TeDaKi

Eventually we got back to St Peter's and we went back to the hotel to collect our luggage at about 14:00.

We walked back to S. Pietro train station and bought train tickets for Civitavecchia. The train ticket from Roma S. Pietro to Civitavecchia cost €4.60 per person. We took the 14:32 train and arrived at Civitavecchia train station around 40 minutes later.

When we got to Civitavecchia train station at around 15:15, we took a shuttle bus from the train station to the cruise terminal shuttle bus stop. This shuttle bus cost €2 per person, it departs every 10 minutes and takes about 5 minutes. When we got to the cruise terminal shuttle bus stop, we had to get on a different bus which took us directly to the specific cruise terminal where Queen Victoria was berthed. When we eventually got to the cruise terminal at 15:45, we got off the bus and dropped our luggage with the porters.

Check in was the fastest we have ever experienced when embarking on a ship. We were the only people checking in - there was no body in front of us and no body behind us. It only took 7-10 minutes to go through security, check in and get on the ship. For the 7-10 minutes we were at the cruise terminal, we were the only passengers there!

Embarking the Queen Victoria in Civitavecchia:

Once we got on board, we went straight to our stateroom - 1093 - an oceanview located on Deck 1.

Oceanview stateroom 1093:

There were three of us in this room and this is the upper berth lowered in position:

After spending a short while strolling around Piazza Navona, we continued our walking tour to the Pantheon, which is located on Piazza della Rotonda.

Not too far from the Pantheon is the Trevi Fountain. And it was crowded with people.

Look at all the people there!

After our visit to St. Peter's Basilica, we walked down Via della Conciliazione towards Castel Sant’Angelo.

We could see the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II in the distance:

Castel Sant’Angelo:

We then made our way to Piazza Navona:

Day 2 (15 Oct 2016): AM: Rome; PM: Embark Queen Victoria at Port of Civitavecchia (Set sail 22:00)

Weather: Sunny, Max temperature 23C / 73F

This morning, we got up at 07:00AM for breakfast. It was very sleepy around the hotel on this Saturday morning. In fact, we were the only people having breakfast. Afterwards, we checked out of the hotel and left our baggage at the hotel's reception for storage for the day.

Our first place to visit was St. Peter's Basilica.

We arrived at the security queue for the Basilica at around 9:00am and the queue took 20 minutes.

Queue forming behind us!

It wasn't too busy when we got in the Basilica at around 9:30am but as we were coming out about one hour later, it was getting busier.

We noticed that there was a noticeably a lot more security around the area in general, compared to when we were here two years ago.

Hi TeDeKi.

 

I'm surprised you never ate one evening in the Britannia Restaurant, particularly as having read your review of Eurodam last year when you dined in the Rembrandt Dining Room on 13 nights.

 

By the way, I really liked your photographs on that review. It's always good to publish photos on this site.

We chose not to dine at Britannia Restaurant in the evenings because it was slightly too formal for us! :o We did however dine there on two occasions - for lunch on both sea days. :)

Day 1 (14 Oct 2016): Leaving Home, travelling to Rome

Weather: Hazy sunshine. Max temperature 13C / 55F

We arrived at Dublin Airport at 14:00. The airport was fairly quiet and check in was quick. Our flight to Rome left at 15:45 and it was a full flight with not one spare seat. The flight took 3 hours which is slightly longer than normal (due to thunderstorms), and after a rather turbulent approach and landing, we landed at Fiumicino Airport a little behind schedule.

After collecting our luggage, we took the train from the airport into the city. It was very slow buying the train tickets because the ticket office was closed and there was only one machine working which was really slow too.

In Rome, we had accommodation booked near the Vatican, so we took the train to the S. Pietro stop. The journey from FCO airport to S. Pietro train station took well over one hour because there was a delay on the train line. The train ticket cost €8 per person.

On arriving at S. Pietro station, we walked to our hotel - Fragrance Hotel St Peter - which was about 5 minutes walking up a cobble stoned street. It was 22:30 by the time we got there. This hotel was good value for money and located in a quiet and safe neighbourhood. I chose this hotel based on good reviews and close proximity to the train station. It is well located for visiting the St Peter's area and also near the train station for coming from Fiumicino Airport and going to Civitavecchia. We would definitely stay there again. We went straight to bed. Our plan was to get up early the following morning in order to visit St Peter's Basilica ahead of the crowds!

Looking forward to review since we shall be boarding QV soon.

Did you enjoy your cruise?

Had a fantastic time - I've never had one bad experience on any cruise.

Hello there,

I have just come back from my first Cunard cruise on Queen Victoria and kept a report of my daily activities. This will be like a review but it is concentrated more on the ports-of-call rather than on the ship itself.

I travelled with my parents and this was our first cruise with Cunard. Our previous cruising experience includes Celebrity Cruises (x5), Holland America Line (x2), Royal Caribbean (x2), Princess Cruises (x1), MSC Cruises (x1) and NCL (x1).

We booked this cruise about 4 weeks prior to sailing as we came across a great deal and it was on a Cunard, so we just had to go!

This particular cruise had 4 ports-of-call - Naples, Cagliari, Ajaccio and Genoa and two sea days. We'd been to Naples twice before, however, Cagliari, Ajaccio and Genoa were all new ports for us to explore.

Here is the map and itinerary for this 7-day Mediterranean voyage:

15 Oct 2016 Civitavecchia, Italy (Depart 22:00)

16 Oct 2016 AT SEA 1

17 Oct 2016 Naples, Italy (06:30-18:00)

18 Oct 2016 Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy (09:00-17:00)

19 Oct 2016 Ajaccio, Corsica, France (09:00-17:00)

20 Oct 2016 Genoa, Italy (09:00-18:00)

21 Oct 2016 AT SEA 2

22 Oct 2016 Civitavecchia, Italy (Arrive 06:00)

Some notes before the review:

Excursions: Normally, we make our own arrangements independently in ports-of-call. This was the case in Naples, Cagliari and Genoa. In Ajaccio, we took a ship's excursion (more detail in daily log below).

Dining: We much prefer a casual dining experience, hence we did not use the Britannia Restaurant (except for lunch on sea days) or any speciality restaurants. We had breakfast at the Lido Buffet every morning and every evening for dinner.

Entertainment: Not hugely into entertainment. Didn't go to any shows etc. so cannot make any comments.

Activities: Did not take part in any activities.

It will take a few days for me to upload this report, so I do hope you enjoy!

I have a cruise on QV this Saturday Oct 15th from Rome and we still do not have our cabin assignment. Our family traveling with us have a cabin assignment and I booked both cabins together at the same time as P2 Guar. So I called Cunard and was told you do not need e tickets just a passport. The agent assured me that shore staff will have a manifest with our cabin assignments.

 

Is Cunard waiting longer to assign cabins????? In 25+ cruises we have never waited this long before for an assignment.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We're on this exact same cruise too - booked the cruise as a last minute deal only 4 weeks prior to sailing date with a guaranteed oceanview.

Two weeks later (i.e. exactly 14 days prior to sailing date), I got our assignment.

I did the Viking Passage on Eurodam in Sept 2015 and posted a trip report, click on this link: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2265322

We rented cars in about 5 ports and drove to some interesting spots ourselves. Might give you an idea on what you can see/do in the ports on your own without taking an excursion

I thought your review with pictures was wonderful. Do you have any pictures of your cabin you would like to share?

Thank you! I don't have any pics of our cabin ... I was way too busy taking photos of the beautiful scenery outside! :D

Interesting story, thanks for sharing the photos too!

Thank you for taking the time to post your report and pictures. We are visiting some of the ports you went to. Very nice. I have one question. How safe was it to walk around Cadiz?

We felt very safe walking around Cadiz. It doesn't have a "big city feel", like Barcelona for example. There were lots of other tourists around, as well as those off the ship.

Yes the fjords are excellent as is the penguin, whale, and sea lion watching. In the Chilean/Argentinian fjords there are some very photogenic shipwrecks as well as dozens and dozens of glaciers.

 

Another scenic fjord area is the Milford Sound on the south island of New Zealand. There's some amazing cruising there as well.

 

BTW we traveled in Ireland last year for 10 days on our motorcycle, but the trip was far too short. We think we might return in 2017 to spend a month or so traveling around with a focus more on the southern portion.

 

Again, thanks for sharing your trip. We sailed on the Eurodam in November after you when it did a voyage in the Eastern Caribbean.

Sounds like Antarctica/South America will be a great trip...can't wait!!! Definitely come back and visit our Emerald Isle...there is so much to see here!!

Thank you all for the good feedback! :) I'm delighted that you all enjoyed my commentary and photos and that you might find it useful when visiting these ports on your future travels!

This was a great review, and you did what we do and just enjoy the port. The pictures are very nice. What camera did you use for all these photos?

I always use a small digital compact camera : Panasonic Lumix TZ60. I love these type cameras and they take great photos. I find them so handy that they just fit into your pocket and I don't have to be lugging around a big DSLR type camera :D Whenever I show people my photos, they sometimes don't believe that they were taken with this type camera!

Thanks for the positive feedback :)

Thanks for posting this. We don't sail Holland America so I'd have missed it otherwise. We've been to all those ports several times and looking at your wonderful photos was a trip down memory lane. Luckily we're revisiting the Med in three weeks so you've increased our anticipation as well!

Excellent...I'm glad you enjoyed my report! Enjoy your Med cruise :)

Day 9: Barcelona, Spain - Disembark Eurodam (Arrive 07:00)

Weather: Clear and sunny. Max temperature 18C / 64F

This morning, we woke up at 07:30AM. Disembarkation had already begun at this stage. We went to the Lido Market for breakfast and it was busy. It actually took a while to find a table. Once we eventually found a table, we had a leisurely breakfast. We had late disembarkation this morning, so we could take our time.

After breakfast, we had one last walk around the top deck outside. It was another beautiful sunny cloudless day in Barcelona today.

Just before our disembarkation time of 09:30AM, we proceeded to the gangway where we walked off the ship without delay. Our bags were waiting for us and we were able to pick them up right away. There was no delay at all. The time between we disembarked the ship to the time we were in a taxi was just over 5 minutes. The taxi to the airport took around 25 minutes and was a fixed cost of €39.

Once we got to the airport, it was really busy. There were queues everywhere… a complete contrast to the quiet airports when we were flying to Barcelona last week. Our flight to Dublin wasn’t until 13:00 so we had plenty of free time to roam around. After a rather turbulent flight, we arrived back into Dublin on a chilly day.

Holiday over – back to reality now …

Next cruise: South America & Antarctica on Zaandam (January 2017)

Day 8: Cruising at sea

Weather: Clear and sunny. Max temperature 20C / 68F

Today was our last day on this 7 day voyage, and our one and only sea day. This cruise was port intensive, so after 5 busy port days, we were looking forward to a well needed rest.

There isn’t much to report of today. We just ate and spent the day relaxing on the promenade deck getting some last minute sunshine and watching the sea go by.

As you can see, the sea conditions were excellent for today’s sea day…calm and very smooth. In fact, for the whole trip, the sea conditions were very favourable. On this 7 day voyage, there were hardly any waves nor motion.

I loved your report on the Viking cruise. I see that you are on the 2017 Antarctica cruise. It's fabulous!! We did it a few months ago the opposite direction from which you are doing it, and I'm still thinking about doing the cruise you are on again.

We booked the Antarctica cruise after coming home from the Viking Passage cruise. After sailing through Prince Christian Sound, we said to ourselves "we just have to go to Antarctica now!"

We got back on the ship at 14:10 and had a quick lunch at Dive In ... yummy burgers and fries! We then went back out by 15:00.

We headed back into Cadiz to do some last minute shopping and walked around the narrow streets.

We made our way back to the ship by 17:15 and there was a queue getting back on board. Eurodam set sail at approximately 17:55.

Looking at Cadiz after sailaway:

Dinner at the Dining Room was unusually quiet this evening. In fact, it was the second time in the 7 days that we didn’t have to wait for a table.

We sat on a bench for a while enjoying the sunshine. Then we continued our walk back toward the port, passing through Plaza de Mina:

and finally Plaza Espana:

After walking along Calle Ancha, we arrived onto Plaza de San Antonio, where we visited yet another church.

Just beside the market is Plaza Topete which is another pretty little square. The main building on this square is the Post Office (Correos).

We continued our walk along Calle Ancha which is one of Cadiz's main shopping street.