Kartschoke’s Magic in the Mediterranean ~ Day 4 Villefranche/Monaco

August 14th 2011 - Sunny, High of 79

Today we got up somewhat early so we could go on our 1/2 day morning trip called Monaco, the Marina and the little train. We ate a buffet breakfast at the topsiders restaurant and then got on a tender boat to go to the port of Villefranche.  This was easily the best looking port on our whole trip.

Here’s some views of the port as we came in and got off the tender boat.

Next we got on a tour bus to drive to Monaco, which counts as our 3rd country on the trip so far.  We started by taking a tour of “the rock”  which houses the Prince’s palace and the Monaco Cathedral.  Sadly we had a very very poor tour guide and we had very little time on our own (she lost some of our group twice) and we did not get to go into the cathedral, but it was still a very beautiful area.



One good thing that came about from our guides problems was that we got to see the changing of the guard (look behind Jared in the following pic) and got to walk (although fast walking) through some nice small narrow streets.


Our next part of the tour involved going on a nice little tram/train over to and through Monte Carlo.  We saw some expensive cars driving around like Ferrari's, Aston-Martin, & Bentlys and we saw the famous Casino De Monte Carlo.

After the tour we went back on the bus back to Villefranche. We had talked about going into the Mediterranean and we had seen a beach within walking distance when we had come in on the tender boat, so we headed for the beach.  The beach was crowded with people and it was not sand on the beach but small rocks,  but this did not stop us from officially putting our feet in the Mediterranean. Note that this is a true European beach where not all of the clothes that are worn in the US are worn here.

After the Beach we had to get some de glace (aka ice-cream) in coconut and cookies & cream flavors.  Next we went on a hunt to find a local bakery to have a real French baguette.

As you can see Jared is very exited that we are hunting for a bakery instead of going back to the ship.Success, we found a bakery and got a fresh French baguette!

We took the tender boat back to ship and had some lunch up on deck by getting some pizza at Pinocchio's pizza. Alexa decided to go to her kids club called the Edge where she made & ate cookies.  Jared went swimming and went down the mickey water slide 2 times. We had dinner at Lumiere's and during dinner we saw that Mickey & Minnie were just outside so the kids got a picture with them.  Then it was off to tonight's show called Twice Charmed where Cinderella needs to once again meet the prince.

R2-D2 pict of the day:

Tigger pict of the day:

Towel animal of the day: An elephant & some more “sleepy” chocolatesPharmacy pict of the day (Monaco)

I love shirt of the day

Kartschoke’s Magic in the Mediterranean ~ Day 3 Barcelona/Board the ship

August 13 2011 - Sunny, High of 84

The day we’ve been waiting for. We get to board the ship! We woke up that morning well rested and ready to go. First we got up and walked on down to a tapas bar where they give you small portions of food and you can eat at the bar. We learned that in Europe you can have a sandwich for breakfast. And they had bread with oil and tomatoes on top like an appetizer to eat.

Us at Tapa Tapas restaurant.

After we got our food we walked down to a street called La Ramblas. It is a street with a ton of performers and street vendors and many shops you can visit. It is like a super-sized church street  (for you non Vermonters church st is our walking st in Burlington). We saw many tourist shops for Barcelona merchandise. We saw many interesting street performers dressed up as other people.

Starting at the beginning of Las Ramblas

They have other shops like pet shops where they sell lots of different animals and they have outdoor restaurants.

They even sell the smallest hamsters in the world.

Along Las Ramblas we went into the food market. This place had lots of fresh food for sale including fruits, meats, seafood, nuts, & candy. We bought some delicious fruit smoothies here (pineapple/coconut and strawberry/mango …. yummy)

Next we saw some street performers.  Typically they would stand very very still until someone would give them money although we were able to see a few performing when other people gave money.  Sadly when the kids gave the Don Quixote performer some money nothing happened .

We actually had enough time this morning to walk the whole Las Ramblas.  At the end of the street was a statue of Christopher Columbus which is actually really close to where we will be boarding the Disney Magic.  We ate some Churros ( a sweet spanish donut) with hot chocolate which is supposed to be a big thing to eat here but it was not very special and tasted kind of bland.  After walking back up Las Ramblas we returned to the hotel to catch our bus to the Disney Magic .

Our 1st look at the Magic.

Hanging with Mickey while we wait to board.

After eating lunch on the ship we made it to our room.

After walking around the ship, playing some shuffleboard, and doing our mandatory muster drill, in case of emergency, we went to the Adventures Away deck party and then hit the pool before dinner.


This night Dinner was at the Parrot Cay restaurant.  We got to meet our servers Green and Katerina.  Also we got to meet our other family at the table, it was an 8 person table.  They were a very nice family from northern Ireland and their 2 girls were the same ages as Alexa and Jared.

After dinner we decided to go to the Mickey Mania show.  They needed 4 teams from the audience to compete in this game show.  Alexa and Paul raised  hands and we got picked to be the blue Donald team.  We answered a few questions 1st (we had to use a buzzer) and some people in the audience (with the audience question phase) gave us some points and although we had fun we did not win. After this game show we went to the All aboard: Let the Magic Begin  show and then went to bed although not before a surprise in the room.

Towel animal of the day: A Ray & some chocolates (sleepy from Snow White)

Pharmacy pict of the Day: Barcelona on Las Ramblas

Here are the highlights on the ship for the next 7 days.