecast and it kept changing so I kept adding items of clothing!

We are going on a Spain-Portugal cruise next week.  I've looked at the projected weather for all our ports and it seems like for most of the ports, it's going to be moderate most of the time during the day, but cooler in the morning and at night.  Can you help this Florida girl figure out what to pack? (Here in south Florida, there's little variation in the temperatures.  If it's going to be hot in the afternoon, it's hot in the morning and hot at night).  For most of the ports, it seems that there is a high ranging from low to upper 70's in the day, but the mornings, when we leave for our excursions, can be what I would call "chilly" being in the upper 50's or lower 60's. Does one dress for what the high temperature is, and bring along a jacket? I usually would wear capris and a short sleeve shirt, would I be cold in that for the mornings? If I wore pants, would I be too hot in the afternoons? Sometimes when the temperature is in the mid-to-upper 70's, it's actually much warmer in the sun.  

1 hour ago, patrice1 said:

Agreed, but also include Tasquinha Canto do Fado in Mouraria. It’s in my neighborhood and I take all my guests there. Good food and Fado , which starts early enough (8pm) to not keep you out till midnight.

Oh that sounds good! The places I found on Trip Advisor all seem to start the music really late (for us).

We are taking a Celebrity cruise that starts in Lisbon. We are getting in the day before, and have a Tuk Tuk tour planned for that day, and plan on going to sleep early so we can hit the ground running the next day, which is embarkation day.  We are taking a half day tour on embarkation day to Fatima, then are being taken to the port for a 1:30 check in.  But here's the thing-our ship does not depart that day! We have an overnight in Lisbon, then another day in Lisbon (Day 2 of the cruise) and we depart about 6 pm Day 2.  So, here's my question.  After we go to the ship and check in at 1:30, take some time to eat lunch and maybe get acquainted with the ship, we have the whole rest of the afternoon and evening to deal with.  Rather than staying on board, we probably will go back into Lisbon.  I don't want to arrange anything formal, so does anyone have any ideas about what to do, where to go, where to eat dinner? (We'd prefer to eat dinner in Lisbon).  Remember the day before, we will have done a 4 hour Tuk Tuk tour so we will have at least seen many of the sights. 

14 hours ago, grandgeezer said:

We do 14 days ( 2-7 days cruises B2B) with just carryons. We are Elite Plus so we each get two bags per leg. We send everything out, no washing in the room. Saves the checked luggage fee and no waiting for luggage at the airport.

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You are my hero! Can you share tips for packing for 14 days with just carryons? 

I was surprised to read this! Our last two Celebrity cruises were just 5 and 7 day so it wasn't an issue but we're doing a 9 day European cruise next month and I had no idea! When we last did a long (12 day plus 3 days on then front end) British Isles cruise, we were on Princess and was able to wash our clothes twice during our cruise.  Yes I know they offer laundry service but the thought of having our clothes washed along with strangers somehow just skeeves me out.  That's a real shame to learn. I'm glad I came on here to look for this topic before we went! I definitely wouldn't have had enough underwear lol.

1 hour ago, roger b said:

 I thought I would post this to show the distance  the long walk to the port entrance from the largest cruise ships :

 

 

Wow that is a long walk from the ship.  I didn't see any taxis right where you disembark from the ship.  Are there taxis at the port entrance as well as the shuttle? How much is the shuttle? Cash only? 

40 minutes ago, roger b said:

Most cruise lines offer a shuttle into town it stops in front of the cathedral,it is about a 20 min walk the station.

Taxi into town about 20 mins.

No knowing which quay your ship will dock at but the big ships dock at quay 7 which quite a long walk to the port entrance.

So I understand, if there is a shuttle, it's a 20 minute shuttle ride, plus a 20 minute walk from there? But if we take a taxi from the port, it's a 20 minute ride? Trying to figure out how much time to allow.

Does anyone know if Celebrity offers a shuttle from the port in Mallorca to Palma? If not, which port does Celebrity dock at, and how long a taxi ride is it into town? Like to the train station?

9 hours ago, roger b said:

Hi , I see your ship is in the port from 7am till 6pm so you will have plenty of time to see all the places we have been through. 

   I have been  looking at the times again and we have this wasted time about 2 hours from the  time you get off the ship.

 So it will  be better to start  from Palma with the Train. 

 If you email me I have proposal for you .

roger b

I emailed you. 

On 4/10/2023 at 1:50 PM, roger b said:

    NO Ubers !!

As the main attraction, the Monestry does not open until 10 am,   I have a guide that would do it he would be able to take you to Valdermossa wait for you , then to P der Soller to pick you up at the station in Palma and give you a quick tour before returning to the ship.

Please email me on shoeuk at hotmail.com

 

 roger b

I will email you.  In the meantime can you clarify something? You mentioned a nice cafe in Soller, was that in Soller or in Port of Soller? If we want to visit both Port de Soller and Soller, I'm guessing we see Port de Soller first, then take the tram to Soller, then catch the 2 pm train back to Palma? I see that it is a 25 minute tram ride from Port de Soller to Soller, not sure what times the trams run, trying to backtrack times in order to be on the 2 pm train from Soller to Palma, we'd have to know what time to get to Port de Soller, how much time we have there, in time to go to Soller and look around before we catch the train.  Seems like having an experienced person with us would make the most sense.

18 hours ago, roger b said:

Hi, yes you can do this ,

Shuttle into town from the ship ,walk to the station 

 Train to Soller 

Tram to Port de Soller 

Bus from P de Soller back to Palma (No 203 ) via Valdermossa 

Look for the bus stop in P de Soller on Google Maps .

Bus times below

https://www.tib.org/ca/linies-i-horaris/autobus/-/linia/203

https://trendesoller.com/eng/timetable.php?register_vars[ckAnalitica]=1

You could also do this the other way round by starting with taxi to Valdermossa .

come back to me  if you have any questions!!

Roger b 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband is nervous about taking the bus, what with trying to find bus stops and times.  What if we took a taxi to Valdermossa, would we be able to find a taxi that would take us from there to Port of Soller? Then we would do the tram to Soller and the train back to Palma.  Is it worthwhile to go to Valdermossa? Or, given that the last train that we could take and still make it back to our ship leaves at 2 pm from Soller to Palma, is this too much to fit in? We arrive in Palma at 7 am but sometimes it takes a while to clear the ship before they allow us to get off.  I'm thinking if we leave the ship at 9, either take a taxi from the port to Valdermossa, or if there is a shuttle to town, take the shuttle and get a taxi in town to Valdermossa, it's about what, a half hour drive? So we'd visit Valdermossa for an hour, then would it be hard to find a taxi to Port of Soller? Or maybe we can get the taxi driver to drive us around Valdermossa then take us to the Port of Soller? Are there Ubers in Mallorca?

I have just read through every one of these posts as well as the previous topic of Mallorca DIY, and have read some conflicting things, which I think are because some of the posts were older and pre-covid or right after.

We are coming in to Palma on the Celebrity Infinity on May 23.  I would like to, preferably, visit Valdemossa, Soller, Port of Soller, and take the train from Soller back to Palma.  At first, I thought that was not doable because the train left too late but I see there is a 2:00 train from Soller to Palma.  So I'm thinking we could take a taxi from either the port or from Palma to Soller, take the tram to the port of Soller and back to Soller in time to take the 2:00 train back to Palma.  What I don't have is the tram times, I think I read that the tram leaves every hour? or every half hour? Is that on the hour? 

Originally I was thinking maybe we could take a taxi to Valdemossa then another taxi from there to Soller, but I don't know if we'd have enough time.  I know there is a bus that goes to Soller, and someone said they took it via Valdemossa, but I don't know if I feel confident enough to do that.  

Does my timetable look like it would work? Or should I just do it in reverse, take the taxi from the port (I don't know if there is a shuttle), to the train station in Palma, take the train to Soller, take the tram to the port of Soller and take a taxi back from there to Palma? My thinking is that I would like some time to walk around Palma, maybe visit the Cathedral, etc.

On 10/30/2019 at 8:06 PM, mskaufman said:

When we were in Palma we did a DIY to Soller and then the Port of Soller.  The train station was a 6E taxi ride from the port.  It was an old wooden train and the ride was great. We took the bus back with a quick stop in Valdemossa.

 

 

I was thinking of doing this in reverse, but am interested in how you took the bus back with a stop in Valdemossa.  I was thinking of taking a taxi to Valdemossa, then going to Soller and the port of Soller and taking the train back to Palma.  Is there a bus that goes to Soller via Valdemossa that we can get on and off of?

We decided on a four hour Tuk Tuk tour on Sunday, when we arrive (booked for the afternoon in case our flight is delayed); found a private excursion to Fatima on Monday which will pick us up at the hotel, take us to Fatima, then drive us to the port; and on Tuesday I am looking for a small group excursion that will take us to Sintra, let us tour Pena Palace and the Regalerio, and maybe do a drive by the coast.  The excursions I have found through Get Your Guide or Viator seem to be a pick up from the hotel, not a shore excursion (as in, pick up from port) and most are too long a time to get us back in time for sail away.  I'll look in to We Hate Tourism Tours, never heard of them!

28 minutes ago, marazul said:

You could still go to Fatima on Sunday and sleep in the car.  😉  Probably your best bet for Fatima is your plan to go on Monday.  Of the Tuesday excursions, the Sintra, etc is by far the better one. 

 

On your current plan, since you get in at 8 am, you could go to Jeronimos first (it opens at 10) and go on the tuk-tuk tour after lunch.  You will still be back at the hotel early. Jeronimos is closed on Mondays.

 

Thanks that's what I was wondering, Sintra versus Nazare and Obidos.  I will check out Jeronimos, hadn't heard about that.  Thanks!

17 minutes ago, marazul said:

The question is what are you planning to do on Sunday?  You can easily do the Pena palace and Sintra tour on Sunday.  Then on Monday you have time to see the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon early and then take a tuk-tuk tour through Alfama.  Even after you embark you could go back into the city.  Tuesday, take the excursion to Fatima, Nazare and Obidos (which is a fabulous place). 

 

Another alternative is Fatima on Sunday. Lisbon on  Monday, and Pena, etc on Tuesday.

 

BTW - do go to the Regaleira.  It is close to the Pena Palace and it would be a shame to miss it.  On the way back, they can drive you through Cascais and Estoril.  

 

Ideally, you could fly in a day earlier to give you more time, but it is probably too late to change your tickets.

I thought we would do a three hour tuk tuk tour on Sunday, seeing as we would just be getting there after flying from Miami I don't think we'll be up to anything more strenuous than sitting in a tuk tuk and seeing the city.  Our plan is to get an early dinner and go to sleep early so that we can be ready to see the sights on Monday.  The problem is, we have to be at the ship no later than 4 pm for embarkation, so we can't do an excursion longer than 5 hours on Monday.  

We are flying into Lisbon for a 9 day cruise (Celebrity Infinity) in May.  We arrive at 8 am on a Sunday.  Monday is embarkation day, we have to check in at the ship no later than 4 pm.  We overnight in Lisbon and are there all the next day.  I am trying to decide between two different excursions on Tuesday.  One would go to Fatima, Obidos and Natare, a shore excursion from the ship. The other would go to Sintra, Cascais and the Estoril coast.  

With the Fatima, Obidos and Natare excursion, the plus is it included Fatima which is a must for us.  However, we could do a half day tour from Lisbon to Fatima on Monday, before we have to go to the port. But I'm not sure it makes sense to drive for an hour and a half, spend the same amount of time in Fatima, then drive an hour and a half (or more) back to Lisbon as opposed to seeing Fatima as part of a larger excursion.  However, the private tour of Fatima would pick us up at our hotel and drive us to the port at the end of the tour.

On the other hand, I am interested in seeing the Pena Palace, which is included in the Sintra excursion. There are a few different Sintra excursions that I am looking at.  One goes to both the Pena Palace and the Regaleira, another goes to Sintra and Cascais but doesn't include the Regaleira.

Any advice or suggestions?

I was thinking of Costa Maya.  So, are there any nice beaches when we get to Belize?

We will be docking at Belize next month, from a Celebrity ship, so not going to a private island.  I think last time we were in Belize, there was a huge pool and a beach area near the port?, but I may be thinking of a different port.  We are "lay on the beach" people, and I have already booked a resort for a day place at the two other stops we are making.  Anyone who has gone there recently, can you tell me if I am remembering correctly?

On 1/25/2023 at 8:20 PM, Lois R said:

To the OP, you mentioned never sailing to the Caribbean in the winter? That is really the only time I sail there🙂.....I don't want to be in the Caribbean in the middle of summer......waaaayyyy too hot for me.

I just returned home from a Caribbean cruise (earlier this month). It was warm every day, except when we arrived back in Ft. Lauderdale LOL.............it was on the cooler side at that point. 

 

As for clothing, I was in a bathing suit and cover up at least 95% of the time during the day.

The weather here in south Florida is so nice, we hate to leave home in the winter.  Summer is hot here but when we cruise to a beach area, it is lovely to sit on the beach and enjoy the ocean breezes. Same for sea days we sit in a shady spot on the ship and enjoy the sea breeze.

Thanks all! It’s 45 this am down here in sunny South Florida with a high (a HIGH!) of 60. I’m gonna wear a long sleeve top and a pair of Sketcher pants and a couple of layers on top. Tomorrow for Key West, I’m just gonna wear my winter clothes. 

play the noise down theSo, I’m from south Florida where anything under 80 degrees is considered “cool” and anything under 70 is “cold.”  Our cruise is leaving this Saturday. It’s supposed to be a high of 60 in Miami. If we were here, running errands or whatnot, you’d see people wearing fashion or warm boots, definitely bundled up, warm long pants, etc. 

I am aware that when tourists come, you can see them on the beach or even in the ocean at those temps, but for us natives, we are cold. 
 

So, for embarkation day I can’t wear the cute sleeveless top and shorts I originally planned but what I would usually wear for that temperature would look stupid on a cruise ship? 
 

I’ve never taken a Caribbean cruise in the winter so do people dress differently (warmer)? Even in our Cancun stop it’s only supposed to be 80, which is lovely but not hot.