The Great Adventure! VISION OF THE SEAS 12-Night Med Cruise: A Full PICTORIAL Review!

[searoses]

So excited you are doing paris!!...I was too polite to ask last night....

[Pmorton3360]

Thinking of taking train from Barcelon to Paris after our Harmony of the Seas next October. Wondering why you took the afternoon train instead of the 9:25 morning one. Just want to say really enjoying your review. Part of the reason I am so excited for our cruise.

[trvlgirlmq]

Paris is my absolute favorite city! We had to make ourselves book a Med cruise next year so we wouldn't go back to France (the kids were asking if we were ever going to visit other countries :( ) We plan on doing a full return in 2019 though!

 

I am surprised that you did not have good service in the restaurant but it could be because of the arrondissement. The 8th is very chi-chi! We love the 4th and always stay there and mostly eat there or the 7th & 18th.

 

Can't wait to read more about your Parisian adventure.

[TxStacey]

Thanks Nicole for this portion of the review...now I want to go to Paris!!

[LizSS]

Yea, I would say that train station in Barcelona trumps LaSalle Street station [emoji23]

 

How did you find the people in France to be? A friend of mine was there this summer and said the locals can be quite rude to tourists

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[trvlgirlmq]

Yea, I would say that train station in Barcelona trumps LaSalle Street station [emoji23]

 

How did you find the people in France to be? A friend of mine was there this summer and said the locals can be quite rude to tourists

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

The French are more formal than we are here in the US. There are social rules you must engage in or, yes, you will not receive good service. The rules however are very easy: ALWAYS say bonjour when entering an establishment, try to speak a few words in French before asking if they speak English (nothing they hate more than you not trying even), say merci at the end of a transaction.

 

Also, if you go into a shop or store (unless it is a grocery) do not touch the merchandise. If you are interested in something the proprietor will come show it to you. If you shop at a verger (fruit/vegetable store only) the shopkeeper will pick your items based on when you want to eat them (he will check for ripeness and pick the best).

 

A good guidebook will give you this information and then if you follow through you will have a wonderful experience. Our upcoming cruise has 1 stop in France and I can't wait to return even for a few hours to soak in the French spirit (and a pan au chocolat & gelato from Amorino!).

[Danish]

Thank you for a wonderful review. I really have to book a cruise NOW.

 

Please give us the rest of Paris - can't wait:)

[Nicole721]

Thank you so much for your attention to the small details. We're doing 4 days in Paris , taking the train to Barcelona for three days and then boarding Brilliance of the Seas for 12 days next September. The transition between Paris and Barcelona has been causing me the most stress. Your review has provided me with so much information,which I willing surely be referencing many times. Loving the review even as it is winding down :(

 

I'm glad I could help ease your stress a little! If you have any other questions on the train, I'm happy to try to answer! :)

 

So excited you are doing paris!!...I was too polite to ask last night....

 

No need to be shy around here -- this thread is a safe space ;) I'm going to carry this review through the flight home.

[Nicole721]

Thinking of taking train from Barcelon to Paris after our Harmony of the Seas next October. Wondering why you took the afternoon train instead of the 9:25 morning one. Just want to say really enjoying your review. Part of the reason I am so excited for our cruise.

 

We weren't confident we'd make the 9:25 am one. Any delay in the ship's entry into Spain or debarkation would have caused us to miss the train, and we didn't want to chance it.

 

Paris is my absolute favorite city! We had to make ourselves book a Med cruise next year so we wouldn't go back to France (the kids were asking if we were ever going to visit other countries :( ) We plan on doing a full return in 2019 though!

 

I am surprised that you did not have good service in the restaurant but it could be because of the arrondissement. The 8th is very chi-chi! We love the 4th and always stay there and mostly eat there or the 7th & 18th.

 

Can't wait to read more about your Parisian adventure.

 

We absolutely fell in love with Paris. I'm already counting down the days until we return in May :P

[Nicole721]

Thanks Nicole for this portion of the review...now I want to go to Paris!!

 

Me, too (again!) :P

 

Yea, I would say that train station in Barcelona trumps LaSalle Street station [emoji23]

 

How did you find the people in France to be? A friend of mine was there this summer and said the locals can be quite rude to tourists

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

You've got that right!

 

I didn't find anyone in France to be particularly rude. No more so than any of the other places we visited. Then again, our interactions with locals were pretty limited. I put a review of the hotel up on my blog and one of the best parts of our hotel was the super friendly staff. We didn't feel unwelcome anywhere we went, but part of that might have been our intentional mindfulness of the culture and language.

[Nicole721]

The French are more formal than we are here in the US. There are social rules you must engage in or, yes, you will not receive good service. The rules however are very easy: ALWAYS say bonjour when entering an establishment, try to speak a few words in French before asking if they speak English (nothing they hate more than you not trying even), say merci at the end of a transaction.

 

Also, if you go into a shop or store (unless it is a grocery) do not touch the merchandise. If you are interested in something the proprietor will come show it to you. If you shop at a verger (fruit/vegetable store only) the shopkeeper will pick your items based on when you want to eat them (he will check for ripeness and pick the best).

 

A good guidebook will give you this information and then if you follow through you will have a wonderful experience. Our upcoming cruise has 1 stop in France and I can't wait to return even for a few hours to soak in the French spirit (and a pan au chocolat & gelato from Amorino!).

 

Re: the bolded, that's the same advice we got before we left and we tried to follow it as best we could (given that my sister and I don't know more than a handful of words in French and my Mom's French prowess peaked sometime in the 1970s). We'd greet everyone we spoke with in French, even when they greeted us in English, to be polite. It worked out well enough for us. Aside from a lapse in service on our first evening at dinner, we didn't really encounter any major culture clashes or language barriers.

 

Thank you for a wonderful review. I really have to book a cruise NOW.

 

Please give us the rest of Paris - can't wait:)

 

Hoping to have more of Paris to you in the next couple days! Work has kept me super busy and I'm going on a little mini vacation this weekend, but I'm hoping to have the next part of Paris up before I leave :)

 

[Pmorton3360]

Can't wait. Thinking of adding Paris to our cruise.

[TxStacey]

Nicole, Nicole, Nicole..I just had to skip ahead and read the next installment on your blog..the pictures were fabulous..but now I have to know what kind of deal you got on that LV????:)

[Nicole721]

Can't wait. Thinking of adding Paris to our cruise.

 

Do it -- I'm pretty confident you won't regret it :P

 

Nicole, Nicole, Nicole..I just had to skip ahead and read the next installment on your blog..the pictures were fabulous..but now I have to know what kind of deal you got on that LV????:)

 

An amazing one :D I'll post the deets when I get back from my little weekend getaway!

[Nicole721]

Mom has had some pretty awesome birthdays over the past eleven years. She’s always somewhere on her birthday. One year, we were in Disneyland. Another year, we were in the Bahamas. Last year, we were in St. Lucia on her birthday. She laughs it off, usually posting some (unintentional) humble brag on Facebook about having a lovely birthday in [local du jour] with her girls and how beautiful it is wherever we are. We woke up to a beautiful Paris morning on this birthday. I’m not sure it gets much better than that.

 

 

Stephanie and I were up first. We put a card and a gift on her bedside table…and then we promptly woke her up. Birthday or not, it was a new day in a new city, and we had some exploring to do. And the first item on that agenda was finding a café for breakfast.

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

We strolled the streets around Madeleine, quiet and still for a Friday morning in a big city, until we settled on Café Madeleine for a quick breakfast.

 

 

I’d done a little bit of research on French customs and culture before we left, and everything I read mentioned to always greet your server in French. After a friendly bonjour monsieur to our server, he carried on in English. The café offered a petit dejeuner with choice of a bread or pastry with butter and jam, orange juice and any coffee beverage, but we ordered our breakfasts a la carte…basically the same items.

 

 

We settled in with our French breakfasts and French cappuccinos to partake in the unofficial French pastime: people watching. Just about every café in Paris has rows of tables and chairs lining their patios, facing out to the street. In this, the sidewalks become runways of the latest styles and the hustle and bustle of the street become a plot line.

 

 

We lingered over our breakfast, taking our time in savoring our meals and plotting out our day while the streets of Madeleine woke up in front of our table. When it came time to settle the check, our server mentioned that he wasn’t sure whether he should tell us when we were ordering that the petit dejeuner would have been less expensive and that he ultimately decided not to. I thought it odd that he would lay it out there like that with a chuckle, but I chalked it up to a Parisian thing and we headed back into the streets.

 

[Nicole721]

We came across a farmer’s market and took some time to peruse the fresh goods. They had everything – fresh cheeses, seafood plucked right from the sea, baguettes and vegetables and freshly-cut flowers.

 

 

 

We contemplated grabbing the makings for a picnic for later on, but unsure of our plans and how everything would keep, we passed through towards the L’Open Tour booth.

 

[Nicole721]

I love Hop On Hop Off busses, especially in cities I’m not familiar with. There is no better way to acquaint yourself with the layout of a city than to drive through it. And, we could see many of the major sites without shelling out for cabs or trying to navigate public transit. A one day pass would run €32, but like many Hop On Hop Off busses, there were heavy discounts for multi-day passes. A two-day pass would only be €4 more, and with that breaking down to only €18 a day for access to four lines that would take us all over the city and bring us back to within two blocks of our hotel, it was a no-brainer. So we hopped on the first bus that came, grabbed some seats on the open upper deck, plugged in our headphones and took in the city passing in front of us.

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

We saw it all. The Academie Nationale de Musique. The Louvre. The Moulin Rouge (which is much smaller than I thought it would be!). The Arc de Triomphe. The Champs Elysses. Notre Dame and the Grand Palais and the Opera Concorde. Hours passed by like minutes as we traversed the city, marveling at the beauty of the ornate facades and manicured lawns and noting the places we wanted to explore in greater depth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

 

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

Did you know that on many of the buildings, you can see not only the architect, but the year the building was designed in? Pretty cool.

 

 

 

We hopped off the bus at the Champs Elysses to get up close with the Arc de Triomphe, a monument memorializing those who fought in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

 

 

But something else caught my eye on the Champs Elysses – the flagship Louis Vuitton store. I had told myself up until we arrived that I would not buy another LV bag on this trip. And I walked away a little weaker in my resolve.

 

[Nicole721]

We hopped back on the HOHO and headed towards the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower isn’t the oldest structure we saw on this trip, nor the most historic, but it’s an icon – you can’t go to France without standing underneath and just marveling at it.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m a lingerer. I like to take things in. I like to sit and observe and admire. Every time I’m in San Francisco, I spend hours (literally…hours) sitting in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. I reflect and I ponder, but I mostly just admire the beauty in front of me. And there was no better time or place to reflect not only on our day in Paris, but on our time in Europe, than at the Eiffel Tower. So we grabbed a crepe to split from a street vendor, headed across the street and parked ourselves on an empty bench at the Palais de Chaillot.

 

 

[Nicole721]

Unfortunately, when it came time to leave the Eiffel Tower, finding the pickup location for the HOHO wasn’t as easy. We were turned upside down and around, and we got lost more than once trying to follow the map. But in getting lost, we got to explore the Trocadéro area a bit and we found a nice little café to pick up an afternoon coffee.

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

We finished the loop on the bus, taking in more of the city and enjoying being outside on such a beautiful day.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

We hopped off when we passed by La Cure Gourmand, the sweet shop we discovered in Saint Paul de Vence, to pick up some more of their delicious cookies and grab some sweets to bring back to our coworkers at home.

 

 

 

With a fresh tin of their delicious cookies in hand, we hopped back on the bus only to hop off at the Seine to wander around there. The sidewalks are lined with vendors hocking everything from cheap keychains to vintage books and art prints.