Jewel July 2 Barcelona – Ports of Call

This is an exceptionally long review. To make it easier to digest, I have broken it up into 4 pieces that are included in the appropriate Message Boards:

Jewel July 2 Barcelona – Getting there. On the “Cruise Airfare” forum.

Jewel July 2 Barcelona – What a Great Time. On the “Norwegian Cruise Line” forum.

Jewel July 2 Barcelona – Ports of Call. On the “Ports of Call: Europe” forum.

Jewel July 2 Barcelona - Post Cruise Visit to Barcelona. On the “Ports of Call: Europe” forum.

Finally, I have placed this review, in its entirety, under “Member Reviews.”

PORTS OF CALL

Messina

As I said earlier, we were pretty tired from our travels. Since Messina was our idea of a “me too” tour, we decided to just explore around the port neighborhood.

We got off around 10:00 AM. A gentleman walked up to us and started talking in Italian. Oh my gosh – I’m not in Kansas anymore. These people speak another language!

I was able to make out the word “taxi” and figured he was asking if we want a ride so I told him “No grazie,” just like my phrase book told me to. About a dozen old men were hanging around the port with cloth maps that said either “Sicily” or “Italy” and they were yelling “One Euro.” See – everybody knows English! No Grazie.

There is a “Visitor info” booth right at the dock. A couple of ladies were giving out maps and telling you what you could visit. We decided to go the Messina Cathedral since it was so close to the ship. We self - toured the cathedral and found it interesting. There are a lot of beggars in the plaza around the cathedral. I made it a point to get some Euro coins to give out.

We sat down in the café across from the clock tower and had the most delicious Brushetta I’ve ever eaten. Then we had some Margherita Pizza that was the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.

Naples

For Naples, we had originally planned to walk around near the ship in the morning, then take a train to Pompeii.

For the morning, we walked around Naples, not far from the boat, and my son and I both bought leather coats from a street vendor for 30 Euro each. My son was thrilled to have his own leather coat, and I just enjoy haggling. The fact that I couldn’t speak Italian didn’t make much difference, I just kept saying “no” and he kept lowering his price.

We chose a restaurant for lunch, because the waiter stopped me on the street and said he had the best Pizza in Naples. I asked how his wine was, and he said it was the best in the world! How could you pass up the best wine in the world?

Lunch was delicious. The pizza had prosciutto, spinach and half a dozen greens I couldn’t even recognize. And the wine wasn’t bad either, especially when I came to learn that when you order “a wine” they bring you half a liter.

We chickened out after our inability to communicate efficiently at Messina, and decided to take the ship’s tour of Pompeii. I’m glad we did. The tour guide, Antonio, was really funny and kept referring to us as “Antonio’s family.” We did do the obligatory stop at the seashell factory that others have mentioned.

His knowledge of Pompeii was far superior to mine, and I would have missed a lot of things if we had gone alone as we originally planned. It was well worth the money to take the ship’s tour and pay the $60 per head.

Rome

We were planning to take the train to Rome the next day but since the bus trip to Pompeii had gone so well, we went to the excursion desk Wednesday evening to ask about where the “Rome on your own” bus leaves you off and how much time you’d have in the city.

At the excursion desk, we were told “There’s no way you can get from the ship to the train station on your own,” which was pretty much a strong-armed tactic to frighten us into taking their tour, based on the information I had read on cruisecritics.com.

Then we heard that the taxis were on strike that day, and they might be the next day too. We realized that the people at the excursion desk were going to try to sell us as much as possible, but we didn’t want to waste half the day dealing with getting around if the taxis DID decide to go on strike. So, we put our $90 down and signed up for the bus ride.

Once again, it was well worth it. Man – what a topsy turvy route it is to navigate through the Port of Civitavecchia. I think it was worth it to play it safe.

The “tour guide/babysitter” on the bus, Natasha, was great. She talked for about half the trip to Rome, telling us what we were passing and what we would see. She gave out maps and walked through the bus asking people if they needed help finding anything on the map.

Before leaving New Jersey, we had reserved a 10:30 guided tour of the Vatican through the Vatican web site. The bus got to Rome at 10:30 and left us off at the Coliseum. We rushed onto the nearest metro train, figured out how to get to the Vatican, and took off.

One note about Rome: we had heard many stories about pickpockets. This is what we did to avoid problems:

First, no wallets. I split my cash up between my shirt pocket and pants front pocket, with a little extra in my camera case. I had a credit card and some more cash in a money belt around my waist, under my pants, with a shirt hanging over my belt.

Second, we were vigilant. On the trains, I made eye contact with anyone that looked in my direction. If anyone was checking me out, they knew that I was doing the same to them.

Third, I constantly looked over my shoulder and moved back and forth from leading my family to following. My wife wore a fanny pack (with nothing of real value in it.) When I saw a guy getting a little too close to my wife, I was on his heels immediately and I let him know it.

Fourth, everything I carried with me in Rome had a photocopy of it on the ship. So, if I did lose something, I could report it quickly.

Fifth, I was verbally prepared to start screaming and yelling and making a scene. As a tourist I may have been a target, but I wasn’t going to be an EASY target.

One of the people on the bus did get pick-pocketed on the train, however they didn’t have a lot to lose as they were well prepared too.

The St. Peters Basilica Metro stop is about four blocks from the walls of Vatican City. One tip to help you that I found out eventually on my own: in Rome (as in Florence, Naples, Barcelona & Villefrance), street names are posted on buildings about two stories above the street. In the US, we’re used to seeing them on signs on the corners. You have to look UP, and if you don’t see it, look across the street to the other corner.

Also, street signs don’t exactly match maps. A map may say “via Angel’s” while a street sign will say Via Angelo. I couldn’t figure out the method of capitalization or the use of the letter “O” or “A” at the end of a word. Maybe whoever put the sign up just does it how they feel like it, or maybe each mapmaker just takes his own liberties.

Anyhow, we’ve walked the half-mile from the metro to Vatican City. The line to the Vatican Museum was wrapped around the walls, almost to St. Peters Square. I’d guess it was at least a 1/3 mile line.

From the street we walked from the metro on, it’s another 4 blocks or so to the museum entrance. It was 11 AM when we finally got there. I showed our reservation to the security guard and he said we were half an hour late. He sent us to another guard who said “you probably won’t be able to catch up, but go on in” and they let us into the Vatican. The tour was long gone and we were at first upset about missing it, but then it occurred to us – “we are in the Vatican and didn’t wait on line!” Let’s pay the entrance fee and do the self-tour, which we did.

It was awesome. But the biggest thrill I got was in the Sistine Chapel. What a sight! All I can say is don’t miss it.

Leaving the Vatican museum, we walked around the walls to St. Peter’s Square, which is about a five-block walk. It wasn’t too crowded as it was near lunchtime. We wanted to go into the Basilica, and the line didn’t look too bad, until we got closer and saw it was a Disney style que where the line wrapped back and forth. Rather then loose 45 minutes waiting; we decided to go back to the metro and head to the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps are a few blocks from the Metro, and we finally stumbled onto the bottom of the plaza after getting confused with the map.

Then we walked to the Trevvi Fountain. Again, the map was hard to follow – maybe I was just excited, tired and temporarily stupid. Time was running out and we all threw some coins in because we definitely wanted to come back.

Then we walked to the Forum. As Americans, we see something that’s a hundred years old as being old. Two hundred years is historic. But the Forum – that’s thousands of years old. We just have no concept of what age is here in the United States.

We took a cab to the Coliseum, and I was dismayed at the size of the line. We had expected it, but it was also later than we expected and close to our rendezvous time at the bus. I was afraid I was going to miss seeing the inside, which was one of my major expectations.

Then a young lady walked up to us and asked if we spoke English. We said yes, and she asked if we wanted a tour of the Coliseum for 20 Euros. I asked if she could get us in without waiting on line and she said that was part of the tour. She explained that admittance was 11 Euros, so she was only charging us 9 Euros. I gave her our money and we walked in with an entire tour group. I guess it was some type of official tour, they had had flag that the tour guide carried and they had tickets and receipts. Anyhow, we were in!

We stayed with the tour group for about fifteen minutes, than went off on our own. I had a blast. Best 9 Euros I spent that day!

Now, as we were waiting to leave Rome, we sat on our balcony and watched the buses unloading their guests. Then a few private cars, vans and even limos unloaded guests. Than one of the two gangplanks were brought in.

Finally, a single gangplank, with a single crewmember sat at the dock, with a small car next to it and a woman who continuously looked at her watch and talked into her cell phone. For almost an hour after the “All Aboard” deadline, the ship waited for a private tour that had failed to return in time.

Lucky for those people the ship had a short ride to Florence and the captain was willing to wait. It made no difference to us if we left the dock at 7 or 8, but we did think about our plans to train it to Florence tomorrow. What if we ran into problems, would they wait for us?

Florence

The next day in Florence, instead of doing the train as we had planned, we gave the ship another $90 each for the “Florence on your own” excursion. Now the excursion desk realized they had us hooked and they said “Why do you want to do it on your own? Wouldn’t you prefer a guide to make sure you see everything?”

No, I told her. I wanted to miss a few things and just give me the tickets and stop selling me. I asked her how far it was from the bus to the Uffizi and she didn’t know. She asked me to stop by and tell her when we returned to the boat. I forgot to do that.

One interesting observation – one of the people on the bus was one of the agents from the Excursion desk, obviously taking advantage of an empty seat on her day off to do Florence on her own. I wonder why SHE didn’t take the $200 tour to make sure she didn’t miss anything.

On the road to Florence, the tour guide talked about an hour, telling us about Florence. At one point, she pointed out Pisa off in the distance, and from the highway we could see the leaning tower, albeit very tiny, as we were several miles away. At least I can say I saw it, right?

Before leaving the states, we purchased admittance to the Academia Galleria and the Uffizi Museum, so we didn’t wait on any lines. We had an 11AM admittance to the Galleria and a 2PM admittance to the Uffizi. We got into both museums about fifteen minutes early, when we arrived, with no question asked.

I got to see Michelangelo’s “David,” Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and a thousand other works of art. The Uffizi had a special DaVinci exhibit that we spent a few minutes in as well. Florence was Awesome.

I wish I had another day or two just to spend in the Uffizi museum. It is immense. As soon as we got there, we said there’s no way were would see everything, so we set our priorities based on where we were and where the exit was, and we enjoyed what we could.

One sad footnote to Florence – several of the people on our bus were almost half an hour late getting back to the meeting point. I was there on time. To their credit, the tour company waited for them, but all I could think of was that I had an extra half hour that I could have been exploring one of the most amazing art museums I had ever seen.

On the ride back to the ship, the bus driver took us into the hills overlooking Florence where we could see a wide vista of the entire town – what a beautiful city! I can’t wait to come back here again.

One note about the “Florence on your own” bus tour: The bus lets you off at a parking area about a mile from the “Plaza Santa Croce” which is the “meeting point.” From there, you are another mile to the Academia Galleria, or about a third of a mile to the Uffizi Museum. At the end of your day in Florence, you meet at the Plaza again and them all walk as a group to the Bus parking area.

This is not exactly what they told us on the ship: “The bus lets you off right by everything!” I guess it depends upon what your definition of “everything” is.

Another note they didn’t tell us: There is a very large church in the Plata Santa Croce where Michelangelo is buried. While we were waiting for our late tourists, I called my mom on the cell phone to say hello and she told me we should be able to get in to see his tomb. Of course, if I knew I was going to be standing around for half an hour waiting for someone, I would have done that.

I guess that will have to be for another trip.

France

Our last stop was in Villefrance, France. This was another “me tour” stop on the itinerary.

We decided to just walk through town and maybe get a bite to eat. I wanted to go swimming in the Mediterranean, and we found a little restaurant overlooking the beach about a quarter mile from the marina. When I asked if she spoke English, she barked no and just about walked away from us (I’d guess she was about 18 years old). The servers were snotty and inattentive. It took me ten minutes to get her attention for a glass of wine.

While the wife and son sat in the restaurant having a snack, I ran down to the beach, put my shoes and shirt next to bunch of sunbathers and ran into the water.

It was very clean and warm – I’d estimate the water at about 80 degrees. You could see the bottom from the surface in 15 feet deep. Little fishes swam about under the bathers, and there was a large field of eelgrasses right off the beach. I had a pair of swim goggles, but they were my son’s and didn’t fit right. I tried diving down to explore a little, but the goggles filled with water and blurred my vision.

I had a nice little swim, got out of the water after about fifteen minutes, and went back up to my clothes, which were still there – I had had some doubts.

I leaned against the wall and dried in the sun and looked around the beach and I suddenly realized – it was a topless beach.

Actually, only about one out of twenty women were topless. It wasn’t the least bit sexy or erotic -- myself and the other Americans were probably the only one’s who noticed anything. I guess you would say it was “natural.” Whatever, it wasn’t the Jersey shore.

Once I was relatively dry, I rejoined my wife and son in the restaurant. They had only gotten drinks – wine for my wife and soda for my son. I had a little talk with the owner of the place about tipping; he “set me straight about how it is in ALL of France!” He told me “Of course, a payment is appreciated if you think the service was good, but it’s not expected.”

Anyhow, as “hard” as his attitude was, he was very friendly and I enjoyed the time there. An American woman walked up from the street and asked to use his bathroom, and he didn’t force her to buy anything.

My wife gave me my wallet to put back in my now dry pocket and lo and behold – what did I find in my pocket but my Cell phone! Yes, I had purchased an unlocked quad band cell phone for our European Vacation, I purchased a European SIM for it, I spent hours programming all the numbers I needed into it. I set up the voice mail from the USA, which, at $1.50 a minute, was a bit expensive. After an investment of about $200 and many hours, I took it swimming in France.

C’est la vie! Cell phone no more.

We walked a little longer towards the marina and found a restaurant overlooking the harbor. I asked the waiter where I could sit and he basically said “there, there or there” and turned his head and walked away.

A few minutes later, he came by and briskly thrust the menus at us. Talk about making you feel at home.

My wife and I shared a carafe of local wine (it was delicious), she ordered a plate of cheese and I ordered salmon tartar. A soda for our son. When the server asked what our son wanted, I said nothing and you’d think I started an international incident. The waiter thumbed up his nose and sneered. I guess we’re used to service with a smile in the USA. Maybe they just don’t do it that way in France.

Anyhow, the waiter brought a large disk of French fries for my son, which he didn’t charge us for. They were, according to my son, the best French fries he ever ate. I teased him to thank the waiter but ask for some “Ketchup” for his “Freedom Fries.” I tried the fries and they were excellent.

When I paid the waiter, I gave him a good tip, and he suddenly became all smiles and thanked me.

I wonder if the waiters assume they’re not getting tipped and just treat everyone lousy. But, if they treat everyone lousy, they won’t get tips? So they don’t get tips? Anyhow, I hope he didn’t spit in my food.

Final ports note: The Bathrooms.

We had no problems finding a bathroom in italy. At the Ufezzi gallery, there was a ten minute wait for the lady's room. My wife was prepared with her own private stash of TP.

The bus to Pompei had a bathroom on it. The buses to Rome and Florence didn't. The tour guides offered to stop at a rest area if anyone wanted, but nobody needed it.

It sounds like you did very well on your own. We went a couple weeks ago on the Jewel too. Did things very different from you, so it is nice to read how someone else did things. If you haven't seen it yet, my review is down a little further than yours on this board. I'm impressed that you did as much as you did on your own.

A last word, I had heard and it was confirmed, the French get upset because we all expect them to speak English. If you at least bring a phraise book and attempt some French they will be more friendly. It is their country, so we should try to speak French. In our country, we think everyone should speak english. Before I left for my cruise, I studied Italian and was able to converse, although limited. In France, I was fine because I speak, read and write French. I'm about 60% fluent. So, not perfect, but I found the French very appreciative that I was speaking in their language. They seemed astonished and asked where I learned and what country I was from. Anyhow, because of this, they treated me very well.

One more tip for others going.....upon entering a shopping establishment (or a vendor) you must acknowledge the shopkeeper, by saying "Bonjour Monsieur" or "Bonjour Madame". It is considered rude not to greet them.

Redlef,

Enjoyed reading your review and your experience doing everything on your own. We will be on the Jewel, August 13. We have tours in Naples and Rome, we plan to do Florence and France on our own. Thanks, you just gave me more encouragement!

Dorothy,

Great review and pictures!

CASP

Wow Redlef - what a great review and it was so much fun to read. I will bw going in September and I can't wait.

Thanks for all the great information. It sounds like you all had a wonderful time.

Lynn

We´ll be on the july 23rd sailing. Thanks so much for your wonderful review...

Maybe you can tell a bit more of how to reserve the vaticantour and the admittance to the the museums in florence?! got any links??

Thanks

A last word, I had heard and it was confirmed, the French get upset because we all expect them to speak English. If you at least bring a phraise book and attempt some French they will be more friendly. It is their country, so we should try to speak French. In our country, we think everyone should speak english.

 

One more tip for others going.....upon entering a shopping establishment (or a vendor) you must acknowledge the shopkeeper, by saying "Bonjour Monsieur" or "Bonjour Madame". It is considered rude not to greet them.

Of course, you're correct in what you say.

Since we were going to be in Spain 4 days and Italy 4 days, I concentrated my efforts in trying to hone up my High School Spanish and at least pick up a little basic Italian. I figured that since we'd only be in France 2 or 3 hours, we'd get by.

As soon as we got ashore in Villefrance, we stopped at a small stand to get some bottles of water. Luckily, there was someone buying in front of me and I heard her say "Bonjour," to the girl working the stand, and I also heard the girl say "Merci" when she collected the money. I said exactly the same things and got a very friendly smile. Of course, when she started talking to me in French, I just smiled and nodded my head and walked quickly away.

I guess i was intimidated to greet anyone with a "Bonjour" after that, because I was afraid they'd start talking to me and I wouldn't know how to respond. Your little comment has set me straight, at least I would get an "E" for effort instead of an "F" for rudeness.

Hopefully, I'll have a chance to find out again soon.

As far as phrase books go, they're generally useful. I can now ask "Where is the bathroom" in many European countries:)

Dave