anricat

On 4/5/2019 at 2:21 PM, Disneyfriend said:

Hi Anricat,

 

I recognize you from the DIS boards.  🙂

 

I have looked into the same issue.  One option I found was My Best Tours. They primarily do golf cart tours in Rome, but after setting one up with them I was so pleased with their communication and customer service (and reviews) that I ended up hiring them for our airport-Rome and Rome-port transportation.  (They use minivans for their transfers.)  One option they gave us from Rome to Civitavecchia was a stop touring Ostia Antica, the old port of Rome.  It is very well  preserved and in some ways like visiting Pompeii, from what I gather.

 

If you decide to visit Ostia, make sure to read The Thieves of Ostia to your little  one. It's historical fiction set in Ostia circa 78 AD.  Very cute and appropriate (in my opinion) for maybe 6-16 year olds.  There is a whole series, if you  like it, and available  in both paperback form and on Audible.  

 

Which cruise are you taking again, if I may ask?  We're on the Rome-Barcelona this summer.  

Just checking in to see how your cruise went. Did you end up enjoying your tour/transfer? 🙂

On 6/17/2019 at 10:08 PM, minnie00 said:

Are there towel stations on the island or do we have to bring from ship? Thanks

You get towels as you're getting off the ship. Once on the island, you can exchange wet towels for dry ones at several towel exchange stations located on the island. There's one in the waterpark near the wave pool. The map will show other locations. I'm not sure if you can receive towels at the towel stations (like check out new ones with your card). From what I understood, they were exchange locations, specifically. 

13 hours ago, jptoz said:

Does anyone know if there are multiple entrances to the water park. Rented a oasis lagoon  cabana, and just wondering if there a more direct route to the water park. thanks for any info.

There is another entrance/exit close to Oasis Lagoon. Here’s a photo of it. In the park it dumps you out near the family slides tower/adventure pool. It’s also more convenient for those looking for more food options than Snack Shack. We very much enjoyed our lunch at Skipper’s Grill today. Lots of options. 

Currently on the Mariner. Tomorrow is our day at Coco Cay. Any questions and I can try to do some recon. We have water park passes (all day). 🙂

2 hours ago, Rubyroo20 said:

Hi there!

We just got back from Rome and Med Cruise a few days ago, so thought I would share my views on our transfer to Civitavecchia with mydaytrip.com

Well, I'm glad  to say that everything went extremely smoothly and we were very happy with the service we received. 

A couple of days before the transfer I received an email from the company with the details of our driver and car, including a photo of our driver, Vlad. On the day Vlad WhatsApp'd me to let me know he was on his way and also attached a tracker which showed me exactly where he was. The car we had was a very comfortable Mercedes or BMW, not sure which! 

As it was raining as we left Rome, and Ostia, where we had booked our stop off on the way to the port is an open air site, Vlad helpfully offered an alternative site to visit instead (a castle and beach) where he thought we would not get as wet! However as we had really wanted to see Ostia and we had raincoats etc (we are English and therefore quite used to a bit of rain 😉) we decided to go ahead with Ostia.

We were lucky and the sun came out just before we got there and we had a lovely visit at Ostia for about 90 minutes. I would highly recommend Ostia - the ancient port town  for Rome when it was at the peak of its glory. The site was huge, hardly any other visitors there, lots of amazing mosaics and more than enough structures still standing to really be able to imagine how the town worked. 

Vlad waited whilst we visited Ostia and then took us on to Civi. He drove right in to the port and to the area where the porters were, so our luggage was literally taken out of the boot / trunk and given to them to take on board. 

The whole experience was very smooth and hassle free and it was really neat to be able to fit in a little sightseeing on the way to board the ship.

In short, based on our experience, I would not hesitate to recommend mydaytrip.com and indeed a visit to Ostia.

Hope this feedback helps with your pre-cruise planning!

This is extremely helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to come back and write such a detailed review. This sounds exactly like what we're looking for. :)

6 minutes ago, StolidCruiser said:

She should have said "I'll get that straightened out for you right away. Don't worry."

 

Saying "I could..." means she didn't really want to be bothered and wanted you to tell her to do her job.

 

 

This is actually not true at all and I really don't appreciate your assumption in that regard at all. I don't know why anyone is reading in an air of unhelpfulness in my TA. She's amazing, does whatever I need, whenever I need and has literally waited on hold for me for hours at a stretch to book opening day cruises for me with DCL. She's an angel and a godsend to me. She also happens to be a dear friend and was ready and willing to help. I had told her it was cool that I thought I could sort it. Clearly I couldn't so I texted her back a bit ago and told her, yes, go ahead that it seemed like me calling back again wasn't really going to solve anything so she contacted them a little bit ago. Somehow we had BOTH My Time Dining AND Early Dining. She said that the agent on the line literally couldn't figure out how that happened. So we have My Time Dining for real now and things seem to be sorted out. I don't know why the dude on the phone with me couldn't just figure it. Ah well, it's all good. 

52 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

That is literally her job. 

 

Pretty sure that's why she offered. 

5 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

Contact your TA.  Either your TA did something accidentally or Royal did something accidentally.  Either way, your TA should get it resolved.

 I did contact her. She told me that she could call and try to sort it out if I need. She said she definitely didn't do anything. Clearly something is goofy. 

12 hours ago, Retired LEO said:

When you go into your cruise planner and select the dining tab does it show that you have MTD? If it does you can change the times if the time is available.

 The dining tab just shows all the specialty dining. I don't see anything about My Time Dining there. There are two buttons "Make a Reservation" and  "Plan All Cruise Dining" but the only options are uncharge restaurants which I don't want. 

If I click on my "My Calendar" I see My Time Dining there and there's a yellow button that says "Details" but there doesn't appear to be a way to change it. 

We're cruising on Mariner in a little over a week and as activities have been loaded into the app, I realized that I want to change the time of one of the My Time Dining reservations I booked awhile back. Because I couldn't figure out how to do it online, yesterday I called and asked if I could change it. The agent told me that I don't have My Time Dining that my TA called to switch us to traditional dining early seating. Um. No. No, she didn't. I explained that she didn't and I was logged in and looking at my reservations at that moment. He told me it takes awhile to filter through. I asked him when the change occurred and he said it was that day. I said, "so literally the same day that I decide I want to change my reservation, my TA, without my knowledge or instruction, just happened to call and change my dining to something completely different?" His answer: "Probably." 

So I just hung up. I checked today and I still see my My Time Dining reservations, but again, I can't seem to edit them. Should I just wait until I get onboard to sort this out? Call back? Have my TA call to try to sort it? (And yes, I have confirmed since, she hasn't touched my reservation since booking it.) 

Snack Shack doesn't look very friendly for vegetarians. Would it have killed them to toss a veggie burger on the menu? 

I assume the other dining locations have vegetarian options. 

2 hours ago, Rubyroo20 said:

We will be doing this very thing on an upcoming cruise this May. I've just booked with mydaytrip.com and have chosen a 90 min stop at Ostia on the way to the cruise port. It cost €198 for three of us and luggage, the website was really easy to use and though there's not that many reviews on Tripadvisor specifically for Italy (the company operates throughout Europe), all their reviews are extremely positive.

I'd be happy to report back and let you know how it goes if that would be helpful to you. 😊

Sounds great! I'd love to hear back when you return, if you think about it. 🙂 

1 hour ago, Disneyfriend said:

 

Oh good!  We'll have to stay in touch a bit over the next year and compare planning notes.  🙂

 

I thought of a good description of the Thieves of Ostia (and its sequels).  Think a Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys type mystery set in the Ancient Roman empire, with lots of historical details thrown in.  They are entertaining and a bit educational besides.

For sure! I apparently don't have enough posts to send private messages. Are you on the FB group for the cruise? My real name is Summer. 

10 hours ago, Disneyfriend said:

 

Ah yes, audiobooks are my very favorite way to redeem our time in the car!  My kids have listened to a LOT of good audiobooks this way.  🙂  Sounds like we are very similar there.  

 

We are booked on the 2020 9 night Greek cruise as well, the earlier one that visits Sicily!  You  too, or  are you booked on the other one that stops in Croatia?

We are booked on the earlier one as well! 🙂 Yay! 

Thanks all for the recommendations. I'm glad that there are options out there. I have plenty of time - this is for 2020. I'm just an uber planner and like to start thinking about the general itinerary and rough plans for the way things will go down. I usually start with hotels and transfer type thoughts first so I got to thinking about how well it worked for us in Barcelona last year. 

5 hours ago, Disneyfriend said:

Hi Anricat,

 

I recognize you from the DIS boards.  🙂

 

I have looked into the same issue.  One option I found was My Best Tours. They primarily do golf cart tours in Rome, but after setting one up with them I was so pleased with their communication and customer service (and reviews) that I ended up hiring them for our airport-Rome and Rome-port transportation.  (They use minivans for their transfers.)  One option they gave us from Rome to Civitavecchia was a stop touring Ostia Antica, the old port of Rome.  It is very well  preserved and in some ways like visiting Pompeii, from what I gather.

 

If you decide to visit Ostia, make sure to read The Thieves of Ostia to your little  one. It's historical fiction set in Ostia circa 78 AD.  Very cute and appropriate (in my opinion) for maybe 6-16 year olds.  There is a whole series, if you  like it, and available  in both paperback form and on Audible.  

 

Which cruise are you taking again, if I may ask?  We're on the Rome-Barcelona this summer.  

Hi! 🙂 I'll check out the books for sure. We always need new audiobooks as my daughter does competitive gymnastics and we spend a lot of time in the car going to/from the gym (which is 20-30 minutes away depending on traffic)! 

I'm actually just thinking/planning way way ahead. We are doing Greece in 2020 (one of the 9 nights). We did Barcelona-Rome last year and spent several days in Rome after (and my DH and I visited Rome some years before that as well). We feel like we've pretty much done what we want in Rome so I'm definitely looking forward to something further afield. 

Thanks for the tour recommendation! 

When we embarked from Barcelona last year, we used a tour company that picked us up at our hotel with our luggage and took us on a brief morning tour of a few hours and then dropped us off at the port around 1:30 PM where we boarded our ship. It was fantastic because we got in a little additional sight seeing and had a safe comfortable transfer with our luggage. 

For our next cruise, we're embarking from Rome. We've been to Rome already a couple of times and we've also disembarked there (we took the train into Rome, which was simple and straightforward) but I'm looking for something different this time. What I'd like is to be picked up at our accommodations in Rome with our luggage, taken on a tour (preferably outside of the city) and then dropped off at the port. I'm just not sure if there are interesting things to see that are generally on the way between Rome and Civi (it was hard to tell from the train) and I've tried searching the Internet, but all I really find are either shore excursions for a port day in Civi or straight up transfers to/from Civi/Rome. 

Has anyone done something like this? 

We used Avis and had no problems with the shuttle or rental from their downtown location.

Charles Schwab Investor Checking is fantastic. Unlimited ATM fee refunds and 0% foreign transaction fees!

This is what we've got! We just got back from a Med cruise with time spent before and after and all our transaction fees were refunded that the ATMs charged (though, interestingly, not every ATM we used charged a fee) and there were no transaction fees. I'm really happy with their banking overall.

We're booked on the Mariner next June. I hope the trip went well! :)

Yay! Code still works. I saved $19.50. Thanks!

We are sailing on Mariner next June, 2019, and already made our My Time Dining reservations in July in the cruise planner.

Nice! I just checked and I was able to secure some. Thanks! :)

There is no set time for reservations to open, it varies widely.

Wow, that seems odd. So there's literally no rhyme or reason at all? Like it could be a year out or could be a month out? Is there any time frame that's more the norm than others?

We are booked on Mariner for next June for our first cruise on RCI. We've been on 5 cruises with Disney so this is all a little different than what we're used to. We're currently wait listed for early dining, which seems odd given how far out we've booked. But I'm wondering if we should switch to My Time Dining instead? How far in advance can you book? I'm just wondering if we're more apt to get a time that works better for us than waiting on hopefully getting the wait list early dining thing to work out.