First Med cruise of the year - I'm back

[MJ6987]

Hi, glad you had a good time. Is the Highlights of Monaco and Monte Carlo the half day one? We are booked on that one for our cruise in August. Was it good?

[hazelandannie]

Originally Posted by CheshireCaty

WOW! Got back yesterday from the 1st June DCL Med cruise, which was spectacular. It was definitely one of our best holidays of all time - saw so much and were treated like royalty aboard the ship. I'm hoping to do a brief TR but for those going in the next few weeks, if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

I know I wanted to know when the theme nights were so here is the schedule we had:
1/6 - rotational menu, welcome aboard show with ventriloquist Jimmy Tamley and comedy musician John Charles
2/6 - formal night, Prince and Princess menu, Twice Charmed show
3/6 - rotational menu, comedy and music of John Charles
4/6 - rotational menu, Walt Disney: the dream goes on show
5/6 - Mediterranean menu, Villains Tonight show
6/6 - pirate night, pirate menu, Scott Pepper - illusionist.
7/6 - Captains Gala Dinner, Dreams show
Our rotation was PPLAPLA.

I did a port adventure every day for the 4 ports - Highlights of Monaco and Monte Carlo, Easy Pisa, Jumping Back into Eternal Rome and Half Day Pompeii. I did 2 without the rest of my travelling party but didn't feel out of place as there were a few solo excursioners on every port adventure.

We had Captain Robert and our cruise director was Peter.

One thing to be aware of (which we weren't and judging by the complaints we overheard at guest services, so weren't many others) once your shipboard account reaches $500 (which ours had already done purely for the cost of the port adventures) Disney automatically charge the credit card on file and again every time it reaches another $500. We had loaded up our Fairfx cards to cover the bill as we'd used them no problem on the Dream but it was an enormous hassle to get the charge refunded and Fairfx applied. I recommend you either plan to charge the credit card or take dollars with you as it seemed much easier to revoke the charge and pay cash. In the end, we've left some to be charged to the credit card and we'll use the surplus on our Ff cards for our trip to FL in November. Guest Services on the whole let the crew down - we found them abrupt and unhelpful and we have various complaints about their handling of the situation which because of their mistakes caused our shipboard account to be suspended temporarily - we'll be emailing DCL about that one!

Overall though, a fantastic holiday! Any questions, ask away.

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We have always used a cash account, but on last weeks cruise we decided to have a card on the account to prevent any hold being put on the account when it reached a limit.
We were also very shocked to find as soon as our account hit $500 our debit card was charged, which we had no idea would happen. This was a pain as we had taken $600 of gift cards to add onto our account, so now have to wait up to 5 days for over $500 to be put back on our card.

Not a major hassle, but it would've been better had we known at the beginning.

We had a fantastic cruise and everyone was super helpful. Would really recommend it to anyone.

[Mrs_Potts]

I was on the same cruise as you and I also found the Guest Services staff a little surly (I mentioned it on my comment form) I also thought the entertainment team were very poor (not the shows etc) as you never saw them talking to the guests and interacting with them.

[hazelandannie]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Potts

I was on the same cruise as you and I also found the Guest Services staff a little surly (I mentioned it on my comment form) I also thought the entertainment team were very poor (not the shows etc) as you never saw them talking to the guests and interacting with them.

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We had very good interaction from the entertainment crew. The assistant cruise director was very helpful and friendly

[CheshireCaty]

Originally Posted by MJ6987

Hi, glad you had a good time. Is the Highlights of Monaco and Monte Carlo the half day one? We are booked on that one for our cruise in August. Was it good?

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Yes, it was a half day - we departed from outside the port building at 12.45pm and returned at about 6ish I think. It rained for most of the afternoon so that hampered our enjoyment of it quite a bit as in parts it was bouncing. The drive was lovely - great views and then we parked in an underground car park in Monte Carlo and walked up along the grand prix track to Casino Square. We had about 30 mins free time and then met up at Cafe Du Paris for a drink. Then it was back to the coach for the short drive to Monaco where we parked once again in an underground car park and to the lift/ escalators to outside the Oceanographic museum. We walked to the Cathedral and had a brief inside tour and continued to the Palace where we were then given about hour free time (which was mainly spent huddled in a covered alleyway away from the bouncing rain) and then we met back up by which point it had largely stopped raining and we walked back to the coach. The heavens opened again as we were getting back on the ship and once again (despite having macs and brollys) we got wet through. All in all it was ok for the money, the guide was probably the least knowledgeable of the others we had but again, we probably would have enjoyed it much more had we been dry.

Originally Posted by hazelandannie

We have always used a cash account, but on last weeks cruise we decided to have a card on the account to prevent any hold being put on the account when it reached a limit.
We were also very shocked to find as soon as our account hit $500 our debit card was charged, which we had no idea would happen. This was a pain as we had taken $600 of gift cards to add onto our account, so now have to wait up to 5 days for over $500 to be put back on our card.

Not a major hassle, but it would've been better had we known at the beginning.

We had a fantastic cruise and everyone was super helpful. Would really recommend it to anyone.

See more...

A lot of people seemed to be unaware of this auto-charge policy judging by the amount of complaints at guest services.

Originally Posted by Mrs_Potts

I was on the same cruise as you and I also found the Guest Services staff a little surly (I mentioned it on my comment form) I also thought the entertainment team were very poor (not the shows etc) as you never saw them talking to the guests and interacting with them.

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I agree. There was one particular staff member who was particularly grumpy, unhelpful and frankly at times obstructive and she will be mentioned in my email to DCL.

Originally Posted by hazelandannie

We had very good interaction from the entertainment crew. The assistant cruise director was very helpful and friendly

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The performers were top notch but I agree with Mrs Potts, we had little interaction with the crew as a whole. Maybe you were lucky/ we were unlucky.

[Guest]

Thank you for your report! I find it very informative for my upcoming cruise. I was wondering if anyone has the navigators scanned?

[dee slack]

Originally Posted by hazelandannie

We had very good interaction from the entertainment crew. The assistant cruise director was very helpful and friendly

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Was that still Mike, the ex boy band singer?

Originally Posted by hazelandannie

We have always used a cash account, but on last weeks cruise we decided to have a card on the account to prevent any hold being put on the account when it reached a limit.
We were also very shocked to find as soon as our account hit $500 our debit card was charged, which we had no idea would happen. This was a pain as we had taken $600 of gift cards to add onto our account, so now have to wait up to 5 days for over $500 to be put back on our card.

Not a major hassle, but it would've been better had we known at the beginning.
.

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We were just on the TA and our cc got charged at $848, weird amount!

[hazelandannie]

Originally Posted by dee slack

Was that still Mike, the ex boy and

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Yes it was Mike from Essex

[Mrs_Potts]

Glad I am not the only one who found the entertainment team not particularly helpful - maybe it was because we were 2 adults travelling without children? However it didn't diminish the cruise experience as a whole!

[DIBBadmin]

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