Comments Needed on Med Cruise

taocat · July 11, 2013

Hi All,

I have been a member of this site for a while now, but have never posted or commented so please bear with me...

My husband and I (along with 3 other couples) are doing the 7 Day Western Med cruise on RCI at the end of Sept 2013. None of us have ever been to Europe. I'm looking for some information/feedback/comments/tips, on my ideas and plans to see if I'm on the right track with having an enjoyable trip. I'm realistic enough to know that this isn't necessarily a "relaxing" cruise, but my plan is to see some great sites, but keep the stress level to a minimum. The best way I know how to do that is to plan. We've been on 5 other cruises (and 3 we didn't even fly to the ports - we go out of NYC or Bayonne, NJ). We are not really big city type travelers/tourists...we mostly do long weekends to local spots. So this is definately a BIG trip for us, but we've been saving for 2 1/2 years since it's one of our dream items to do. So here I go...this is what I've done and am thinking so far.

Booked the flights through RCI's Air Choice program - supposedly they say that if there are delays they will get us to the next port to meet the ship at no charge. We fly in to BCN the morning of departure and booked the transfer to and from the pier through RCI (the transfer to the ship includes the RCI Barcelona City Tour excursion).

Provence (Toulon): Thought we would book the Taste of Toulon excursion through RCI. It's a short excursion and we may be a bit jet lagged considering we have never flown international (we live in Vermont).

Villefranche (Nice): Thought we would go off on our own and explore this cute little town. This would give us time to explore at our own pace and yet we can enjoy time on the ship too. Also, this is one of the nights that there is a show and we would be able to see that since we are not off on a long excursion.

La Spezia (Florence/Pisa): The excursion we are looking to book through the ship is the Pisa/Florence tour. It's a little bit longer, but not overly, and we really want to see both of these cities.

Civitavecchia (Rome): We've already booked a more private tour through Viator (locally Dark Rome Ltd) - it's 12 hours long, but it seemed to cover a lot of ground. Concern here is the long bus ride into Rome from the port...I have some anxiety issues regarding long drives, but really don't see anyway around it.

Naples (Capri): We would like to do the Pompeii/Mt. Vesuvius excursion through the ship. There's kind of a disclaimer saying this is a "strenuous" activity. I'm mid 40's and my husband is early 50's and we both walk and I hike/snowshoe. Is this really out of our league for an activity or is the "strenuous" part exaggerated?

Does this plan sound reasonable and doable? Am I on the right track here? I know that things can happen and plans may need to change (i.e. - if the ship can't make a port for some reason), but any feedback from all you experienced cruisers would be welcome.

Thank you everyone.

Naomi :smile:

coloradocruisers · July 11, 2013

I can't offer advice Naomi, but will be monitoring this thread. We're planning activities for 2014, and will go to the same ports.

zebra · July 11, 2013

Hi All,
I have been a member of this site for a while now, but have never posted or commented so please bear with me...

My husband and I (along with 3 other couples) are doing the 7 Day Western Med cruise on RCI at the end of Sept 2013. None of us have ever been to Europe. I'm looking for some information/feedback/comments/tips, on my ideas and plans to see if I'm on the right track with having an enjoyable trip. I'm realistic enough to know that this isn't necessarily a "relaxing" cruise, but my plan is to see some great sites, but keep the stress level to a minimum. The best way I know how to do that is to plan. We've been on 5 other cruises (and 3 we didn't even fly to the ports - we go out of NYC or Bayonne, NJ). We are not really big city type travelers/tourists...we mostly do long weekends to local spots. So this is definately a BIG trip for us, but we've been saving for 2 1/2 years since it's one of our dream items to do. So here I go...this is what I've done and am thinking so far.

Booked the flights through RCI's Air Choice program - supposedly they say that if there are delays they will get us to the next port to meet the ship at no charge. We fly in to BCN the morning of departure and booked the transfer to and from the pier through RCI (the transfer to the ship includes the RCI Barcelona City Tour excursion).

Provence (Toulon): Thought we would book the Taste of Toulon excursion through RCI. It's a short excursion and we may be a bit jet lagged considering we have never flown international (we live in Vermont).

Villefranche (Nice): Thought we would go off on our own and explore this cute little town. This would give us time to explore at our own pace and yet we can enjoy time on the ship too. Also, this is one of the nights that there is a show and we would be able to see that since we are not off on a long excursion.

La Spezia (Florence/Pisa): The excursion we are looking to book through the ship is the Pisa/Florence tour. It's a little bit longer, but not overly, and we really want to see both of these cities.

Civitavecchia (Rome): We've already booked a more private tour through Viator (locally Dark Rome Ltd) - it's 12 hours long, but it seemed to cover a lot of ground. Concern here is the long bus ride into Rome from the port...I have some anxiety issues regarding long drives, but really don't see anyway around it.

Naples (Capri): We would like to do the Pompeii/Mt. Vesuvius excursion through the ship. There's kind of a disclaimer saying this is a "strenuous" activity. I'm mid 40's and my husband is early 50's and we both walk and I hike/snowshoe. Is this really out of our league for an activity or is the "strenuous" part exaggerated?

Does this plan sound reasonable and doable? Am I on the right track here? I know that things can happen and plans may need to change (i.e. - if the ship can't make a port for some reason), but any feedback from all you experienced cruisers would be welcome.

Thank you everyone.

Naomi

Hi Naomi. We have been to the Med twice and can obviously only offer our perspective. We are 20 years older than you guys but are very active. We climbed thousands and thousand of steps and climbed many, many hills ..... great exercise, but very tiring because most of the streets and steps are cobblestone so you are not talking about smooth American surfaces.

Yes this is a VERY port intensive itinerary, so don't be surprised if you don't have much energy for evening activities onboard ship.

I can't help with Toulon but we have done Villefranche twice and absolutely loved the area. The best that we did was take a personal tour of Eze and St. Paul de Vence .... in fact I wouldn't go to the area and not go to these awesome medieval towns with lots of shops and restaurants and views to die for. The other cruise we stayed in Villefranche which is a little fishing town built on the side of the mountain. Lots of climbing and stairs other than the front street alongside the water. AS I said Villefranche area is unbelievably beautiful but you would have to travel out of the town to get the best benefit.

Pisa and Florence can both be done in one long day. Although the Leaning Tower was interesting, Florence was spectacular and there is so much to see and do there, depending on your preferences. We have also done this port twice - the second time we took a private tour of Tuscany and fell in love with Italy!!!!!!!

In Rome we took a private tour guide and saw so much, including the Vatican that by the end of the day my mind went on tilt .... you just can't explain the wonder of the history ... unbelievable. One thing I will say here is the difference between a private tour guide as opposed to going in a huge bus. We were able to get right up to everything in our car as opposed to the people who were at our dinner table that night who told us they took a ships excursion on a large bus and firstly were caught in a traffic jam on the intersate for 2 hours because of a fatal accident and the bus is not allowed to deviate from the set route (interstate) and secondly because of it's size it had to park on the outskirt of the city and everyone had quite a long walk to get to the sights. Just saying ........

Capri - I certainly wouldn't have said that Pompeii was any more strenuous than the rest of Europe. In fact I never felt it was strenuous at all. Hope that helps. For us visiting the Amalfi coast and the gorgeous little towns far superceded the time we spent in Pompeii. The Amafi is stunning .... we ate fresh figs off the trees, saw the biggest lemons I have EVER seen, bought lots of Italian Herbs (we love pasta) ate at the most amazing restaurants and drank lots of Limoncello!!!! Amazing memories!

To answer your question - yes your plan sounds very reasonable and doable. Enjoy all the planning .... that's the fun part!!!

Jan115 · July 11, 2013

Naomi - Sounds like you have a good plan, but then I am not familiar with any of the Mediterranean ports. With the exception of Rome, I am looking at Greece and Turkey next summer.

Speaking of Rome - Jackie, would you please send me a PM with the tour guide you used. We are spending 4 nights in Rome Pre-cruise and want to see the most we can in the time we have.

DebbieandJerry · July 11, 2013

What a dream cruise. I hope you have a wonderful time.

Nice to see you posting!

dmoten · July 12, 2013

A Med cruise will be in my future, I cannot wait to hear about it when you return. Your planning looks on point, but always keep in mind that you should have a Plan B (just in case life steps in and makes you change your mind about something).

coloradocruisers · July 12, 2013

Good info Jackie!

Naomi, I noticed that you like to snowshoe. I love to snowshoe. May I ask about that? Where do you like to go? My wife and like to snowshoe in the White River National Forest near the town of Breckenridge; and sometimes I'll meet up with co-workers on the weekend to go somewhere different.

taocat · July 12, 2013

Hi Again All,

Thank you all for the comments so far. I really appreciate it.

Jackie - this is some wonderful information. It certainly helps with the planning. That's very sad about the car accident that happened on your day entering Rome, sorry to hear about that person losing their life. The Rome private tour that we have already booked wasn't really what we were expecting - it had said no groups larger than 20 (so we thought our group of 8 would be a group because it was not more than 20), transportation to and from Rome, english speaking guide, see these particular sites, entrance tickets to the sites included with a skip the line entry, lunch and a guarantee that if we missed this ship, they would provide us transportation to catch up to it for no additional charge. Sounded great and we booked. Then after booking, we got our confirmation voucher and it mentioned that the transportation choice would be decided upon 2 days before the tour...our friend who did the original research called them directly and we were told that if more people from our ship or other ships in port booked with them, they would put everyone on buses to get us into Rome and then break us off into groups of no more than 20 with a guide. Also, it now mentions that they do not pick us up at the ship itself, we have to take some sort of free shuttle from the port to Forte Michelangelo which is about 15 minutes away - the original information said nothing about that either. I wouldn't say that we felt "tricked", but we definitely did not understand it to be that way...oh well, that's kind of why I am asking more questions now.

Dee - Plan B is always good advice. On our very first cruise, Hurricane Isabel made her appearance in the Easterm Caribbean so they re-routed our ship to the Western Caribbean. A lot of people were upset, but we were kind of like - oh well, we haven't been here before either! My motto tends to be "have a plan, but go with the flow when you can't control things" - and weather is certainly one of those things we have no control over.

Kevin - we had great snow in Vermont this year (last year I did not use the snow shoes at all - cold, but no snow). I actually got to snowshoe just about every day this season. There is a little mountain behind my building that the University of Vermont conservation students keep up the trails. I can do the inner loop trail of about 1.5 miles in my 30 minute lunch break. Everybody kind of laughs at me when they see me all geared up and ready to go, but I don't care. It's great exercise and I love the fresh air. I also have family in the Lake Placid / Saranac Lake, NY area so I go over there a couple of times a season too. That's why I think I could do the Mt. Vesuvius hike (it said 1000 feet of strenuous activity), but I want to be realistic about my ability...I'm certainly no marathon runner...but I think I'm fairly fit.

Thank you again everyone for your helpful hints and information. Keep posting if you have more to add.

Naomi :smile:

zebra · July 12, 2013

Naomi - the tour guide we used has a Mercedes Mini Van and can only take a maximum of 6 passengers. It was ideal and so comfortable. He is highly reputable and if you are interested please let me know. I will give you all his details. He also tours in Florence and Tuscany. He is fantastic!!!!!

Jan - hope you received my PM.