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REVIEW Spirit 12 Day Grand Mediterranean 5/7-5/19


cardbucfan
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hello again......which tour u took on this port? 4 hours or 6hours or?

is 4 long enough to see the important places? did he ask u if u want to take a dip in their beach? thanks

 

 

Sorry I'm just now answering! I didn't get an email about your post!

 

We booked the 6 hour tour but we went longer-probably closer to 8! He did ask us if we wanted to go to the beach but since we live in Florida that's wasn't a big priority for us.

 

I don't think you could do the important stuff in 4 hours either.

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Cardbucfan -- Great review! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences and the wonderful photos.

 

We are taking the reverse of this cruise (Venice - Barcelona) on the NCL Spirit in September so this makes us just all the more excited about the trip!

Edited by Hutchinj
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Cardbucfan -- Great review! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences and the wonderful photos.

 

We are taking the reverse of this cruise (Venice - Barcelona) on the NCL Spirit in September so this makes us just all the more excited about the trip!

 

It's a fabulous itinerary! Enjoy!

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So as I said in the beginning-this was the trip of a lifetime. I'm still stunned at all the amazing things we saw! Everybody in my family said this was our best trip ever (and we've done some great trips). Part of that though was all the planning that went into this trip. I know I'm preaching to the choir here because if you're on CC you are a planner and researcher. I met a couple on the ship who was mad at NCL that they wouldn't be able to see the David. I very calmly told them that the Academia is always closed on Monday and it's not NCL's fault. Basic research would have found that out! I'm stunned anybody would do a trip of this magnitude and not research things.

 

We have always tried to do independent excursions when practical but DH says he is now fully committed to only doing private unless we would seriously be at risk of missing the ship. I added up how much our excursions would have cost if we had done them through the ship and it was at least twice as much as we spent and in some cases the ship's excursions didn't do what we wanted to do so we would have settled for less than we wanted to see and still paid more! I never had any fear about missing the ship. Every driver asked what time all aboard was and made certain we were back well before that time. These companies make their living on cruise ship passengers so they can't afford to miss the boat!

 

My cousin did the Venice to Barcelona route last summer and loved her itinerary. They flew to Venice a few days early and spent time there acclimating and had a sea day right off the bat to help with their jet lag. They felt like they eased into the cruise and ended with a sprint.

 

I liked the Barcelona to Venice route though (even though Florence was probably my favorite port and it was at the beginning). I liked that we started out with 5 busy days when we were still relatively fresh (other than the jet lag) then had a sea day. I loved sailing into Venice during the daylight and having an overnight there. I liked having that half sea day to do my packing before disembarkation vs having to do it the night you get back from Toulon.

 

I really enjoyed NCL for this cruise. I so loved the casual element on such an exhausting trip! It helped with packing to not have to bring any dressy clothes or heels.

 

My favorite port was Florence. The boys loved Rome. We all felt that except for going back to see the lavender fields we were good with not seeing Provence again (never thought I'd say those words!). DH desperately wants to go to Pompeii now too. I was not a fan of Athens at all and now that I've seen the big stuff there if we ever did another cruise that included Athens we'd go to Cape Sounion or Corinth. Montenegro was beautiful but I think we "saw" it and there's not that much left that we didn't see. Croatia on the other hand was beautiful and I'd love to go back and see more. I really think though that I need to live in Italy for a month. I loved it all. We always say that a cruise gives you a taste of a place so you know if you want to go back. Well, I want to go back to all of Italy!

 

Tips:

-don't book your flight too hastily! After I booked I read a lot of things about people adding in trips to Paris and London (we couldn't have been gone that long but it's nice to dream) or flying into and out of other cities like Milan and using trains or intercontinental flights to move to the different embarkation and debarkation points for much less money.

 

-research your tour providers and book early! The good ones fill up fast. All of them had very reasonable cancellation policies so there is no harm to you if your plans change.

 

-JOIN YOUR ROLL CALL!! It was great having such an active roll call and not only filling up our private tours (and thank heavens we liked everybody we toured with!) but also to have "friends" on the ship. It was nice running into people you sort of knew.

 

Things we brought that were very useful:

-6 port USB charging hub

-3 socket outlet expander

 

those two things allowed us to charge everything we needed with our one outlet!

 

-lipstick chargers

 

we used these in the airport and on tours as backup batteries to our phones/ipads

 

-clothespins

 

These came in great doing handwashing of delicates or things I didn't want dried and they are so cheap on Amazon I left the 10 I took with me behind.

 

-ponchos/rain jackets/mini umbrellas

 

We had a lot of rain on our trip. It would have been miserable if we didn't have stuff to keep us dry.

 

-leatherman/gorilla tape/cable ties

 

DH is Mr. Prepared but this time these things were great to "fix" the broken suitcase. He also used the gorilla tape to help secure some of our more breakable souvenirs.

 

-extra ziplock bags -both quart and gallon size

 

-OTC meds (tylenol, ibuprophen, pepto bismol, tums)

 

-We bought TSA approved 3-1-1 heavy duty clear plastic bags to use for our liquids.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Approved-3-1-1-Airline-Travel-Toiletry/dp/B00OWLHSL2?ie=UTF8&keywords=3-1-1%20bag&nodeID=9479199011&qid=1464644839&ref_=sr_1_2&s=apparel&sr=1-2

 

They held much more than the usual ziplock quart bags and are heavier duty so you don't have as much worry of a spill.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer!

 

(please forgive the typos and any spelling errors-I tried to catch them and it makes me nuts that some got through!)

 

Hi Cardbucfan

 

Thanks for this great review. It must have take hours. We are doing this cruise in reverse in September and this has been a great help since we have never been to Europe or been on a cruise. We are doing a 12 night bus tour as well before the cruise (also a first) plus 2 nights in Singapore, Barcelona and 4 nights in London so we have to watch the dollars. Looking for to those cocktails you kept having :) Were the drinks expensive if you didn't get the package?

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@ljthrupp-what a great trip you have ahead of you!! The drinks were fairly pricey without the package. I'd say between $7-$12 depending on what you got. Beer was on the cheaper side and the more involved mixed drinks in the higher end. I know the college boys ran through around $200 in OBC in two nights in the bars! Enjoy!

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Thank you so much for your wonderful review of this ship and the ports. My daughter and I will be going on the Spirit , Venice to Barcelona , in September. Your review will help us a lot !! One big question is about the hairdryer situation in the cabins. As you said and I have read other places that the hairdryers are very inadequate for styling. Is there anything that can be done to use your own dryer, like a converter ?? You didn't mention this so I'm really trying to figure this out prior to us going. Any info on this matter will be most helpful as the cruise line isn't really forth coming about this. Thank you, Cindy

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Thanks for such a quick reply back to me. So what you are saying is that at the the desk in the cabin there is a European outlet and if I get a converter I may be able use my own hairdryer right ?? I know I'm being a bit OCD about this issue but I haven't resigned myself to bad hair for the cruise yet ! Wish the cruise line was more specific about the wattage on this particular ship before actually sailing ☺️

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Yes. At the desk there is a low voltage U.S. outlet where we used our charging hub (so not terribly low voltage but it specifically says no hair dryer) and a European outlet. I didn't pull out my converter kit to see which one it was though. That's the one she used.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Did you tender on any ports? I will be on 8/25 Grand Med.

 

I was on the 6/24 sailing and tendered in Mykonos. We had never tendered before so we didn't know to get a number early. We ended up waiting about an hour and s half for a boat.

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Did you tender on any ports? I will be on 8/25 Grand Med.

 

We tendered in to Kotor but by the time we left a berth had opened up and we were docked. Definitely send somebody up to get the earliest ticket you can get. Even with tender group 1 it was a good half hour before we were off the ship.

 

We didn't make our Mykonos stop and that's the only other port that often tenders. Have fun!!

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We tendered in to Kotor but by the time we left a berth had opened up and we were docked. Definitely send somebody up to get the earliest ticket you can get. Even with tender group 1 it was a good half hour before we were off the ship.

 

We didn't make our Mykonos stop and that's the only other port that often tenders. Have fun!!

 

Thanks

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you for your excellent and thoughful review of your Spirit voyage. I plan to print out your every comment and refer to the notes. One question. We want an excellent day in Rome and you appear to have found the correct tour guide. Can you share who you booked the mercedes van through and the tour guide? I want Rome and Vatican to be special.....Thanks for your response. Gordon aka Governor

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Sorry, I missed these posts!

 

@first cruise lady-you can not pre-book the tender tickets. You need to be on the deck they are distributing them and get them in person. Only one person from your group needs to be there though. We really just lucked out that we were there early and they were already handing them out.

 

@governor-we booked all out Italy tours (except Venice) with RomeinLimo. There's a huge thread on the Italy port of call board with tons of reviews on them as well as over on Trip Advisor. They were great to work with but they do fill up so book as soon as you can! Tell RIL in advance you want a guide for the Vatican (a necessity!) and they will arrange it for you. You pay the guide separately though.

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  • 1 month later...

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