Western Mediterranean -Past Cruisers

[oaky]

My family and I will be traveling on an 11 day cruise to Western Mediterranean on the Century in November.

I can't find any current posts that address, tours especially of Casablanca and Tangiers. Every post says that Celebrity "passed" those ports due to security reasons. Has ANYONE been to Moroco sailing on Celebrity and if so, how was it?

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on tours for the other ports (Barcelona, Marsellies, Nice, Florence/Pisa,Rome, Ajaccio, Gibraltar)? Do they accept euros in all countries or do we need to use different currencies when we shop in port? Can we get away with just speaking English or do we need to walk around with a English/XXX dictionary? I would love to hear about experience (good or bad) that will help us plan our activities.

Are there any good web sites I could visit?

I am sort of the "go to" guy on this trip and my family will look to me to provide answers to these questions....answers I don't have...yet! I hope there is somone out there can help.

Based on what we have seen and heard, we booked veranda cabins on the Panorama Deck, since CC doesn't offer that much more for the money.

Thanks in advance

Oaky

P.S. Any and all information would be GREATLY appreciated. The exchange of information here is GREAT!

[Susan-M]

Hi Oaky,

The Europe forum is a great place to get info on ports, currency, language, etc.: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=234 (using the "Search This Forum" function, you can find threads on topics that interest you.)

 

Two sites that I use often when planning a trip are: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/tangier/3966010001.html (for other destinations, click on "Destinations" in the top panel.)

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g187497-Barcelona_Catalonia-Vacations.html (from the index on the left, Overview, Know Before you Go, Things to Do, and Forum will be helpful. In the Forum section, you can ask specific questions.

 

A quick way to find out about currency and to get a conversion calculator, is to google "country name currency".

[oaky]

Thanks Susan, I will check them out.

[CathyCruises]

I was on Century in the Med this October/November. Euros worked everywhere and were easily come by on board (exchanged for dollars) or via ATM in ports. We did NOT go to either Moroccan port and I would consider this to be highly likely in your case. Malaga and Gibraltar were substituted.

 

Rather than doing ships tours, we rented a car in Marseille and went to Aix en Provence and the lovely Cassis; rented a car in Nice and went along the Riviera via the Grand Corniche and visited Monaco; did a ships tour in Florence which was a huge bust (4.5 hours straight walking and then a lunch of ROAST BEEF), took the train from the port in Rome and rode the Hop On-Hop Off bus to all our favorite sites; had a wonderful day relaxing in Ajaccio; rented a car in Malaga and saw all the sights, wandered about in Gibraltar and had lunch in a "real" English pub; and wandered around Valencia on our own since it was All Saints Day and the entire country was shut down.

 

All in all a fabulous cruise and feel free to ask any specific questions. Oh, your English will get you everywhere, although we do speak French and Spanish--but it was not necessary.

 

Cathy

[oaky]

Cathy, thank you so much for your reply and information.

I do have THREE questions.

 

1)I've heard conflicting stories about smoking on the ship. Some posts say in Europe, one side of the ship is smoking and the other non-smoking. We are non-smokers. Is this true, or as some other posts mentioned, there are smoking and non-smoking areas in all of the common areas, theater, restaurant, casino. Would love to get the facts on this.

 

2)Also, we are undecided if we should schedule our flight home the same day the ship arrives or the next day. We like the fact that we can get our boarding pass on the ship and have our luggage sent diredtly to the plane and not see it until we land in New York. Our flight is scheduled for 11AM.

do you know if this would be enough time for us to get to the airport which I beleive is just 15 minutes from the port.

 

3) If something else where to come up, could I ask more questions?

 

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Oaky

[CathyCruises]

Happy to be able to help out.

 

Smoking is confined to the port side of the ship in most public areas. We are also non smokers and I have to say it was never a problem in any venue--in fact, the only time I even noticed was the very first day we boarded. I had excused myself to use the restroom and DH waited in whatever lounge was just outside--Rendezvous, I think. I was surprised to rejoin him and see two people sitting on the next settee smoking--that's when I found out about the port side issue. But never noticed it again. No smoking in the restaurant at all, of course.

 

11 AM should be fine for a flight--we walked off the ship with our luggage at 6:30 AM as we were catching an 8AM train to France--I think everyone was off the ship by 8.

 

However, the very best recommendation I can give you, and you may already be planning this, is to fly in at least a day early. This does three things: A) allows you to recover somewhat from jet lag so that you can start enjoying the cruise right away; B) allows your luggage to catch up with you in the event of a mishap, and most importantly C) allows you to spend some time in the beautiful city of Barcelona. A day isn't really enough but it's better than not seeing it at all. In fact, we used X's pre-hotel stay and they fetched us from the hotel at 10 AM and took us straight to the ship, we were onboard in 10 minutes, looked around a bit, then hopped the bus back into Barcelona and spent another 4 or 5 hours exploring. Of course you could do this after returning to Barcelona but then you don't get the advantages of A and B.

 

Feel free to ask away!

 

Cathy

[oaky]

We will be traveling on the Century on their Western Europe itinerary which includes Casablanca and Tangiers. Is there ANYONE out there who has actually stepped foot on shore of either of these two ports? I have searched the cc board and all I can find is it was cancelled for safty reasons and spend another day at sea or in Gibraltar.

It is still advertised, and is one of the reasons I liked this itineary, however, I am concerned that they will be cancelled on a regular basis.

 

Before you respond........ I understand that at times there may be unrest in the world and it may have to be cancelled due to unexpected circumstances. I just wonder if it will be cancelled an a normal part of the curise. They list it on paper but they NEVER intend to take you there.

Thanks in advance for all your replies and your thoughts.

Oaky

[nonnie1998]

I am hoping as the last poster that someone here has some suggestions/ideas for Casablanca/Tangier to do on your own!

any info appreciated--we are on the 9/29 cruise to these two ports!

[CLEMM]

If you are planning to do the tours on your own then feel free to disregard my tip. We did the ship's tours and they were great but please be careful of what you book for Rome. If you want to see the Cistine chapel then make sure the tour specifies the Cistine Chapel. We were lucky in that our tour did specify it, however many people on other excursions thought they would see the Chapel if the excusrsion included St. Peter's Basilica. It does not necessarily do so. My husband and I witnessed many disappointed shipmates lamenting the fact that they had missed the chance to see the chapel. So the ship's tours are great if that is your choice, just read carefully. Oh, and if the statue of David is on your list then the tour in Florence must specify that. Don't settle for the copy, it is not even close to the magnificence of the real thing.

[Steph27]

Beginning in October, Celebrity will implement a non-smoking policy in the cabins and on the balconies. Also the majority of the ship will be non-smoling. As a non-smoker who suffered thru several cruises where I could not use my balcony due to our smoking neighbors this is a VERY welcome change.

 

We visited the Western Med last November on the Century. You do not need to worry about language barriers. Most people speak some English. We enjoyed our ship excursion to Aix-en-Provence. We did most of the excursions on our own. Really enjoyed Ajaccio. You can just walk around on your own. We took the little train that took us up to the saugaines (sp?) area.

 

An 11:00 am flight out of BCN will be fine. Most people were off the ship at 8:00am and checking in at 8:30am. Have a great trip!

[elena7seas]

I am hoping as the last poster that someone here has some suggestions/ideas for Casablanca/Tangier to do on your own!

any info appreciated--we are on the 9/29 cruise to these two ports!

 

My daughter and I were on the Millennium last spring and we were in Tangier on May 1st, 2007. Unfortunately, it was a major holiday, so some points of interest were closed to us...i.e. the Gran Souk was closed so we were only able to visit the Petit Souk.

 

We were originally scheduled to visit Casablanca, but there had been some political difficulties in March 2007 and we were routed to Tangier instead. We were very pleased to be able to make a Moroccan visit, and I would love to go back there for a longer holiday.

 

I arranged a wonderful private tour for 8 of us with Charif Abdel-hamid Idrissi Kaitouni, who was a wonderful guide. He gave us a great all-day tour and was terrifically accommodating. His English is excellent, and his patience was remarkable!

 

Our biggest issue was that Tangier was a tender port for us that day. We had priority tender tickets (Elite, suite passengers), but people on Celebrity tours were taken off first and there were only two tenders operating for what seemed to be the entire ship.

 

We got down to Michael's Club at 7:30am for our 8:30 departure time, and didn't get off the ship until almost 10:30am (We had arranged to meet Abdel at 9:30 am). Abdel waited all that time for us, and was so pleasant about everything. The tendering fiasco did shorten our available time, so we missed one of our points of interest. Naturally, after the chaos (I am not exaggerating) in the morning, everyone in our group was anxious to be back at the dock in plenty of time, so our day was truncated at both ends.

 

If you are interested, I can post some more information about our itinerary, and will look up some of the websites (posted by prior clients of Abdel's) that I used when gathering my research for Morocco.

[Dorene1]

We are on the Nov.10th cruise. I always book ship excursions and I enjoy them. I feel the price is excellent value based on the dollar and euro exchange. If you look on the Africa site on CC you will see others who have experience Casablanca. This should be an exciting cruise, we are also on the 11:00 am AA flight............it's original time was 11:30 and it keeps changing, but I see no problems with the flight.

 

Dorene