# Just got back from timeshare/cruise trip in Europe



## classiclincoln (Jul 15, 2012)

Stars lined up last year and we got a week at Dona Lola near Malaga Spain and then flew to Venice for a Royal Caribbean Adriatic Sea cruise.  Dona Lola was great; will post review in the Marketplace as soon as I can.  Great location, resort and the restaurants there were fantastic.  Took a day tour trip to Tangiers which was neat.

Cruise was unimpressive.  The only saving grace was that our friend is the travel agent and this was with a group of 23 people we knew including her and her husband.  Food and service was fair, accommodations were nice (shower was a bit small) but the ports of call were great.  We had private tours for our group at each port (Bari, Piraeus, Corfu and Dubrovnik) which was fantastic.  

Not overly enthralled with cruising; guess we're spoiled with our timeshares.  Overall a great time, especially once we got in touch with our son who was home in southern NJ with no power for 2 1/2 days.


----------



## Larry (Jul 15, 2012)

classiclincoln said:


> Stars lined up last year and we got a week at Dona Lola near Malaga Spain and then flew to Venice for a Royal Caribbean Adriatic Sea cruise.  Dona Lola was great; will post review in the Marketplace as soon as I can.  Great location, resort and the restaurants there were fantastic.  Took a day tour trip to Tangiers which was neat.
> 
> Cruise was unimpressive.  The only saving grace was that our friend is the travel agent and this was with a group of 23 people we knew including her and her husband.  Food and service was fair, accommodations were nice (shower was a bit small) but the ports of call were great.  We had private tours for our group at each port (Bari, Piraeus, Corfu and Dubrovnik) which was fantastic.
> 
> Not overly enthralled with cruising; guess we're spoiled with our timeshares.  Overall a great time, especially once we got in touch with our son who was home in southern NJ with no power for 2 1/2 days.



I'm thinking about doing this next year when we go to Malaga for a week in a timeshare. Can you tell us what cruise line and ship you were on so that I can pick something better????


----------



## PStreet1 (Jul 15, 2012)

Was it this cruise specifically that you found unimpressive or do you find cruising itself unimpressive?


----------



## vacationhopeful (Jul 15, 2012)

classiclincoln said:


> ....  Overall a great time, especially once we got in touch with our son who was home in southern NJ with no power for 2 1/2 days.



What fun is a vacation when others are handling the problems back home?  Hope he kept the freeze door closed. 

And be thankful your house was not in Maryland or in Altantic County, NJ --- those places were without electric for a week and better.


----------



## beejaybeeohio (Jul 16, 2012)

*Also did Cruise/timeshare*

We returned 4th of July from 3 nites in Rome at a VRBO penthouse with 3 beds/3 ba at a rate of $280 nite divided by 6.  Great location on Via Guilia near Campo di Fiore.

Then a 12 day Eastern Med cruise on Celebrity Silhouette.  It was very port-intensive. Private tours in Naples, Sicily & Ephesus were for our group of 6 or shared with CruiseCritic roll callers.  Our roll call was lively and the nite before we sailed about 20 of us met for drinks & dinner in Rome.  We did one ship excursion to Oia in Santorini which we then ditched and made the trek down to Ammoudi port for lunch and a chartered boat for an island cruise and return to where the ship tenders were.  We really like Celebrity- nothing like being greeted with an ice-cold towel and cold drink on return to the ship at day's end (if it's cold out, there's hot chocolate at the ready)!

The cruise ended in Venice.  From there we flew EasyJet to CDG, picked up our rental car and drove to Chateau du Maulmont, our timeshare trade in Randan France.  I posted a review to TUG so won't go into detail except to say it was a most unique resort and one that had been on my bucket list since we joined RCI in 1998.  

Post-timeshare it was an overnite in Versailles, then to Brussels for our final 3 nites.

Our prior cruise/timeshare was on the Celebrity Eclipse Baltic followed by a week at Club Dobogomajor in Hungary.  Another excellent experience on the cruise and at the timeshare!

One of the biggest advantages for us in a European cruise is that it is less stressful in regards to not having to choose accommodations, find a restaurant that pleases everyone in our group and unpacking/packing nitely plus getting a taste of many different cities and countries. And seadays provide a respite from a port-intensive itinerary. But we also like the contrast of spending a week in a timeshare and exploring the countryside.

Larry, we enjoy Celebrity cruiseline and there are many sailings out of Barcelona that might work for you.  Showers on their S-class ships are great!

ClassicLincoln, sorry that your RCL cruise wasn't the best.


----------



## cgeidl (Jul 16, 2012)

*Barceloa RT plus two weeks in Sicily*

We like Celebrity also and are going on the Solstice RT from Barcelona in early Octber after two weeks in Sicily. ROyal CAr,Princess,and many French barge and river cruises have been in the past.We used to much prefer the land portions of our trip but as age has caught up and we are in our 70's we look forward to the 12 day cruise after two plus independent weeks in Sicily driving rental racing cars with the Italians whose only driving rule seems to be "If you think you can make it ,Go for it!"Cruises avoid the packing/unpacking/and getting lost at least on the sea days.
Even better than Celebrity by far are the Oceania cruises with really great food, better itineraries, but at least double in cost.


----------



## pedro47 (Jul 16, 2012)

cgeidl said:


> We like Celebrity also and are going on the Solstice RT from Barcelona in early Octber after two weeks in Sicily. ROyal CAr,Princess,and many French barge and river cruises have been in the past.We used to much prefer the land portions of our trip but as age has caught up and we are in our 70's we look forward to the 12 day cruise after two plus independent weeks in Sicily driving rental racing cars with the Italians whose only driving rule seems to be "If you think you can make it ,Go for it!"Cruises avoid the packing/unpacking/and getting lost at least on the sea days.
> Even better than Celebrity by far are the Oceania cruises with really great food, better itineraries, but at least double in cost.



We also enjoy crusing on Celebrity Cruise Line and we are doing a 14 days cruise late this year  of the Holy Land.  To really enjoy the City of Rome you need to vacation in the City for at least five (5) days and still you would never be able to see everything.


----------



## Laurie (Jul 16, 2012)

beejaybeeohio said:


> The cruise ended in Venice.  From there we flew EasyJet to CDG, picked up our rental car and drove to Chateau du Maulmont, our timeshare trade in Randan France.  I posted a review to TUG so won't go into detail except to say it was a most unique resort and one that had been on my bucket list since we joined RCI in 1998.


BJB, I just went to read your review - glad you made the trip to Puy-en-Velay, that was the highlight for us too! - and one of the main enticements about the area. I'd spent some time researching the history of the Black Madonnas, all very fascinating.


----------



## cmh (Jul 16, 2012)

beejaybeeohio said:


> We returned 4th of July from 3 nites in Rome at a VRBO penthouse with 3 beds/3 ba at a rate of $280 nite divided by 6.  Great location on Via Guilia near Campo di Fiore.
> 
> Then a 12 day Eastern Med cruise on Celebrity Silhouette.  It was very port-intensive. Private tours in Naples, Sicily & Ephesus were for our group of 6 or shared with CruiseCritic roll callers.  Our roll call was lively and the nite before we sailed about 20 of us met for drinks & dinner in Rome.  We did one ship excursion to Oia in Santorini which we then ditched and made the trek down to Ammoudi port for lunch and a chartered boat for an island cruise and return to where the ship tenders were.  We really like Celebrity- nothing like being greeted with an ice-cold towel and cold drink on return to the ship at day's end (if it's cold out, there's hot chocolate at the ready)!
> 
> ...



Greetings from another Buckeye in the heart of it all - Columbus.

Your trip sounds fabulous!  We've done several cruises (mainly Princess) but not a Celebrity.

Question:  how were you finally able to get the Chateau du Maulmont?  I hear that is a difficult one to snag.


----------



## beejaybeeohio (Jul 17, 2012)

cmh said:


> Greetings from another Buckeye in the heart of it all - Columbus.
> 
> Your trip sounds fabulous!  We've done several cruises (mainly Princess) but not a Celebrity.
> 
> Question:  how were you finally able to get the Chateau du Maulmont?  I hear that is a difficult one to snag.



Hi cmh-

I put in an ongoing search for Chateau du Maulmont and select Italian timeshares for a 12 week window 2 years out.  The week of 6/23-6/30/12 came thru in early July 2010.

Because it was so far ahead I took out the RCI insurance for the first and thus far only time.  Luckily did not need it!!


----------



## Passepartout (Jul 17, 2012)

Beejaybee, I am SO envious. We have not gone off cruising- or to Europe- this year after 4X last year.  We just don't dare be that far from a phone and being able to pull up stakes in a minute. DW's dad (95) is in a nursing home in the Midwest, on hospice care so I feel like we are on vigil. Knowing him, this situation could last a lot longer than any of us want it to.

Not that we have been sitting around molding, with 4 TS weeks so far and parts of most weeks at the lake in our RV, but still, I need my Italy or Greece fix.

Thanks for sharing. I need to live vicariously through folks like you.

Jim


----------



## beejaybeeohio (Jul 17, 2012)

Jim- 

My heart goes out to you.  God bless your dad and his strong will, but that will doesn't make it easy on his loved ones who hate to see him suffer.

On a lighter note- How about fall of 2013?  Silhouette 10/31 or Equinox 10/20 or 11/13 are itineraries that intrigue me....


----------



## classiclincoln (Jul 18, 2012)

We didn't mind the cruise.  It was nice to get a taste of each of the ports so we could decide if we wanted to plan a longer return trip, which we definitely want to do in Greece and possibly Croatia.  Italy is a return no brainer.  I really think it was the whole food/service/not so flex dining option that turned us off.  Maybe things are different on other cruise lines.  We do plan on doing an Alaska land/sea cruise and a Panama Canal one.

As for being away during the storm, things were fine once we spoke with our son.  He was one of the lucky ones who was only out for 2 1/2 days.  Nothing we could do either at home or away except wait for the power to return.  One of our friends on the trip left home before the power came back on.

We actually are about a mile away from the Atlantic County border, and there were some people here in Vineland who were out for a week.  Upon return, we toured our properties and thank G-d, we had zero damage anywhere.  The biggest problem was when the power came back on in the office, my voice mail reset to the regular "I can't take your call...." message instead of the "I'm away for 2 weeks..." message.

Can't complain at all.


----------



## PStreet1 (Jul 18, 2012)

I used to not be a fan of cruises, but they've grown on me, and we're doing 4 this year, two of them transAtlantics.  I think part of it is just getting into the rhythms of being on board a moving resort with limited opportunities for "going into town."


----------



## pwrshift (Jul 21, 2012)

I have a friend who takes two cruises a year, with wife, for a duration of 28 days or more.  Loves them, but I think I'd lose interest after one.  He loves the transatlantic ones too.  I think it costs about $5,000 each x 2x2...but he says it would cost more to stay in a TS if you include the same amount of food and entertainment.  They are retired.

Brian


----------



## Margariet (Jul 21, 2012)

cmh said:


> Question:  how were you finally able to get the Chateau du Maulmont?  I hear that is a difficult one to snag.





beejaybeeohio said:


> Hi cmh-
> 
> I put in an ongoing search for Chateau du Maulmont and select Italian timeshares for a 12 week window 2 years out.  The week of 6/23-6/30/12 came thru in early July 2010.
> 
> Because it was so far ahead I took out the RCI insurance for the first and thus far only time.  Luckily did not need it!!



We also booked Chateau de Maulmont with RCI nearly two years in advance! Thanks to a sighting posted by an alert TUG member! So it is diffcult to get but not impossible. Best you put an ongoing search in early.


----------



## Carolinian (Jul 21, 2012)

cmh said:


> Question:  how were you finally able to get the Chateau du Maulmont?  I hear that is a difficult one to snag.



That resort only has two timeshare units, is only open 8 or so months of the year, and most of its owners use their weeks rather than exchanging.


----------



## Margariet (Jul 21, 2012)

Carolinian said:


> That resort only has two timeshare units, is only open 8 or so months of the year, and most of its owners use their weeks rather than exchanging.



For 5900 Euro's per night you can hire the whole chateau !


----------

