9-night DCL Mediterranean with Greek Isles cruise - Day 7: Chania, Crete

Chania, Crete

Our first official stop of the cruise was Chania on the island of Crete. The “c” is silent, so it’s han-ee-uh, with the han part pronounced like Han Solo so it sounds more like the word “on” (unless it’s being said by Lando in which case he says Han like “hand.” I digress.) We had a late arrival into this port but nevertheless we set the alarm for 8 AM because we needed to make it to the special Gold/Platinum/Pearl level celebration in the Walt Disney Theatre at 9:15 AM. This special presentation is only on cruises longer than 7 nights. This was the third time we’ve attended this behind the scenes look a show in the Walt Disney Theatre. This one was a scene we hadn’t seen before so it was cool to see something slightly different. (Previously we saw a different scene from Aladdin and on the Dream it was a scene from Beauty and the Beast.) 

Afterward, we spent some time chatting with some of the theatre cast members technical crew. Emmaline had already started getting to know some of the cast (they often assist with character meets) and asking them questions about how they came to be performers on the ship, where they went to school, etc. She is just beginning the process for her auditions to colleges for musical theatre (she’s a rising senior) and her goal is to one day perform for DCL in the Walt Disney Theatre. The actor playing Genie in Aladdin recommended chatting with the stage manager and see if we could set up a meet and greet with some of the actors so we chatted with her to maybe set something up. 

After that Emmaline and I went and did the dark saber photo op, which was kind of fun. Then we did some laundry, had a snack, and got ready to disembark for our tour. The ship either cleared late, or they just didn’t announce it for awhile that we were cleared but finally we were able to disembark and meet up with the other family we were splitting a private “Cretan Countryside” tour with. Our wonderful guide Sofia met us at the dock to take us all around the island. 

First we took a little drive through the old town and saw the lighthouse before making our way inland up through a beautiful gorge where there were many goats roaming around. (A highlight was the goat running down the road with his horns full of oleander, which grows wild there.) We stopped for a late lunch at a place called Ntounias where they make everything from scratch using no electricity. The interior of Crete is really beautiful and Sofia told us a lot about the island. We also bought some local honey at a little stand. It was such a lovely and chill day away from other tourists.

After the tour, Sofia brought us back to the port and we walked across the street to a grocery store where Roger bought some local wine and chocolate and Emmaline and I tried to find some fun Greek cookies to sample. We got back onboard and sorted ourselves out for dinner that night, which was in Enchanted Garden. After dinner, we listened to Ellis Lucero play the piano. Emmaline was a pretty big fan of his piano playing and we enjoyed a number of his sets throughout the cruise. The sunsets were beautiful over the ocean in Greece and this evening was no exception. 

There was no show opposite dinner on port days on this cruise, which we had never seen done before. Instead, on port days, they had a show in between dinner seatings. It was weird and made it hard to get to the show right after dinner, especially on a couple of nights when we were later to dinner (which our sever was cool with because we typically knew what we wanted and we don't usually go in on all courses). On this evening it was one of the magicians we had seen at the adult show previously and we weren’t super excited about that so we skipped it. Instead we did some shopping and ran into Genie again so we chatted with him for a few minutes before heading back to the room and going to bed.