Scarlett Fever

We had an hour at Pisa and frankly, I was ready to go on to Florence after about 30 minutes in Pisa. An hour is more than enough time to do what you want do there.

We took our (now 9 yo) on a 14 day Med cruise when she was 7 and she loved it. She loved the history and private tours (<< a key component of enjoying each port. Easy to find when you get off the ship).

Also, there were a couple of ports she stayed on the ship and had a blast in the kids club while we toured Pompeii and ventured around Monaco.

I'm OK with small tours that last a few hours but I'm such a control freak that I get uncomfortable when I don't have control of my schedule after like 3 hours. Plus, I don't think I have to cram as many sites as possible in 8 hours or less. Some early advice I got was not doing too many things while in port because the sites start blending together - especially, church visits (they all start looking the same).

We're doing a 12 day from Barcelona > Dubrovnik > Venice > Kotor > Amalfi Coast > Rome > Florence > Nice in June and I've been reading Rick Steves book on those ports trying to do as much on our own as possible - especially, since we're traveling with our 7 yr old.

I started at the beginning of this thread - 2006! - and have been cutting and pasting advice into a word doc. Ha!

My goal is is to see some cool things, eat some interesting food, drink some local wine, do some shopping, people watch, and enjoy the time with my family.

I agree with jackiegurl - I was on Explorer in May '01 and will be back on it in August and the food was really good. Dinner was a treat every night - lobster tails, rack of lamb.