Overwhelmed!! - Booked 13 NT Translatlantic on Dream - Too Many Questions!! - Cadiz/Ponta Delgada/Castaway? Remi/Palo?

[lat]

I can't believe it has been 9 years since we took our last Disney cruise in 2014. It would be our 10th cruise next year on Disney Dream doing the transatlantic one. We LOVE sea days!!I am SO EXCITED we are finally going back to Disney Cruise after traveling on our own around Europe and Asia for the past 9 years. However, no trip planning is as exciting as this one

I am now trying to figure out what to look into for the ports at Cadiz and Ponta Delgada. What are your favorite excursions and where do you recommend to book them?

Cadiz is a 2-hour drive from Seville, I am not sure we want to spend 4 hours on a bus...

We have been to Lisbon and Barcelona so I think we will just go around on our own.

Remy and Palo - we definitely want to book them on the sea days. Anything else we should book ahead?

OMG, I am so excited with this cruise!!!!! We started when our younger daughter was 6 and did 9 cruises in 8 years including 3 European cruises. Now she is 22 and we will be traveling as all adults!! (our older daughter can't make it, she is already 25, we started when she was 9 on our Panama Canal cruise). Still, Disney Cruise is the only cruise line we go with!!

Thank you so much for any advise you can offer.

 

[FastPasser.]

We had thought about doing that same cruise a few years ago but unlike you, anything over a day or two is too many sea days for us. I can comment on two of your stops, Ponta Delgada and Barcelona.

As you've probably researched it, Ponta Delgada is located on the island of Sao Miguel and is the capital of the Azores islands. I'm very familiar with the Azores islands because I was born there and have returned several times. They are beautiful. I encourage you to take in as much as you can in the limited time you have.

The other stop is Barcelona. We just did the southern Europe cruise on the Dream and Barcelona is where it started and ended.

You may have done it on one of your previous trips but we did the half day tour of Montserrat and enjoyed it immensely.

 

[Mommb]

Remy and Palo - we definitely want to book them on the sea days. Anything else we should book ahead?

If anyone in your family is interested, you may want to book alcohol tastings -- I've seen wine, bourbon, martini, mojito, and chocolate and liquor, among others.

I'm not sure there's much new at Castaway Cay in the last 9 years. The 5K race is now "run/walk whenever you want" rather than a mad rush when debarkation begins. That's the only significant change I can think of, but others might remember more.

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

I think you may have just asked in your excitement, but I’m pretty sure we don’t go to Castaway on this sailing. Not to burst your bubble or anything… just didn’t want you to get your hopes up…

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

As far as excursions go, we’ll be on this cruise as well, I think it is a little early to be looking at the port adventures or at least considering them as set in stone. For example, nothing has been published for Valencia yet. I think I recall it saying to check back around 105 days out? That might not be exact, but considering that, I would see what’s out there and kind of get an idea of what you might like to do. Also, there is a recent trip report from someone who did this year’s crossing that is pretty legit. I can’t recall their screen name, but if you look at the trip reports, it isn’t too far down the list.

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

Oh, also wanted to add, and you may have already thought of this, so excuse me if I talk out of turn, but it is worth looking at the hours that we will be in port as they differ and aren’t usual (or at least in my opinion). But anywho, looking forward to planning with you!

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

We had thought about doing that same cruise a few years ago but unlike you, anything over a day or two is too many sea days for us. I can comment on two of your stops, Ponta Delgada and Barcelona.

As you've probably researched it, Ponta Delgada is located on the island of Sao Miguel and is the capital of the Azores islands. I'm very familiar with the Azores islands because I was born there and have returned several times. They are beautiful. I encourage you to take in as much as you can in the limited time you have.

The other stop is Barcelona. We just did the southern Europe cruise on the Dream and Barcelona is where it started and ended.

You may have done it on one of your previous trips but we did the half day tour of Montserrat and enjoyed it immensely.

Curious about the cuisine in São Miguel, are there any unique must try dishes in your opinion?

 

[lat]

I think you may have just asked in your excitement, but I’m pretty sure we don’t go to Castaway on this sailing. Not to burst your bubble or anything… just didn’t want you to get your hopes up…

yes, you are right. I bot it mixed up with a Treasure cruise I was looking at.

 

[lat]

Oh, also wanted to add, and you may have already thought of this, so excuse me if I talk out of turn, but it is worth looking at the hours that we will be in port as they differ and aren’t usual (or at least in my opinion). But anywho, looking forward to planning with you!

Yeah, I noticed that too. We may just tick with Disney’s excursions this time. European cruises are exhausting except these

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

Yeah, I’m with you though I’m not really wanting to spend 4 hours on a bus…

 

[FastPasser.]

Curious about the cuisine in São Miguel, are there any unique must try dishes in your opinion?

Good question but I won’t be of much help because we stay with relatives and don’t dine out. But the food we do have is very basic.

As you’d expect there is a lot of seafood influences. Pork, vegetable thick soups but nothing that special. The cheese from one of the islands, St. Jorge, is sought after. Strong but amazing. And the Portuguese sausage of linguica is IMO very tasty. You can find it in most large US grocery stores.

 

[msmama]

We did a walking tour of Cadiz with a visit to the Camera Obscura (it was a lot of steps to the top). It was fine. The camera obscura was the best part. It wasn't all day, but it's the kind of shore excursion I tend to like most. But it's also the kind that depends on the tour guide. Ours was nice, knew a lot. I remember there being kids on the tour who weren't entertained (and were trying to catch pigeons) but my teenage son enjoyed it. I wouldn't do it again, but I'm glad we did it.

Our stop at Ponta Delgada was cancelled so no advice there.

And you didn't ask, but, as much as I've tried, I just don't enjoy Lisbon. Everyone raves about it and I just find it kind of "meh" so no advice there. If I only had a day in Barcelona, I'd go to the Sagrada Familia no matter how many times I've been there before! I really enjoyed the hop on/hop off bus in Barcelona so may do that, too.

 

[RedHead0186]

You may have done it on one of your previous trips but we did the half day tour of Montserrat and enjoyed it immensely.

Loooooved Montserrat, went there when I was in Barcelona last summer. Highly recommend!

 

[DisneyConvert]

We visited Cadiz on our EBTA a decade ago and enjoyed it quite a bit. The Catedral de Cadiz was beautiful and had some nice tours for a modest price. Also, the Central (Farmer's) Market, sells everything incl lunch, but may depend on day. The HoHo bus runs in a big loop and covers all the main highlights, and our cruise pier was along the way.

Barcelona is a world-class city. One can spend a week here easily. The old walled city is incredible (several movies have been filmed there, but PG+). We did a DCL excursion which took us to the Poble Espanyol - terrific! My wife picked out the Museum of the History of Catalonia which had comprehnsive background on the history of Spain and the Catalan region which had displays in English.

 

[lilsonicfan]

I am now trying to figure out what to look into for the ports at Cadiz and Ponta Delgada. What are your favorite excursions and where do you recommend to book them?

I did a trip report from our 13 night transatlantic in 2019, it's in the trip report section if you might find it at all helpful (possibly not, lol).

This was one of my favourite cruises ever. I LOVED the week straight of sea days - we sailed out of Miami on a Sunday and arrived in Ponta Delgada the following Sunday. You do lose 4-5 hours on the way to the Azores, and then you lose another 1-2 on the way to Lisbon (I can't remember whether it's 4/2 or 5/1 but it's 6 total).

In Ponta Delgada, we booked a tour through Azorean Tours https://www.azoreantours.com/index.php?lang=en - we booked a semi-private tour. There were 5 of us and then another couple joined (organized by the tour company). We made some modifications to the tour we booked, the tour company suggested we might enjoy the hot springs bath - it was amazing, I'm so glad we did this. I would love to go back to the Azores/Sao Miguel, what a beautiful place.

In Cadiz, we didn't have a tour booked. We did have plans to go to the Camera Obscura location but missed our timeslot due to getting off the ship late. I really liked Cadiz, it was clean and easy to navigate.

 

[WvT3rd]

I can't believe it has been 9 years since we took our last Disney cruise in 2014. It would be our 10th cruise next year on Disney Dream doing the transatlantic one. We LOVE sea days!!I am SO EXCITED we are finally going back to Disney Cruise after traveling on our own around Europe and Asia for the past 9 years. However, no trip planning is as exciting as this one

I am now trying to figure out what to look into for the ports at Cadiz and Ponta Delgada. What are your favorite excursions and where do you recommend to book them?

Cadiz is a 2-hour drive from Seville, I am not sure we want to spend 4 hours on a bus...

We have been to Lisbon and Barcelona so I think we will just go around on our own.

Remy and Palo - we definitely want to book them on the sea days. Anything else we should book ahead?

OMG, I am so excited with this cruise!!!!! We started when our younger daughter was 6 and did 9 cruises in 8 years including 3 European cruises. Now she is 22 and we will be traveling as all adults!! (our older daughter can't make it, she is already 25, we started when she was 9 on our Panama Canal cruise). Still, Disney Cruise is the only cruise line we go with!!

Thank you so much for any advise you can offer.

There was a walking tour ofCadiz that was very nice. It's a small town but was used as a double for Cuba in the James Bond film Die Another Day. So start there.

 

[dvcdisney]

I'm also on the 13 night transatlantic cruise next year....I'm following this thread to help me plan as well.

 

[pjacobi]

Cadiz is a 2-hour drive from Seville, I am not sure we want to spend 4 hours on a bus...

That's why I think that a cruise is not a good fit if you are really interested in seeing Europe. It's kinda hard to get a cruise ship to Switzerland!


-Paul

 

[braysmommy]

We have done the eastbound TA a few times and this is one of our favorite port excursions we did.

https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/...ww.wehatetourismtours.com/&flow=528177&g4=yes

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

Disclaimer: Yes I know I am “resurrecting an old thread”, so keep your pesky nose out if it. You know who you are.

Has anyone done the Montserrat Half Day, End at Hotel/End at Airport - Debarkation Day DCL port adventure who DID NOT stay at the DCL affiliated hotel in Barcelona? If so, how did they handle your luggage?

Yes, I did read that it ends at DCL hotels only AND Plaza Catalunya. I’m interested in the Plaza Catalunya part.

Also, yes I did read that you can only book it once onboard. I’m just looking for information, if anyone has some available and are willing to share.