NCteacherlovescruising

Thanks for mentioning this! I popped up on my screen and I would have discarded it if you hadn't said it was free. Saved us some money! I didn't see where it included free breakfast though. Can someone tell me how far this is from the major tourist attractions? The main place I want to see is Sagrada Familia. I won't know for sure how much time we will have to explore until we can book plane tickets, but most likely at least 48 hours, more if our flight arrives early in the morning, which we assume it will.

Due to the extreme heat over there now, dh has agreed to keep this cruise in mid June, instead of the MSC cruise mid July. I know many of you said there isn't a lot of difference between June and July, but we are hoping to get there before the worst of their summer. We are still combining this with the NCL cruise, just doing this before instead of after. Originally he said we couldn't combine these two cruises, but these temps changed his mind! lol We can't change the NCL date since we are cruising with friends. Since this one is a lot more expensive, but we had a lot of OBC, we booked Celebrity excursions for every port, except day one in Livorno. We have used all our OBC now, except what our TA will give us, which will be used for laundry and the hair salon. It sounds like the train is the cheapest way to Florence from Livorno, although a bus is faster. Correct? Does Celebrity offer a shuttle from the port to the train station? I didn't see it offered under excursions. We will do this our first day in Livorno so we won't need to rush back to the ship. We are going to start booking hotels. Unfortunately, it looks like Albergo del Senato is sold out of superior rooms already, although I did email them to make sure. After they respond, if we can't get one with a view, we will probably stay of Hotel Smeraldo to save money. Not only is this cruise more expensive, there are more days between cruises as well so I'm adjusting plans to stay within budget. This will have us there about a month. Nothing will change with NCL cruise, where we are making group decisions. 6/13 Barcelona Depart 5 PM 6/14 At sea 6/15 Provence (Marseille) France 7-6 - Aix-en-Provence 6/16 Nice (Villefranche) France 8-7 - Nice and Eze discovery 6/17 Santa Margherita, Italy 8-6 - Cinque Terre 6/18-19 Florence/Pisa (Livorno) Italy - Overnight June 18 7 AM-Jun 19 6 PM - Pisa and beach day 2 6/20 At sea 6/21 Naples, Italy 7-6 - Day in Capri on your own 6/22 Rome, Italy 6AM As you can see, all I need is a plan for the 18th in Florence (by plan I am referring to transportation. I have a good idea of what sights I want to see) and for the 22-until we head to Athens around the 1st. We are splitting the time between Rome, Tuscany (day trips most likely) and either Sorrento or the Amalfi Coast. Should we do 5 days Rome/4 along the coast or more time in Rome? I know we will do at least one day trip to Tuscany. We are debating on taking the train or a bus. @cruisemom42, as you suggested, this will be my one thread with questions.

This port has been changed to Livorno. It appears to be much closer to Florence than La Spezia and shore excursions are fairly cheap to get there and back on a bus. An overnight stay is not as important from here, correct? I'm thinking one day in Florence and the next a ship excursion (using OBC) to Pisa and a beach.

How was it?

I'm well aware. 😒 Hopefully it won't be like this when we go next summer, but if it is we will have to make the most of it.

I hope they do so it won’t be as crowded!

I love my job, but I don’t love having to plan vacations around my time off. I would love to go in September, over our anniversary (9-3-94) and avoid the heaviest of the tour season. I thought they closed it from 12-5. Are they collapsing outside of those hours?

I won’t wear shorts, I was thinking of dh. He’s not going to want to wear long pants in the heat of the summer. He grumbles when I ask him to wear them in the dining room on cruises, but he does when required. He’s not that tall so many of his shorts are really long. If we got up early to start touring, a cocktail would probably make it easy to fall asleep. That’s how dh wear his shorts so it looks like he will be fine. While I’d be willing to get up early for that tour, I’m not willing to pay $900 for it!!

Perfect! Thank you!!

Do they go on sale at midnight 30 days prior? I believe that’s 6 PM here. Are there any providers that are more likely to get the tickets than others? This is making my small, independent provider less appealing. Also, just realized she doesn’t do the underground. I think we would want to do that. Very disappointing because we liked the idea of a private tour.

Oh good! Thank you!

I hope it’s not this bad next July! While uncomfortable, I live in Charlotte so I’m used to 90’s. It’s uncomfortable but bearable. But 100+ is too much.

What’s the best way to ensure we get tickets to see the Colosseum? Will we be able to buy them ourselves at the 30 day mark or do the large tour companies scoop them all up too fast? Is that when they begin selling them?

Is this normal for July?

I do. I was thinking Charlotte heat, not 100+. Lol🔥 Thank you. This is very helpful! Everyone talks about how small the rooms are and someone mentioned living out of his suitcase so I wasn’t sure. Will our suitcases fit under the bed like in the ships? We just started discussing this possibility after seeing how hot it was. It’s also making us consider HS since their junior suites are more affordable. A long, leisurely lunch in A/C would be nice. Gelato is a great idea! May have to do it daily to keep cool. Will there be long lines for the underground attractions when it’s this hot? A pool would be awesome in 100+! The W looks amazing, but well out of our budget. Thanks for the restaurant suggestions. I will check it out. Thanks. Speaking of the Vatican, it says knees and shoulders must be covered. Can men wear knee length shorts or are they required to wear long pants? Thanks. I will look into this as well.

Yes, they have the same ones on he app. They have between 4-7 for each port for ours currently. We’re hoping some better ones show up.

I realize the temps are unseasonably hot there right now, as well as many other places. If it were to be like this next summer, 100+, what is there to do in Rome to escape the heat? Something that wouldn’t involve a long queue. Does the Albergo del Senato or Hotel Smeraldo have an indoor lounge or someplace to hang out? If the temps are high should we just plan on waking up early and taking a shower/nap in the heat of the day before going out again? Do either of these hotels have closets or drawers? I haven’t noticed them in pics. Does the A/C work well?

You would think the officer could afford to book his family in the yacht club.

Wow! I was following along for a while. I didn’t realize they kicked you out.

We have the World Europa booked next summer. They do not have very many excursions on our app yet. Is it because we will be in Europe or is it too early? I read that they only add the excursion to the app in your language. Perhaps they don’t offer as many in English on the Mediterranean cruises. At what point do they normally add all their excursions to the app?

We did not experience this at all on our cruise.

What? They booted you from the group?

Not true. Mine won’t book MSC, NCL or Carnival.

So sorry for your bad experience! We looked at that cruise but ultimately ended up booking the Seaside the same dates because Port Canaveral is much closer. We heard about this before leaving our hotel that morning and we’re thankful for our choice. I wonder if those in the yacht club were treated any better. Did they refund a day of the cruise since you essentially lost a day? You would think they would have had some food delivered to the terminal.

Oh, I don’t know. We don’t have any Little’s and my husband and I were traveling alone. It looked like a kids pool to me! I’m not sure which pool she was referring to.