Planning for 18 days in Europe - 66 Days to go

I am in the process of planning my biggest trip ever!! Not so much in the number of people (7 others will be traveling with me-which is the normal amount) but in the number of days and the complexity of the trip. The plan is to fly to Barcelona to meet and embark on a 12 day cruise through the Mediterranean. When we disembark we will be flying to Paris for two days.

I thought I would begin sharing how I am going about the final steps of planning  (we are 66 days away).

I told everyone in my party to take care of their flights to Barcelona first since the cruise price would remain steady and we had until 70 days prior to pay it off, while the flight cost could continue to rise. Once those two things had been paid we reserved hotels and Paris flights which were the other two things that could fluctuate.

So far we have booked flights, paid of the cruise, made hotel reservations, started the final steps of budgeting which I will share later, booked two excursion (everything else is DIY,which I strongly prefer when possible, I'll explain later why I decided to book these two) and I am working on final itineraries. In the end I will let you know how well it went :o)


When choosing a hotel in Barcelona, I made sure that it met a few requirements:

• That the facility had Air conditioning (which isn't a given in)
• That their was a safe in the room
• Near a Train or Metro Station
• That it was clean-safe-and budget friendly 

I ended up choosing a hotel (apartment) that fit all 8 of us it has 3 bedrooms and a sofa bed. It turned out to be about $30 per person for the night and during high season.

Itinerary

1. Fly to Barcelona 
2. Barcelona -Embarkation day
3. Provence
4. Florence/Pisa
5. Rome
6. Naples
7. Sea Day
8. Mykonos
9. Istanbul
10. Izmir
11. Athens
12. Sea Day
13. Athens
14. Venice
15. Venice- Disembark and fly to Paris
16. Paris
17. Paris
18. Fly Home