sherrihall128

Loving your review! You really lucked out with Seattle weather that weekend. It's been extraordinarily wet this season so far. Isn't it beautiful here? I'd highly recommend coming back and visiting the west side of the water to Bainbridge Island, Poulsbo, or adventuring to Olympic National Park. I didn't grow up here, but I find every day here beautiful.. even the gross, dark, rainy days. I'm loving your review. I'd probably enjoy a solo cruise as well, especially reading about your positive experiences!

What a trip! Can't wait to see all the things you do. Also, the owner's suite looks amazing!

This is good to know! I had an Israel to Istanbul cruise in 10/2024, and I just cancelled yesterday. I'm glad that NCL is planning ahead for their cruisers.

We live near Seattle.. so we were looking at this itinerary to get to Japan as it looks interesting but super long. Excited to hear about your trip!

There are millions of olive trees on Corfu, so we bought a couple of things from there. We bought pure Corfu olive oil. It is liquid gold and tastes so good! We also got olivewood utensils, and I wish I bought one of their salad bowls. They are beautiful and so cheap! Also, we saw this in Corfu, and we decided not to buy it, and we regretted it because we couldn't find something exactly like it. It was a fancy chess set with the 2 different sides being different kinds of Greek/Mediterranean warriors, like Spartans vs Trojans. If you know someone who loves chess and history, it's the perfect gift.

Which cruise line are you using? We are cruising out of Haifa with NCL on October 9th next year. I am not as familiar with Jewish holidays like Rosh Ha shana, although my grandma was from Israel. She mostly celebrated the big holidays like Passover and Hannukah with us. We plan on arriving in Israel after sunset on the 5th of October (which is a Saturday, so I'm aware of the restrictions before sunset). Is there anything different that I should expect?

We stayed at the Embassy Suites, which was only a few blocks away from the port. We walked there on embarkation day. It was a decent price, good location, and the breakfast was pretty good. I'd definitely recommend.

What a stunning and unique location! Adding Cappadocia to my bucket list now!

I'd highly recommend the Rick Steve's Mediterranean cruise ports book or Kindle book. It gave me a lot of info and confidence to navigate the ports with excursion recommendations, or ideas to do our own tours.

We were not able to activate our bus pass at the bus stop right outside the cruise port. I didn't know that a bus driver would have been able to activate the digital pass on the bus itself. That would have been nice to know as we ended up buying a one-way ticket to Old Town from Port Gruz. One tip with the Dubrovnik Pass--we ended up walking the walls first, then we went to the museums, and lastly decided to go to the Fortress... which was closing in 5 minutes. Make sure you verify the hours for the places you want to go.

We bought the Dubrovnik Pass: https://www.dubrovnikpass.com/included-section . It was ~$35, and it included admission to the fortress, walking the walls, the city museums, and also included a bus ride to/from Old Town. If you want to DIY the city, walk the walls, and avoid any tours, this is the best deal. The only frustrating thing about it was that you could only activate the free bus tickets at certain stops, and it is NOT the bus stop right outside Port Gruz (it delayed us an additional 20 minutes with a frustrating conversation at the bus stop with an employee, and we had to buy a one-way ticket to Old Town). Other than that, a great deal for the day. I did miss hearing about the history of the city from a guide, but we did read a lot about it in the museums.

Dubrovnik is a $15pp shuttle to/from the port and Old Town, but you can take the same bus run by the city right outside the port gate for maybe $3. When we were coming back from Old Town, everyone was standing in line for the NCL shuttle, but we had no line for the city bus that went to the same place. Malta--no shuttle as you park right next to the town. Same with Naples. We went to Corfu, but I'm not sure if there was a free or paid shuttle.

Do you have to plan ahead, or can you just show up at the dock? Also, do you know the latest time of the cruise? Thanks for the tips!

We went to Corfu last year in early November. We had sunny weather in the 60s-70s. We did this tour with Viator: https://www.viator.com/tours/Corfu/Shore-Excursion-Leisurely-Small-Group-Tour-of-Corfu/d4279-21019P2 It was low-key and saw many of the sights on the island. We had the option to go on a short boat ride around the coast at Paleokastritsa Beach (my husband's bucket list item for Corfu) to caves.. or you could take the option for a short hike up to a monastery overlooking the bay. We had some time to go around Old Town at the end of the tour.

Luckily, I have a cruise that ends in Istanbul next year... otherwise, I'd be finding a flight and packing my bags right now! I love your pictures. The city looks so safe and walkable. I can't wait to go visit. Also, lucky for me, Turkish Airlines has non-stop roundtrip flights from Seattle (where I live) to Istanbul, so the 12 hour flight won't be so bad. So excited! Thanks for sharing your trip with us.