9-night DCL Mediterranean with Greek Isles cruise - Day 15: Travel Home and Final Thoughts

-

Travel Home and Final Thoughts

It was an early morning. We got up and got ourselves ready and down the curb for our pickup for our taxi ride to the airport. Our driver was actually running about 5 minutes late but we had enough time built in. Apparently he decided to make up for it with probably one of the craziest taxi rides I’ve ever been on: lane lines were a mere suggestion, as were speed limit signs. At one point I looked at the speedometer and we were going over 130 kph (around 80 mph). Thankfully, we made it in one piece and in record time. The airport was packed even though it was only 5 AM. 

However, we were able to get checked in, drop our bags, go through security and find our gate with no issues and in plenty of time. Our flight to Heathrow was on time and we had enough time in Heathrow to go through their whole leave-and-come-back-in-through-security song and dance. We bought around $35 worth of coffee and muffins from the Starbucks in our terminal (I’m not even kidding: airport pricing plus the value of the dollar right now) and it was actually not great, either. Also I had the time zone set manually on my phone (and thus my watch) from being on the cruise ship and didn’t set it back to automatic so we were initially sort of panicked going to the gate. But we had an hour more than we thought. 

The flight home was long, but uneventful, as was our baggage collection and passport control. In fact, we were lucky on this trip that all the travel was pretty much uneventful. Our cats were very happy to see us and unlike the last time we went to Europe, no kittens were born under our deck. However, apparently a family of foxes moved in.

A few final thoughts about the trip that are pretty random and don’t really fit anywhere: 
  • Emmaline didn’t spend nearly as much time in Vibe as she usually does. She just didn’t really click with a friend group onboard. 
  • It was hot hot hot everywhere we went. The sun was bright and we saw a lot of people with sunburns. 
  • We all agreed that it was a great trip but we liked the Norway/Iceland/France cruise just a bit more.
  • Our favorite moments of the trip were when we were off the beaten path in less touristy areas.
  • I need to be better about researching free time/shopping/meals on organized excursions.
  • British Airways’ Premium Economy seats are more comfortable with more legroom and better recline than American Airlines’ Premium Economy. However, the food was better on American. Also, it was cheaper to book through American (codeshared to BA) than to book the whole thing on BA. Also BA charges for seat assignments (even in Premium Economy) and American doesn’t.
  • Many people on our cruise had issues with tours and transfers booked through Viator (and we have our own horror story from our last trip to the Med). Just don’t do it. Always book direct.
  • I sure miss the beautiful blue ocean and amazing sunsets. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5-night DCL Bahamas cruise + WDW: A 25th Anniversary Celebration - Day 4 - At Sea

-
Image
At Sea I woke up around 7:30, which is pretty late for me. I apparently needed the sleep! I put on my workout clothes and went to the gym, which was packed. I much prefer the gyms on the Classic ships. They are bigger, actually. But I usually stake out a particular spot on the Dream class ships and I went in to find that they had stuck a piece of equipment in that spot. There was already limited real estate and now more of it was gone. (I never saw anyone using that piece of equipment.)  I couldn't find a space to do my own thing so I went to deck 4. I didn't want to run, but I was able to find a nook in which to do a BODYCOMBAT workout. I was going to be teaching a new release upon arriving back home and I really needed to start getting it into my muscle memory. I'm sure I looked like a weirdo shadowboxing in a corner on deck 4, but I got it done. Roger got up around 8 and he did run on deck 4.  We both got some snacks from Cabanas before returning to the room to shower. E...
Read more

5-night DCL Bahamas cruise + WDW: A 25th Anniversary Celebration - Days 1 & 2 Travel and Disney Springs

-
Image
Travel and Disney Springs For our 25th anniversary, we knew we wanted to take a Disney cruise. (I mean, it seems like we pretty much always want to take a Disney cruise.) We've cruised multiple times over the years to celebrate our anniversary and we wanted to check out Disney's new private island area, Lookout Cay. We decided to make it a big trip and tack on a couple of days at Disney World at the end.  We were originally going to fly in the day before the cruise, which was our actual anniversary (January 9) and have a nice dinner before embarking the next morning, but the weather forecast was looking concerning with a chance of icy weather. So we changed our flights, booked an extra night at our hotel and left a day early. It was a little hectic getting out that day, but we made it and arrived late in the evening in Orlando on Wednesday night. We took a Lyft to the Polynesian and found our room, got ourselves sorted out and went to bed.  The next morning we were able to sle...
Read more

4-Night Western Caribbean Cruise from Galveston - Day 3 Progreso, Mexico

-
Image
If you've read any of my previous trip reports you know that we don't usually book ship sponsored tours. But the port situation in Progreso is a little unique and the main tour that we wanted was also offered as a DCL sponsored excursion at around the same price so we just decided to push the easy button and book the tour through DCL: Mayapan Ruins, Lazy River Tubing and Cave Swim.  Our meeting time was 8:30 in the Walt Disney Theatre so we woke up at 7 AM, had breakfast at Cabana's and arrived right at 8:30. We waited there for about 15 minutes where about three full rows of people arrived for our tour and I worried that we made a horrible mistake.  They took us off row by row and we loaded onto tour buses of about 40-45 people per bus. From there we drove for about an hour to  Cenotes Hacienda Mucuyché . On the way, one of our tour guides explained the region, the people, how the cenotes were formed, what was farmed at the haciendas in the area (a certain species o...
Read more