First cruise to Europe

[urman]

This is our first cruise to Europe. We are leaving in May on Serenade of the Seas. We will be visiting Barcelona, Cannes, Florence, Rome, Venice and Split. I have been reading various shore excursions offered by the ship and Cruise critic. Can anyone offer any suggestions on which ones we should explore and who shall I book with. What doing excursions on our own. Is this a good idea.

[Nigeldelarue]

This is our first cruise to Europe. We are leaving in May on Serenade of the Seas. We will be visiting Barcelona, Cannes, Florence, Rome, Venice and Split. I have been reading various shore excursions offered by the ship and Cruise critic. Can anyone offer any suggestions on which ones we should explore and who shall I book with. What doing excursions on our own. Is this a good idea.

 

You have a fantastic cruise ahead of you !!!.... Barcelona on your own is totally do able. Just get into town and catch the HOHO bus it takes you to all the main attractions for about $25.00/per person. Google it and you will get lots of info. Venice is another you can do on your own. Take the water taxi from the ship and go into town and get lost. It is a maze of pathways with wonderfull shops, take a gondola ride ( a little pricey so depends on your budget ) .

 

As far as Rome goes I myself would take a tour with the ship.

[wendyatpml]

We were on a tour of Rome and Florence with a company called: driverinrome.com

 

They were wonderful. They picked us up at the ship at 8AM and brought us back before 5PM. It came out to about the same price as the ship tours however, it was just 4 of us and we were in a small van which was able to get into the streets. A bus can't do that so you have to park and walk. Also the ship excursions stop for lunch which is a waste of time for us. Also you have to wait for about 40 people, on and off and restroom stops. Not for us!

[jstducky]

This is our first cruise to Europe. We are leaving in May on Serenade of the Seas. We will be visiting Barcelona, Cannes, Florence, Rome, Venice and Split. I have been reading various shore excursions offered by the ship and Cruise critic. Can anyone offer any suggestions on which ones we should explore and who shall I book with. What doing excursions on our own. Is this a good idea.

 

Cruising in Europe is amazing! You will love it!

 

You should check out the Europe forum on these boards: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

 

There are separate forums for Italy, France and Spain and you can get tons of information there from people who have already been to these cities.

 

Also, have you checked to see if there is a Roll Call for your cruise? You can meet other people who are on your cruise and possibly share some private tours with them to help lessen the costs.

 

As stated, Barcelona is a lovely city and can certainly be done on your own. The HOHO bus is the best way to go to see all of the sights. Don't miss La Sagrada Familia, a sight to behold!

 

Cannes is fairly easy to do on your own as well. If you take some time to do some research online, and look through the France forum here on CC, you can find out how to take the train to the other cities on the French Riviera, very easy to do on your own and much more cost effecitve than a ship tour. Train schedules are easily looked up online. Also, check out the Rick Steeves books as he has great information and self guided walking tours.

 

Rome and Florence, you definitely should do it with a guide if you've never been to Italy before. While you could go from Livorno to Pisa and/or Florence via train on your own, its daunting for someone who has never been before. You can also easily get from Civitavecchia to Rome on your own via train, but also, again, very daunting if you've never been there and don't know how the train system in Europe works. There are a couple of great private tour companies that take cruise ship passengers on tours of Pisa/Florence and Rome. I did that my first time in Italy, I hired a private tour guide and formed a group through my RollCall and we had a great time, saw a lot more than a ship's tour would, and paid a lot less too. Just check out the Italy forum on CC and you can get names of various private tour companies and reviews from others who have used these companies in the past.

 

Venice is certainly very do-able on your own. Once you leave the ship and get into the main part of town, you can lose yourself in the little canals and alleys. But that's the fun of it. You can also hop on the water taxi. And it's also easy to get out to the other islands: Murano, Burano, Lido, etc. on your own.

 

Sorry, I've only been to Dubrovnik and not Split, so I can't talk about that.

 

Just go and enjoy yourself!

[ollienbertsmum]

This is our first cruise to Europe. We are leaving in May on Serenade of the Seas. We will be visiting Barcelona, Cannes, Florence, Rome, Venice and Split. I have been reading various shore excursions offered by the ship and Cruise critic. Can anyone offer any suggestions on which ones we should explore and who shall I book with. What doing excursions on our own. Is this a good idea.

 

If you go onto the boards that refer to the specific ports you will get more advice. If you do a search over all the boards you will get advice both ways. Some do a bit of both depending on how far you travel from the port to what you want to see and how confident you are in the language.

 

You also need to think how much walking you want to do, what sites you want to visit.

 

Rome for example can be a full day of walking - or you take a tour and you are bussed from site to site.

 

I must say that itinerary looks lovely. There is not one of those ports that I would say 'blah' to!

 

I am sure that you will have a fabulous time. The more effort you put in planning the better the trip will be.

[wannab4Ecruiser]

This is our first cruise to Europe. We are leaving in May on Serenade of the Seas. We will be visiting Barcelona, Cannes, Florence, Rome, Venice and Split. I have been reading various shore excursions offered by the ship and Cruise critic. Can anyone offer any suggestions on which ones we should explore and who shall I book with. What doing excursions on our own. Is this a good idea.

 

While I can only give you information on Rome, I can tell you that your best bet is to definitely research, research, research. I took a med. cruise last year and the CC port threads and my trip roll call were by far some of the best forms of information. I did however seek guidance from outside sources like AAA tour books and of course the internet. I'm afraid from the sound of your itinerary (I think it is the same that I am dying to take...hopefully next year!) that you only have one day in Rome. My husband and I did Rome on our own post cruise and had no problems. We downloaded Rick Steves audio guides to our ipods and used that as our "guide." We also traveled around the city using the HOHO buses and by foot of course. Anything is doable...it just depends on how much you want to see/do and how much time you have and money you are willing to spend. Happy planning!

[besberry]

We used RomeInLimo for both Rome and Pisa/Florence. I organised the Rome trip and another cruiser organised the Pisa trip. We got a 5% discount for both trips despite having different organisers, as it were. We managed to get a group together on the CC board. I was nervous about organising it, but it all went really well. Small minibus, lots of things to see. We weren't herded about, just took things at a decent pace. Saw just about everything we wanted to see and were back on board in plenty of time.

[ollienbertsmum]

I have read through the answers to this question and have actually gone to a website to look at what to expect in Split.

 

It seems like my answer should have been

 

Civitaveccia and Livorno are ports which are definitely worth having someone take you around and whilst a private tour can help you get more out of all ports, the other stops can definitely be done 'on your own'.

 

If I had to choose a 3rd port for getting a guide for the day - it would be Cannes.

[Sequim88]

We're doing several of the same ports real soon now (not soon enough!). Rome for us is destination and staying there three nights so not the issue of getting back to the ship. Barcelona we are doing on own. Metro to Sagrada Familia, then taxi so Parc Guel and the walk downhill to Metro to Placa Catalunya for walk down Las Ramblas. We've taken organized tours before and been left feeling we did not experience the place as much as walking the streets.

 

Livorno we are taking taxi to train, train to Pisa for brief stop and train to Florence for several hours then train back to Livorno. Probably €40/pp cost.

 

We do Villefranche instead of Cannes but similar might apply. We're taking train to Nice and walking to sights there before lunch then train to Monaco for afternoon when casino opens. Train back to Villefranche.

 

In addtion to all the other research resources check out CC sister site tripadvisor.com where the Destination Experts in the forums there are often locals with current first-hand knowledge.

[urman]

Thanks to everyone who replied. Lots of good advice.

[vickiw0318]

Trains on the Riviera are super easy. I just got back from spending a few days there with my son and we zoomed around to lots of locations. One word of advice, leave time to stand in line for tickets. The machines at the stations don't take credit cards that don't have the built in security chips.

[Clio1610]

We have done this a few times and its really easy...

 

When you dock in Civitavecchia, take the port bus (free) to the Port Entrance. Go through the gates and turn right, walk 2 blocks to the Train Station on your left. Buy return tickets to Rome (about 10 Euros per person) once you have your tickets you must put them into the Yellow machines on the wall to 'validate' them. The train will take 45 mins - 1 hour to get into Rome.

 

We get off at the stop before Rome Termini (the main one in Rome) at San Pietro (s'cuse spelling) and as you walk out of the station look to the left and you will see the St Peters Dome. Walk approx 5 mins and you will be in St Peters Square. After this we then jump on one of the Hop On-Hop Off buses that go from the edge of the Square - We usually use the Red ones, (about 20 Euros per person) these obviously stop at all the major tourist sites so you can hop off when you want, spend as much time there as you want and then just hop back on again for the next site.

 

We usually leave San Pietro station around 3pm ish to make sure we get back to Civitavecchia in good time to re-board.

 

Hope this helps !

[Jolimont]

There's a site called med port cruise easy that has a lot of good info. Lots of great things to see in my neck of the wood!