Flossbolna
Sea days are just so relaxing!
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
So, I have high hopes of finally writing a trip report again. My previous attempts got kind of stuck, but I feel this will work better as a cruise is a more confined trip! As much as I love to add loads of information that is useful for those who might want to take a similar trip, I will concentrate more on our experience and add less general information. But, if you want to know details on something specific, please just ask and I will explain!
Here we go again. Much like a big event coming in the fall of 2024, one that looks like 2020 (if someone isn't in jail first), we're attempting a trip report. Why you are reading, I can't answer. Boredom. Penance. Some sort of heretofore undiagnosed mental illness. Anyway, the German M wanted very much to do a trip report. You might recall that we have three incomplete reports on here from 2017 Florida, 2017 Asia (SDL, TDR, Tokyo and Kyoto) and 2021 Pandemic Freedom with the Crazy Neighbors to Europa Park. They might someday get finished. And Disney might cut its prices by 40% to make them only crazy and not obscene. In other words, be happy if we can entertain, educate and make you wonder. Again, if this doesn't get finished, blame the blonde.
A brief introduction to who we are:
Me, Flossbolna on the DIS, Magdalene in real life, and Michael, the guy whose comments will appear in this maroon color, my husband. I am German, he is American and we life (mostly) in a „provincial village“ (according to Michael, in reality our town is among the 20 biggest cities in Germany, which he informs me isn’t saying much) in Germany, in Nuremberg. Famous for gingerbread, toys, sausages, bad Nazi history, but also the Nuremberg Trials which is the birthplace of the idea that one can prosecute war crimes. We have no kids, but a plush bear called Big Sugar D. Do not mention his estranged cousin called Duffy, he really can’t stand that guy! You might see him now and then in a few pictures. If you want to know more about us, there is a library of previous trip reports (some of them actually completed) in my signature.
This trip was long planned even though we weren’t sure whether we would take it when we originally booked it. When Disney released the summer 2023 cruises in May 2022 we really wanted to put a deposit down for a cruise as we hadn’t cruised since 2016 for a variety of reasons (going to Japan and Hawaii and some virus amongst others). But we couldn’t make up our minds between the first Mediterranean cruise on the Dream or an Alaska cruise in August. In the end we booked both with the idea we would make that decision later. We never did. And now we are going to go on two cruises in 2023.
M thinks that this was my intent all along. It wasn't. I only wanted one originally, especially since I took my mom for a seven-night Halloween on the High Seas Western Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy in October to kickstart my cruising juices. That was a been there, done that and repeat deal for me. This Med cruise was going to take me to ports I had never been to and Alaska ... well, I went once 20 years ago on a 12-day land trip with my brother and fell in love with the place and can't wait to return.
Between the original booking and May 2023 the trip also got extended with all kind of add-ons.
The first add-on was something that was in our calendar well before the cruise was booked. In September of 2019 Michael read that Elton John had just added more concerts in Germany to his farewell tour. So, we looked at cities and dates and decided that September 2020 in Cologne would be a good fit for us. Well, you know why we didn’t see Elton in 2020. The concert was first moved to September 2021. Then relatively close to that date Germany was still not allowing big events at full capacity and it was moved again - to May. 2023. So 32 months later than the original date!!!
It is insane to contemplate that we had friends who had seen the Farewell Yellowbrick Road Tour as long ago as 2018 when it kicked off. And friends that had seen him after the world restarted and that we waited so long. I had wanted to see him originally, but before I could get tickets or plan anything for dates in Germany, Florida and California they were all sold out. I couldn't believe my luck when he added these dates in 2019 for 2020. ... How I never could have foreseen the insanity that was about to envelop the world (most especially the USA!)
We quickly realized that it made more sense to go to Cologne for the concert and then travel to Barcelona from there than to go home for a couple of nights.
The other add-on was when we were researching on how to travel to and from Barcelona and Michael asked - mainly out of curiosity I think - whether one could go via train. I looked into that and saw that indeed one could travel with just changing trains twice all the way from Barcelona to Nuremberg. However, it would require a layover in Marseille or Avignon. I lured Michael into agreeing to the train by promising a few nights in Avignon to see a bit of Provence. And then we invited my father to come and join us in Avignon.
It was presented to me as two nights. I demanded three. Then, M's dad decided to join us and it became five ... not that things went anything close to planned.
So the hard facts of the trip are now as follows:
5/14 -5/17: Cologne, Hyatt Regency Köln, Phantasialand, Elton John concert on 5/16
5/17-5/20: Barcelona, Renaissance Fira Barcelona. Port Aventura World
5/20-5/27: DCL cruise on the Dream with stops in Toulon (France), Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples (all three Italy) and Palma de Mallorca (Spain) and one Day at Sea
5/27-6/1: Avignon, Hotel Cloître Saint Louis
6/1: Train Home to Nuremberg
To get you started I am going to post a little picture preview of the things we saw and did.
Here we go again. Much like a big event coming in the fall of 2024, one that looks like 2020 (if someone isn't in jail first), we're attempting a trip report. Why you are reading, I can't answer. Boredom. Penance. Some sort of heretofore undiagnosed mental illness. Anyway, the German M wanted very much to do a trip report. You might recall that we have three incomplete reports on here from 2017 Florida, 2017 Asia (SDL, TDR, Tokyo and Kyoto) and 2021 Pandemic Freedom with the Crazy Neighbors to Europa Park. They might someday get finished. And Disney might cut its prices by 40% to make them only crazy and not obscene. In other words, be happy if we can entertain, educate and make you wonder. Again, if this doesn't get finished, blame the blonde.
A brief introduction to who we are:
Me, Flossbolna on the DIS, Magdalene in real life, and Michael, the guy whose comments will appear in this maroon color, my husband. I am German, he is American and we life (mostly) in a „provincial village“ (according to Michael, in reality our town is among the 20 biggest cities in Germany, which he informs me isn’t saying much) in Germany, in Nuremberg. Famous for gingerbread, toys, sausages, bad Nazi history, but also the Nuremberg Trials which is the birthplace of the idea that one can prosecute war crimes. We have no kids, but a plush bear called Big Sugar D. Do not mention his estranged cousin called Duffy, he really can’t stand that guy! You might see him now and then in a few pictures. If you want to know more about us, there is a library of previous trip reports (some of them actually completed) in my signature.
This trip was long planned even though we weren’t sure whether we would take it when we originally booked it. When Disney released the summer 2023 cruises in May 2022 we really wanted to put a deposit down for a cruise as we hadn’t cruised since 2016 for a variety of reasons (going to Japan and Hawaii and some virus amongst others). But we couldn’t make up our minds between the first Mediterranean cruise on the Dream or an Alaska cruise in August. In the end we booked both with the idea we would make that decision later. We never did. And now we are going to go on two cruises in 2023.
M thinks that this was my intent all along. It wasn't. I only wanted one originally, especially since I took my mom for a seven-night Halloween on the High Seas Western Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy in October to kickstart my cruising juices. That was a been there, done that and repeat deal for me. This Med cruise was going to take me to ports I had never been to and Alaska ... well, I went once 20 years ago on a 12-day land trip with my brother and fell in love with the place and can't wait to return.
Between the original booking and May 2023 the trip also got extended with all kind of add-ons.
The first add-on was something that was in our calendar well before the cruise was booked. In September of 2019 Michael read that Elton John had just added more concerts in Germany to his farewell tour. So, we looked at cities and dates and decided that September 2020 in Cologne would be a good fit for us. Well, you know why we didn’t see Elton in 2020. The concert was first moved to September 2021. Then relatively close to that date Germany was still not allowing big events at full capacity and it was moved again - to May. 2023. So 32 months later than the original date!!!
It is insane to contemplate that we had friends who had seen the Farewell Yellowbrick Road Tour as long ago as 2018 when it kicked off. And friends that had seen him after the world restarted and that we waited so long. I had wanted to see him originally, but before I could get tickets or plan anything for dates in Germany, Florida and California they were all sold out. I couldn't believe my luck when he added these dates in 2019 for 2020. ... How I never could have foreseen the insanity that was about to envelop the world (most especially the USA!)
We quickly realized that it made more sense to go to Cologne for the concert and then travel to Barcelona from there than to go home for a couple of nights.
The other add-on was when we were researching on how to travel to and from Barcelona and Michael asked - mainly out of curiosity I think - whether one could go via train. I looked into that and saw that indeed one could travel with just changing trains twice all the way from Barcelona to Nuremberg. However, it would require a layover in Marseille or Avignon. I lured Michael into agreeing to the train by promising a few nights in Avignon to see a bit of Provence. And then we invited my father to come and join us in Avignon.
It was presented to me as two nights. I demanded three. Then, M's dad decided to join us and it became five ... not that things went anything close to planned.
So the hard facts of the trip are now as follows:
5/14 -5/17: Cologne, Hyatt Regency Köln, Phantasialand, Elton John concert on 5/16
5/17-5/20: Barcelona, Renaissance Fira Barcelona. Port Aventura World
5/20-5/27: DCL cruise on the Dream with stops in Toulon (France), Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples (all three Italy) and Palma de Mallorca (Spain) and one Day at Sea
5/27-6/1: Avignon, Hotel Cloître Saint Louis
6/1: Train Home to Nuremberg
To get you started I am going to post a little picture preview of the things we saw and did.