RaleighCruiser19

Good point. We were the only ship that day. I read everything available that I could search on this site and did not find the information about how the drivers were positioned in relation to the terminal where the luggage is placed. The ship's staff were misleading me while the driver was telling me to find him on the pier at the side of the ship. I was concerned that I would reach my driver and somehow lose access to a secure terminal with the luggage. That's why we just took our luggage with us. Every port is different for every ship every time. So good luck everyone!

When your cruise ends in the Civitavecchia Port, I have details I could not find beforehand. I hope this helps someone else. Your cruise company may tell you no drivers are allowed into the port and you need to take their transfers to get to the port gate. This is not true. Our driver explained he and his vehicle have special permits to drive into the port. The port has a multilevel fully enclosed gangway that gently ramps you down from the departure deck to the ground level and feeds you into the terminal building. We took our large wheeled suitcases down and it is very smooth going. If you gave your tagged luggage to the cruise company the night before, you pick it up inside the terminal building. With your luggage, walk through the terminal to the exit, then backtrack down the sidewalk to toward the end where the gangway dropped you off to find all the private drivers standing with signs to pick up customers. We used RomeCabs and they were wonderful.

Caution to anyone booking this excursion from La Spezia. We took it last week and had two major issues. First - the Celebrity vendor did not follow the itinerary. As booked, we would be bussed to Levanto, take a train to Monterosso, bus to Manarola and bus to Riomagiorre. Our guide reversed the order and ended the tour early in Monterosso. I talked to the guide about why and she said I was on the wrong tour! (I wasn't) This was a pricey excursion and we did not get what we paid for. Second - bad weather was handled terribly. We experienced torrential, sideways-blowing rain the morning of our excursion. Forecast was too late to cancel and Celebrity wouldn't. We understand nobody controls the weather and we don't mind getting wet. However, if we had been on the correct tour, we would have been covered and dry for the first 2 hours of the tour during the worst of the rain. I assumed adjustments would be made so we could stay a little drier, but we were booted off the bus into the blowing rain. Our guide was also quite aggressive with us about "being happy" and threatened to send us back to the boat via the train if we weren't happy. Appalling. I sent an online comment card while on the ship and got no response. Book this tour at great risk. I recommend a private small group tour (ItalyTours has one from La Spezia) where they will adjust for comfort and stick to the itinerary. How Celebrity handled this is the biggest disappointment of my cruise.

We took the Cinque Terre Villages shore excursion Celebrity offered out of La Spezia.

We took the Classic Amalfi Coast small group tour last week - Positano, Amalfi and Ravello from Naples. It was a great tour, exactly as advertised, the van was comfortable and the driver/guide did a great job getting us through the itinerary. It was a very long day but just what we hoped for. I highly recommend ItalyTours. I am kicking myself we didn't also take their tour of Cinque Terre in La Spezia. I burned our OBC on the Celebrity excursion thinking they took us to an additional town and would take care of us. I was wrong! The ship's tour shortened our itinerary and kicked us out of the bus directly into a thunderstorm. I am positive ItalyTours would have taken better care of us. Go with ItalyTours 100%!!

The first tour one gives you a great overview with visits to 2 of the 5 villages. It's a beautiful area. Just prepare yourself for weather and itinerary changes. I took Celebrity's Villages excursion from La Spezia last week and the vendor did not follow the itinerary. Levanto and the train to Monterosso were skipped and our tour shortened. We still got to see Monterosso, but I felt we overpaid. I don't think they can cut anything on the tour from Portofino as you will come from the other direction, so that's in your favor. We had strong rain that day and no accommodation was made - we just walked in the rain.

I had to call Celebrity to book the transfer from the Venice old cruiseport to Ravenna for $58 per person. I think there were 2 departures, 9 am and 11 am.

Thanks for the confirmation. Was there a Celebrity shuttle for $10 running between the cruise port and the town into the evening? I'd love to go see the mosaics after we check in and have lunch.

Our Celebrity ship is docking at 6AM in Civitavecchia. I am booking a private car transfer at 8AM to our hotel in Rome. The car service says the car will be at the pier next to the ship. I need some advice on luggage handling. If we go through the regular disembarkation process, where is our luggage in relation to the car on the pier? Can we grab our bags and wheel them out to the car? If we need to take our luggage off the ship to get to the car, is the route off the ship smooth enough for spinner wheeled suitcases?

I look on the web site at the cruise itinerary. After the map, under daily "ports of call", it says "docked" or "tendered"