Thank you all for the valuable tips. I'll take a look at the port of call board. Still fairly new to this site. Ports of call are Marseille, Genoa, Naples, Messina, and Valletta. We have some ideas - including trip to Portofino (Genoa), and lagoon in Comino (Valletta). We're curious in other's opinions on how safe we need to be when it comes to excursions like those that involve some travels to the destination - in terms of going with cruise line excursion products or booking on our own and making it back to ship in time.