canuck059

A few years ago, we bought OBC partly because of a favorable exchange rate on the Can dollar. Rather than register a cc, we used the OBC as a deposit against any charges. When we went to Guest Services the last night to claim the remainder, they insisted they couldn't give it to us and a cheque would be mailed to us. The only way they would have given cash back was if we had of deposited cash (rather than OBC) into our account at the beginning of the cruise. My cheque eventually showed up 6 weeks later. DH's required a phone call before it was mailed.

The train station was about a 10 min walk from our ship. We caught the 9:15 train to Taormina and arrived there at 10:00. A bus was waiting in the parking lot at the train station and left ~15 min later. We then caught another bus from Taurmina to Castelmola. After admiring the view for ~30 min we walked down the Sentiero dei Saraceni back to Taurmina. We wandered down the main street, visited the Teatro Greco and Villa Communale. From there it was ~30 min walk back down to the train station. We took the 4:10 train back to Messina and had enough time for a quick look at the Cathedral and clock tower in Messina on the way back to the ship for a 5:30 all aboard. If you aren't interested in going to Castelmola, you would have 4 1/2 hours in Taurmina and maybe a bit more if you took a taxi back to Taormina-Giardini rather than walking.

We took the train on our own from Messina to Taormina-Giardini. There was a bus waiting at the train station that we took up to Taormina for ~€2. It let us off just outside the city gate Porta Messina. On the way back, we just walked down the trail to the train station (You can see it on Google Maps....it starts just outside the public gardens). Everything went smoothly and it was ALOT cheaper than the cruise line excursion. The schedule for the bus can be found here: https://www.interbus.it/taormina/ Search for Taormina to Giardini. There looks to be a bus every 30 min.