sweetpea222

Thanks everyone! We will be sure to be on the top deck for those arrivals. Happy to be arriving a little bit later in the day so we can have a relaxing breakfast and enjoy the view as we arrive :)

We visit Dubrovnik, Venice, Koper, Split, Corfu, Olympia (Katakolon) and Malta with 2 sea days. We are in an inside room. Saving our $$ for the rest of our trip, which includes 4 nights in Rome and a week in both the south of France and in Paris.

Thanks for the link to your review Seahawksiren! I'll be sure to get reading :)

First night with extended family on board the Spirit, July 2013, having tea and sweets late at night on the back deck, so happy to be with loved ones on the trip of a lifetime, warm Mediterranean wind blowing, 12 days stretching out ahead of us.

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We leave for Rome in 10 days!! Share your tips about the spirit, about the Adriatic, about Italy and about cruising in Europe so I can get even more excited than I already am!!

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Thank you for the info! We'll stop at the booth to get a map when we arrive, but just in case I will plug the address of the bus stop into google maps and create my own to have on hand. I am very excited to be going to Piran. It looks just lovely and seems like a nice, leisurely way to spend part of the day. As Edinburgher said, when we come back we will walk through the old town and try to plan for at least an hour to do so before reboarding our ship. Two weeks from today we will be in Toronto getting ready to head to Rome. So excited!

We arrive on the NCL Spirit in July, in Koper from 8 am to 5 pm. We'd like to take a short day trip to Piran, have lunch there and then back to Koper where we will explore a bit and head back to the ship. I'm wondering if anyone has taken the public bus to Piran? Any ideas on where to catch it? Also, what stop on the way back would put us close to the old town for an easy meander back to the port?

Is there a better alternative to the public bus? We are a family of four so cost is a factor. I did read about a type of hop on hop off bus that goes to Piran. Has anyone done this and found it worthwhile?

Any and all suggestions welcome. We leave for Rome in 2 weeks so am trying to sort out final plans for some of the ports and this one is a head-scratcher!!

23 days until we set sail on the Spirit from Rome!!

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In 2013 we went to Europe for 35 days, stopping in London, Venice, 12 night cruise, Barcelona and concluding with 2 weeks in an apartment in Paris. We all travelled carry on only. We're doing the same thing next month, and have planned it like this:

4 nights in Rome and an 11 night cruise, will take enough for a week or so travel and then when the cruise 'wash special' comes out we will take advantage of it and wash some of the things we've worn a few times, enough to see us through the rest of the cruise. We'll also have some that we will wash and hang dry at night in the cabin. Post-cruise we stay in the south of France for a week in an apartment with a washer/dryer combo. I will do some light laundry then. Conclude with a week at the same Paris apartment, which also has a washer/dryer combo. So I will have regular intervals where I can wash a few things and I will hand wash and hang dry stuff in-between.

The point is that we went expecting to have a helluva good time, and we did exactly that. Sure, I’m disappointed that we couldn't afford cruising back in the day when the food was consistently exceptional. But we're not about to let that ruin our fun.

Exactly. I'm so thankful, and grateful, to be on vacation and not home cooking or cleaning. I'm thrilled that I can choose multiple things on the menu and I don't have to worry about how much the total bill will be. If something isn't great, that's fine I'll find something else later to enjoy. As was said earlier, anything they serve will likely be better than what I can drum up on a Tuesday after a long day of work!

I honestly think the people who complain so loudly about things like food and service are those who sail often and seem to expect perfection. For our family, a cruise is a rare treat and we approach it accordingly. We are thrilled to have so many food choices and can eat whatever we want without worry about the cost. We never pay extra for the specialty restaurants. Has every single meal been mind-blowing? Of course not, that is unrealistic. But we've been able to find tasty and satisfying meals consistently, and have always been pleased with the service and honestly, we're just happy to be there. I remember one Celebrity cruise I took years ago when they had assigned table seating. We were sitting with an older couple from Florida who seemed determined to send every single thing back, who complained loudly about the simplest oversight to everyone they could, who regaled us nonstop about how the food and service was better on other lines and other ships, and who seemed unable to simply enjoy the moment and be thankful to be there. When talking to them they revealed that they live very close to the port and as this was the day and age when you could still get those last minute cheap deals on cruises, they cruised almost every month. So there they were, complaining about everything, and determined to ruin our experience as well.

Justifiable complaints are one thing, but finding fault everywhere says more about the person than the situation IMO.

Enjoy preparing for your cruise. I would recommend organizing tours in Olympia and Koper. Maybe Malta too. I organized tours in these three ports with fellow CC members. I will eventually get to these ports.

Thanks for the advice. We hadn't planned to take a tour to Olympia as we've been to Ephesus, Athens, Pompeii, etc and have heard that you really need a good guide and strong imagination to get a lot out of Olympia. We had planned instead to take the tourist train to the beach / winery and have a more relaxed beachy/port/shopping day like we had in Mykonos on our last cruise on the Spirit.

I am the most puzzled by Koper to be honest. I just have no idea what to see / do there!! For Malta we might take the bus to Mdina or do a beach day. The blue lagoon looks awesome but might be horribly crowded.

Looking forward to reading the rest of your review!

We are doing this cruise July 8th! Thanks for your review and your photos, they are beautiful. I am writing down your tips as I read. :)

Following! We leave on the Spirit on July 8th so I'm soaking up any Med review I can! Thanks for being so thorough. We also leave from Rome :)

Ok good to know. I will ask them when we get there. Was hoping we wouldn’t have to backtrack but I’m also hoping that if we do it won’t be too busy at 4 pm when our tour ends.

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We booked a two hour guided tour through the Vatican website on a Thursday in July, from 2-4 pm. The tour is of the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. I had read somewhere that when some tours end after the chapel, there is a possible way to access St. Peters afterwards, without backtracking around and waiting again in a security line. Has this been anyone's experience? I'm hopeful that by the time our tour ends, the hordes of cruise travelers will be long gone back to their ships (we have 4 days in Rome pre-cruise) so even if we have to we won't have much of a wait, BUT it sure would be nice to be able to carry on into the basilica without backtracking.

Thanks!

Glad to hear that the Spirit is still in great shape. We sailed her in the Med in 2013 and will re-board in July of 2018. We loved the way the ship is laid out and thought that Windows dining room was lovely, especially having the pianist play during dinner service. We're really looking forward to our upcoming trip!

Absolutely agree...

 

To help we this, we do our research, and when we are comfortable, we book, AND NEVER LOOK BACK!!

Exactly! Usually I do a google flight search and set an alert to notify me when the prices go up and/or down. For our upcoming flights to Rome I set the alert and when it came back with a good price (actually cheaper than what we paid in 2013 to Europe) with nice times, I booked in a flash and then ended the alert. I don't need to see if the price goes down further. I know I like the flight times and price and I"m satisfied. :)

Seriously' date=' does anyone enjoy the flying experience anymore? [/quote']

 

Oh YES! Because really if I'm on an airplane it means I am going somewhere nice on a holiday and I'm NOT at home doing dishes or laundry. It usually means a hotel is waiting at the end, and maybe a cruise or a beach or something fabulous so I am excited every single time I drive to the airport! :D

For myself? I don't think it's worth it. I keep imagining how I could spend that $ on another vacation, see some other corner of the world, have even more travel experiences. So for another $7000 where could my hubby and I go? Could we spend a week in Hawaii when the winters are hell here in Canada? Could we drive to California down the coast and stay on the beach? Could we cruise to Alaska? For me, I don't mind taking cheaper accommodations (we usually book insides) when it means I can spend more time planning new trips!

All cute sandals and look great for walking. Funny thing, those Taos sandals are the exact ones I took last time I went to Europe in 2013 and my daughter (who also wore them on the trip) forgot to pack them in Barcelona so that is where they stayed :( I loved those shoes for walking.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Gives me a good place to start.

We will be taking one bag, mine is a 21" extremely light carry on. When I was reading reviews on luggage this one was recommended as one of the lightest bags. I will also be trying to pare down my capsule wardrobe so that it isn't too full. Last trip we bought a bag in Paris and filled it with our dirty clothes, and then put the purchases/souvenirs in my carry on to bring home. It worked well for us.

Now to find also a tote bag that can double as a beach bag while we're there and isn't just a big gaping pit for all of my things to disappear into while travelling...

"When someone would ask if there was room on the elevator we let them on and all had a good laugh about being squeezed in like sardines."

I always tell my kids that they have a choice on how they react to a situation. As you said, laugh together and let it go or get angry, upset and ruin the day for yourself. It's my vacation, I don't want to be angry while I'm on vacation!! Case in point, we were at Disneyland Paris a few years ago, lined up for a ride (I think it was the Rockin' Rollercoaster Aerosmith ride) and there were these young people (in their 20s) who kept cutting ahead by squeezing through the outside of the line when it widened. At first I was ticked off and irritated because it's a line up! Find the person ahead of you and stay behind them, that's how it works! But after a few minutes of watching these guys act like giant goofball kids because they were so excited to ride this rollercoaster, I just let it go. I started to get a kick out of how excited THEY were, and at the end they were only a car or two ahead of us. If I had reacted badly, said something, started an argument, what purpose would that serve? Just my .02

My girlfriend had a super cute pair of Tevas that she bought a few years ago at Costco, but I can't seem to find anything similar! What particular pair do you wear?

Found these ones that I like the style of and I think they would work well with dresses and skirts

https://www.amazon.com/Teva-Womens-Ysidro-Stitch-Sandal/dp/B01JIPID9W/ref=cts_sh_2_vtp?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=2897711222&pf_rd_r=3ac8fac1-459a-11e8-a9b5-27c4b5d39a36&pd_rd_wg=GTXk6&pf_rd_s=desktop-detail-softlines&pf_rd_t=40701&pd_rd_i=B01JTRLXLY&pd_rd_w=7GNdk&pf_rd_i=desktop-detail-softlines&pd_rd_r=3ac8fac1-459a-11e8-a9b5-27c4b5d39a36&_encoding=UTF8&th=1

If there is a wait for the elevator, we take the stairs. Up and down. We're healthy and able, and frankly we need to walk off the calories!

As Canadians we tend to line up in an orderly fashion, on a "first come first served" basis. I have been to numerous other countries where this is not the case, but have tried to maintain my sense of humour and refuse to let myself get riled up about it.

Thanks for all the detailed replies! You've given me some really helpful ideas of how I might change things up a bit.

We are taking the train in Europe between cities so don't have to worry about suitcase size/weight like we did last time we flew EasyJet. I think the most helpful thing to me will be laying everything out and seeing how it all looks together, and then visualizing all of the ways I can mix and match.

I find the most perplexing part to be my shoes honestly. Finding the perfect sandals that would be comfortable, sturdy enough for lots of walking and also look cute with skirts and dresses......I cannot wear socks and sneakers in hot summer weather. I'd be miserable. So sandals it is, just have to find the right ones!

We are a family of four, travelling to Europe in July for 30 days. Our trip includes 4 nights in Rome, an 11 night cruise through the Adriatic, a week in the south of France and a week in Paris. Based on my last experience travelling to Europe in the summer, I plan on HOT HOT HOT weather, little to no rain, and lots of walking. I plan to wash my clothes (utilizing the ship's laundry special, and then myself post-cruise as our apartment rentals include washers). My suitcase is around 21 inches and I will be taking a large'ish tote bag and a smaller purse as well.

I find I get really, really warm in hot weather (and last time the temps were in the 90s most of the time) so I tend to feel better in dresses and skirts, so these will make up the base of the majority of my outfits. Here is what I have planned so far (this likely WILL change!!)...my thoughts on base colours are black, white, gray and then an accent colour (haven't decided yet).

3-4 dresses, generally solid colours either black, grey or a colour. I tend to stick to dresses that are comfy and cute, knee length, with a sleeve if possible. Like a wrap dress or travel dress (I bought a cute grey one from Toad & Co, I have a shift dress in light black cotton that can be rinsed and hung to quickly dry, anything light, easy and cute to wear.

2 - 3 skirts - 2 knee length, 1 maxi

5 tops - black tee, white tee, white button up, 2 patterned shirts

2 tank tops - solid colour

1 pair jeans - stretchy, can dress up or down, dark colour

1 cardigan - can wear over dresses to dinner etc.

1 pair joggers - not sure if khaki or black, will wear on the plane

1 pair capris - light, narrow leg, easy to wash and wear for sightseeing. I *might* add in or swap this with a pair of linen pants that are light and comfy but still look dressy.

3 pairs shoes - sneakers for the plane, croc flip flops (super comfy, black) and good/cute walking sandals.

Sun hat, cover up (I have a maxi dress that will work), bathing suit, scarf/pashmina and of course underclothes and nighties (2)

Basically I plan to wear dresses as my complete outfit most days, with skirts/pants and the tops to mix and match.

I will stick to solid colours and small patterns. Last time I took a couple of tops that were trendy at the time but when I pulled them out to wear them in Europe I felt they were just too busy and didn't wear them.

I also plan to use packing cubes to (hopefully) compress things and have enough room.

Wish me luck!!

For all of us who aim to pack light (or at least 'lighter'!) and are planning a capsule wardrobe, describe it!!

Let us know where you are travelling, the season and weather you expect, and then how many pieces you are taking, colour scheme, accessories and how it will all work together. I really find visuals of capsule wardrobes on pinterest helpful in planning my own clothes, and love to hear what other people find worked and didn't work.

For me, the last time we went to Europe we travelled for a month, including a 12 night cruise on NCL from Venice to Barcelona. I packed one carry on suitcase and even then, with the little I packed, there were some items I wore A LOT and others I thought "why did I bring this!?" and they remained in my suitcase or were only worn once. I am trying to use this experience to refine my wardrobe for our upcoming trip in July.

I'll start us off in another post, but please join in and give details (colour, brand, patterns, etc etc) :cool: