Disney Cruise Lines 2019 Itineraries

The Disney cruise line has released their 2019 itineraries with the return to a few destinations that were favourites. There will be an expanding 2 month season from San Diego to Baja and Mexican Riviera. This is great news for those on the West Coast or for those wanting to explore California. There will also be options for Bahamas as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The cruises from San Diego will run from March to May 2019. There will be lots of great excursions available foe these cruises. Stunning Beaches, exciting water activities, cliff diving and zip lining through the jungle. These will be on the ship the Disney Wonder.
In January the Disney Wonder will have 3 sailings from San Juan, Puerto Rico for a Southern Caribbean Cruise. They will be six and seven night sailings. This is good news for San Juan that is still in the midst of recovering from the devastating effects of the Hurricane this past summer.
Three ships will be porting in Port Canaveral. The Disney Fantasy will be doing 7 night alternating Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries. The Dream and the Wonder will be doing 3 and 4 night cruises that include a stop at Castaway Cay.
The Disney Magic will start 2019 in Miami doing 4 and 5 night voyages to the Bahamas as well as 5 night Western Caribbean cruises.
These itineraries are now on sail for everyone. Disney releases their sales over a few days with different levels of Castaway Guests getting the first opportunity to purchase new sailings when they get released

Disney Cruise Ship

If you would like to book your Disney cruise vacation please contact me today. They also have their Star Wars Days sailings this winter still available to book.

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TICO # 50021282

Freedom of the Seas - La Spezia (Portovenere & Cinque Terre)

So we got off the ship in La Spezia and boarded a tour bus for our first stop Portovenere. My mom was still in a lot of pain but she figured she could manage. The tour guide was great on the bus drive explaining how La Spezia was very much a military area. There was lots of construction of bases etc that has been going on since the Napoleon era.
When we arrived at the village the bus let us off at the top of a hill they can not drive in the village at all. So we had to walk down. The tour guide equipped us with earphones and equipment so we can listen to what she said while we walked. They do not have to scream over the crowds. All the tours seem to have gone this route. At least the English speaking one's. The German tours we ran into were still shouting to be heard.
The tour guide took everyone on a tour of the town and they got a free pesto taste testing mom was in so much pain that she decided to rest on a bench. I toured around a bit on my own. When the short tour was over everyone had free time until we had to meet at the ferry.

 A view of the church

 A view of the hotel

 Outside one of the restaurants

 Frogs (my favourite)

 Fresh local catch (it comes in everyday)

the small beach (very rocky)

When our free time was over we headed over to catch the ferry. So the Ferry starts in Portovenere and headed to Riomaggiore where it stopped and let people off and more people on. They do not even turn the boat off they load from the front of the boat. The next stop was Manarola, then Cornoglia, then Vernazza and last stop was Monterosso where we got off the ferry. 

We once again were given a tour of the small village. We also got to do a white wine tasting. We were then given free time again. This time we decided that we would have lunch. There were so many choices of pasta, mussels and pizza but we wanted something not to heavy. So we had the most amazing Bruschetta that I have ever had. There was so much that could be done in the village and we did not have the time to see it all and mom was still very sore and having difficulty walking.

 The villages are built up the side of the cliffs and each village is different colours

 It's amazing to see the gardens growing the way they do

 The beach there was a few brave souls checking it out

 Church in the town square

 The local wine we got to taste (it was quite lovely)

 Taking a selfie at lunch

 Picture of Mom

 My fresh Bruschetta plate

(fresh tomato, mushroom and olive oil)

Train

So when we were done exploring on our own we headed up a hill through a tunnel and down a cobblestone road for about 1 km to the train station. These villages have very narrow streets and sidewalks and cars are very limited. Most people get around with the Ferry's and by train.The train ride was a quick 10-15 minutes and we got off and headed to our bus where we took the highway to get back to the ship.

Some of the scenery from the bus ride.

It amazing to see the villages built up so high in the hills. All of them seem to have churches. The olive trees where all along the coast. 

This was another really long day and we made it back to the ship with no delay's however my mother's pain was not getting any better and she was taking a lot of pain killers to make it through the day. This definitely fulfilled my bucket list. I do wish I could have stopped and explored in every village and had some local mussels but we don't always get everything.

The next port is Civitavecchia (Rome).

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Freedom of the Sea - LaSpezia

So we have come to day 3 and our second port. La Spezia, Italy is a commercial harbor so unlike most ports where you can get off and explore here you can get off but you need to arrange some sort of transportation in order to get to where you would like to explore.So this means when it comes to touring there are lots of options and in different directions and really made it hard for me to chose what I wanted to see. However I do know that a trip to Italy with my family will be in the future and and while there are some things I will not have to repeat there are others I now know will take more time. Many people ask what is the benefit of a cruise and really in this case it helps you decide if something is worth spending more time in or if the 5-8+ hours was just enough. It is also a quick way to knock things off a bucket list if yours happens to be very long. Not sure if I am sad or happy to announce that when it comes to travel mine is very long.
So again because this was the President's cruise there was an opportunity for a shore excursion with Micheal Bayley. It was a Tuscan Hot Air Balloon Festival & Wine Tasting, you could go as a rider or as a spectator. There were members of our group who had signed up for both opportunities but unfortunately the weather did not co-operate for this excursion they experienced hail and loss of power. Royal did reimburse everyone on these excursions and opened up more wine that anticipated.
Here are some of the other excursions you could chose from: Florence & Pisa Exploration with smart device, Florence & Pisa, A taste of Florence, Historical Florence & Accademia Museum, Explore Florence, Florence Sightseeing & Row Boat Ride, Florence on Your Own, Accessible Florence, Pisa,  Pisa & Luca Highlights, Pisa on your Own, Pisa City Sights, Portifino, Rapallo & Santa Margherita, Coats of Cinque Terre & Portovenere, Portovenere Independent Exploration, Carrara Marble Tour by Jeep, Wine Tasting in Tuscany and Italian Pasta Experience. These tours range in price from $59 USD to $399 USD.
Another couple of agents from our group decided to shuttle over to the train station and take a train to Florence to explore. They had pre bought their tickets online. However buying them online they did not know that the train workers were on strike from 9 to 5 everyday. So while they took the train to Florence and paid for a return they did not have a return that would get them back to the ship before the 7:30 pm all aboard. They ran into another couple and the four of them taxied back together to make it on time. When you venture out on your own that is a risk you take and then you would have to find your own way to the next port or home as the ship will not wait for you.
I will have to admit this was the hardest port to chose an adventure on as Pisa, Florence and Cinque Terre are all bucket list items

So we chose Portovenere & Cinque Terre

This tour included a bus ride to Portovenre. A Ferry ride to explore Cinque Terre  where we stopped to explore Monterosso. Then we took a train back to the buses as they are not allowed in Cinque Terre and then the bus back to the ship. The only thing missing was a helicopter. So the first day we did the French Riviera the second day we explored the Italian Riviera. 

 My next blog will discuss the day in detail

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Freedom of the Seas - Villefranche (Monaco)

So I left my last blog off with we were taking the bus from Nice to Monaco for the second half of our excursion from the Villefranche port. Honestly our tour guide was great out of all the tours we took there was only one I did not care for. Now the driver was scary but all the drivers were scary. Driving in Europe on very narrow roads with big huge buses is an eye opening experience for sure. He was not a bad driver it is just the nature of where we were.
It took less than a half hour to get to Monaco and we had to backtrack through Villefranche where we started. We actually went through the small town/village of Boileau which is actually my maiden name. I meant to research more about this but to be perfectly honest I had forgotten completely about this until I was sitting here writing this blog.
So again we did a quick bus tour around Monaco to see some of the sites and then we were dropped off at a parking garage under the Aquarium. When we got to the top it was very cold out and my mom was still in a lot of pain and walking was going to be an issue and unfortunately most of the attractions/sites were a good distance to walk to. Some people took a bus to go and check out the Monte Carlo Casino. We were going to find something out of the cold and close by when we noticed a "train"tour of Monaco and Monte Carlo so we decided to do that first.

 Here is the train

 The price was reasonable 9 Euros per adult

The train provides you with headsets that will give you a guided tour throughout the ride and it is available in about 14 languages. It starts off in front of the Jacques Cousteau Oceanography museum and aquarium. It goes through Monaco along the path of the Grand Prix up in front of the Monte Carlo Casino back through the shopping/hotel district, to the castle and parliament and back to where you started. A good 30 minutes give or take.

One of the shops along the grand prix course. 

 The casino. You most obey the dress code to enter as well as surrender your passport

The shopping district

Parliament

When we finished this tour we still had quite of bit of time to kill and it was still quite cold out so we decided to pay to get into the Oceanography. I think we paid 30 Euros for both of us but I am not sure. They also had combo tickets for parliament and a few other places as well. A few pictures I took outside before we made our way inside

Inside the Museum the first place you head is down to check out the Aquarium. It is actually spread out over two floors. There are some hugs tanks with some huge specimens in them and then smaller one's separated out by species etc.. I am including a few of my favorite pictures.

 This huge tank was quite amazing it housed so many different species and at the very top was this giant sea turtle. We decided to sit and watch for a bit and all of a sudden the turtle finally came down lower almost as if he was performing for the audience and then snap he grabbed the fish in front of him and ate it. If you could have heard the gasps among the audience. It was just so unexpected and yet it captures how things really work out in the ocean!!

 There were a few smaller tanks with these camouflaged fish. It was very interesting picking them out of the sand and not always seeing them right away

I just had to get a close up of the Seahorses (Interesting fact it is the male of the species who carry the babies)

Once we finished in the Aquarium area we moved upstairs to check out a few exhibits up top.

 Cool Shark mouth with a mirror on the inside

 Jacques Cousteau

A back view of the Museum it over looks the Sea

Once we were done and met up with the bus we were headed back to the ship. The last tender was supposed to leave at 6:15 pm but we were late getting back to the port as were several other bus tours. Keep in mind these bus tours were all booked through Royal excursions so we were very lucky that the ship waited for us. It took time to load each of the buses on the ferry's to get back to the shop.

 A view of the ship on our drive back to the port

One of the biggest problems encountered in Europe is traffic and so it makes getting back from excursions harder sometimes but with the guarantee from Royal they will either wait for you or get you to the next port.

I truly enjoyed our day if the weather had been a bit warmer and my mom in better condition I would have braved a walk down to the beach to add to my sand collection from around the world. Stay tuned for the next port La Spezia.

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Freedom of the Sea - Villefranche (Nice)

So in the last blog I gave you the different tours that were available in Villefranche and a bit about how a tender port works. So the tour that my mother and I chose to do was Nice & Monaco on Your Own. We boarded a bus just outside the Citadel with an awesome tour guide. She started the tour right away while we drove to Nice so we learned about all the little towns. Once we arrived in Nice we also took a quick tour around on the bus showing us some of the major sites that we may want to look closer at. We were then dropped off and given two hours to tour on our own.
My mother suffers from sciatica and her pain has been kept at bay for quite some time but with the long flight to Europe it decided to flare back up. Of course there was no down time between our arrival and first port day so she was suffering, but we decided to try and make the most of it and see as much as we could. Thankfully this tour is mostly on your own so we did not have to worry about holding up anyone else.

View of Villefranche from the ferry boat

 Fontaine du soliel

 Place Massena Heart of Nice

This is where the bus tour let us off. If you went down the streets behind the famous Apollo fountain you could tour the market. If you tour in front of the statue you will find all the high end stores such as Rolex etc.. But you will also find hotels and a natural park/fountain not quite sure how to describe it.

 There are two of these on each side of the square. All of sudden the water will start jumping and flowing it is awesome to watch

 One of the hotels

Modern art piece

So because mom just could not walk we sat and enjoyed watching the traffic and people going by. There was a lot to do and watching the fountains go off was relaxing as well.

You can see the fountains going off behind us

We shared this awesome baguette sandwich for lunch

Fresh made bread, fresh goat cheese, tomato and lettuce

 Transportation through the shopping district and some of the art

 close up of the art

 Taxi's

You can also rent electric bikes and tour around as well

Once the tour hours was up we met up with the square and we were headed off to our next detisnation which was Monaco

.I took this picture from the bus and wish I had been able to get a better shot. This is the library. The base is a head and this is where the library itself. A box sits on the head and this is where the offices of the Library administration are. Apparently it is even more fascinating at night when the box windows are lit up.

Somewhere at the top of this cliff is Elton Jon's house it is yellow. The tour guide pointed it out several times both as we drove into and out of Nice but to be honest I could not make it out. Apparently Bono and his family also have a home in Nice along with many other celebrities.

I definitely wish my mother had been in better shape for a walking tour because there was so much that we did miss out in Nice. We did see the Promenade des Anglais which is a nice beachfront property and unfortunately the place that suffered a terror attack in the summer of 2016. We weer shown the new barriers and palm trees that have been added to the promenade to prevent attacks in the future. We did also see some of the Casinos and Famous Hotels via the bus but it would have been nice to explore them. I am definitely thinking another trip to Nice may be required in my future.

However a day would probably be sufficient for a visit so it would be an add on to another vacation.

Military is everywhere and they are carrying assault riffles

Shortly before our trip there was a terror attack in Barcelona so most of the countries were on heightened alert. My mother talked of cancelling but I felt safer travelling because of the heightened security and I am glad that we did not let fear rule us.

I will move on to Monaco and Monte Carlo in my next blog.

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