Just off Celebrity's Galaxy in the Med.....(my 2 cents on the ports)

[cruisingmimi]

JulieJoe,

 

Sorry to be a pain. On the Scavi tour reservations, do you specify the dates and times or how does it work to book it?

 

We will only have an afternoon the day before we leave on our cruise & mid-morning to afternoon the day we return from our cruise.

 

I don't know whether this time frame would allow us to do the Scavi Tour. We are trying to work in a Vatican tour also. I am unsure we could do both.

 

We would also like to see the Colosseum somewhere in between. Are we trying to see too much?

 

Thanks again.

 

Mary

[juliejoe]

Here is a link to the official Vatican website page about the SCAVI tour.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/uffscavi/documents/rc_ic_uffscavi_doc_gen-information_20040112_en.html?GRAB_ID=142\&EXTRA_ARG=\&HOST_ID=42\&PAGE_ID=728832

 

Not having been to Rome before I'm not sure if you can work in the Vatican museum, St. Peter's Basilica and the SCAVI tour as well as the Colosseum in the time you have available to you. Maybe someone who has been there/done that could advise you better, but it does seem a bit ambitious to me. In your situation, I'd probably not try the SCAVI. (Giving you a reason to return to Rome :) )

 

Julie

[oceanqueen571]

Danielle:

 

Wow..I was waiting for a review and yours was wonderful!! We are doing this cruise 7/4 and I have a question regarding Ephesus with Nejat. Did you tour with Nejat or another guide and how long was the tour? I have heard from Nejat and he can do the tours, both in Istanbul and Ephesus, but uses another guide in Ephesus (says he was booed 6 months ago!...was he puling my leg???).

 

 

Kathy:

Thank you also for the great review!! Question:

How long was Meander's tour in Ephesus? He tell me it is 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours..was this enough time???

 

Thanks!

[cruisingmimi]

Thanks, JulieJoe,

 

That's what I am thinking also. However, I am almost thinking of doing the Scavi & passing on the Colosseum. Everyone is raving about the tour. I know we can't do everything even we want to! LOL.

 

Mary

[Lisa Waverley]

incredible review of Corinth. Seems like I have a lot of reading to do in a very short time!

Where are those darn Cliff notes when you need them!

[tofubeast]

Thanks for the nice words about my review.

 

Yes, we toured with Nejat the entire time in both places. I don't know about him getting boo'ed. He didn't share that story with us!! eheh. Perhaps he was pulling your leg. He has a silly sense of humor, had me laughing a lot.

 

The tours were pretty much this length if I can recall:

Istanbul day 1: as soon as you dock till about 5:30ish?

then if you are doing dinner you meet up with him around 7:30? Dont remember. So you had some free time to clean up and getting ready for the dinner.

 

Day 2: pretty much the whole time you are there! A packed day.

 

Ephesus: The whole time you are there. Busy day!

 

 

HAVE A BLAST!!!! I WANT TO GO AGAIN!

[oceanqueen571]

Thank you so much!! I am really getting excited, now! BTW, anything that you wish you had packed??:)

[TourDeCruise]

Yes, thank you all for the nice words about the reviews.

 

Lisa: You must be reading my mind! Driving on the way home from work tonight, I was thinking about posting that getting the Cliff Notes for Homer’s Iliad might be a good idea, if a person is going to Mycenae because it lists the cast of characters including for Troy and Mycenae and gives the highlights of the Iliad. It indicates who is believed to be a real person versus a mythical character. Too bad there aren't Cliff Notes on all the touring for the cruise!

 

For Danielle & oceanqueen571: Maybe Nejat misspelled the word and meant he was "booked" 6 months ago, not "boo'ed"? He's an expert on Ephesus; I doubt he was boo'ed. Booked I can believe.

 

What do you think, Danielle, is 1.5 to 2 hours enough at Ephesus?

 

oceanqueen571: I guess Ephesus can be done in 1.5 to 2 hours -- if you move quickly through the site, but it took us a lot longer. With a small group (2-10), you can see more in less time than with a large (30) group. It depends on other places you want to see and if you are willing to go at a faster pace at the places. We were interested in seeing fewer places and spending more time at the places that were the most important to us. We typically spend longer than most people at sites anyway because of our ancient civilizations interest, asking a lot of questions, taking pictures & video, & wanting to see everything from all angles. We also saw the Roman Terrace/Slope Houses there which took 1/2 hour by itself. You could skip the houses, which incur an additional cost to see; some people will feel there is not enough to see at the houses, given the extra time & cost, because they are still excavating.

 

The guide might try to talk you into going to a carpet-making place, at the end of the day on the way back to the ship, where they make & sell carpets (or in Istanbul at the Grand Bazaar); just tell them if you are not interested in that. You might rather use your time at other places, the shopping near the port, or then again, you might enjoy the visit & chance to see them hand-make carpets. We stopped for a buffet lunch which they included in the cost although they didn’t specify the price would include lunch. We thought so highly of Meander Travel, that we plan to use them again for a 10-14 day land tour of Turkey.

 

 

You can't go wrong with either Nejat or Meander Travel. We (my husband & I with Meander and Danielle & husband & her group with Nejat) had excellent experiences with them and they come recommended by others on this board.

 

It seems there was something I wished I packed. If I think of it, I'll post it. Do bring ziplock bags for snacks or items that can spill and a small highlighter (I got tiny one at Staples) to highlight events (from daily) on the ship you want to attend. To take as a contingency plan while in a port, I always cut out Celebrity's port contact's phone number and address (from front page of daily) in case we get unintentionally delayed in a port.

 

Kathy

[LynnSD]

Kathy - I see from a previous post that you did not go to the Lindos Acropolis in Rhodes. Since you are now the expert on all Ancient Cruise Civilizations, can you tell why not, and how were the other sights you saw on Rhodes?

 

And one more question - how long did you spend at the Archeological Museum in Naples? I found that there is a hop on-hop off bus that would take us there, plus a tour of the city; but time management is a puzzle.

 

Thanks again -- Lynda

[Queenk2]

When I reserved my Scavi tour, I requested the earliest tour...in English in the Am. My tour time is 9:15, but I do not know if it is the earliest. I am leavig for the ship at1pm.

Karen

[oceanqueen571]

Another question:

 

We are deciding about changing our reservation to Orient House from the Club Kervansaray that the ship uses. Did you speak with anyone who went on the ship's Turkish Dinner to this club and what did they report??

 

Thanks so much!! BTW: We lucked out and got Neyet for Istanbul (but his friend for Ephesus..he is already on another tour he now says).

 

Sue

[tofubeast]

I did not hear about the ship's dinner site. The orient house was quite fun. At times a tad cheesy, but FUN!

[Ferne]

We are doing a cruise in May 2006 to the same places. How was the weather? We were wondering if early (May 5) it is too cool to be comfortable. Thanks for any help! Ferne

[TourDeCruise]

Lynda:

 

Rhodes & Lindos

 

Deciding whether or not to go to Lindos was a tough choice. We originally booked the Celebrity Lindos tour, but canceled it for the following reasons: 1) If we went to Lindos, we wouldn't have a lot of time to see Rhodes afterwards, 2) Rhodes looked like a great walking town, which it definitely is, 3) Rhodes has the fantastic Archaeology Museum we wanted to visit, 4) we wanted to see the area where the Colossus of Rhodes might have stood, 5) Rhodes has the remains of the small Temple of Aphrodite, which we had fun locating and getting to see up close and personal, 6) we felt it might be nice to have a few days where we weren't on a tour of some type.

 

Lindos looks wonderful from the pictures and we knew it would be a place we wanted to go, so we really didn't know if we were making the right decision. A couple we met on the Delos tour went to Lindos and really enjoyed it. If we had known they were going beforehand, they might have talked us into changing our minds again. Their only negative comment was that it was hot climbing to the top of the summit. I think Celebrity’s shore-excursion description said there are just under 300 steps to get to the top where the site is. I bet it is quite a spectacular sight from the top with the acropolis and Temple of Athena perched on the cliff and overlooking the Mediterranean. I wish we could have done both Rhodes and Lindos. Next time, we’ll go to Lindos, then back to the archaeology museum afterwards. If you go to Lindos, I want to hear all about it!

 

We would have enjoyed the hike up there and being with the other couple with whom we became friendly during the cruise, but we would have missed out on walking around the historic Rhodes town and the places we visited: the Temple of Aphrodite (small but interesting), the Archaeology Museum in the old Knights Hospital (great! It closed at 2:45pm when we were there, so keep that in mind if you want to go there.), and the area where the Colossus of Rhodes might have stood (Mandraki Harbor). All of these places are fairly close to the cruise ship. We really enjoyed our day.

 

Naples

 

In Naples, we spent around 2.5 hours in the Naples National Archaeological Museum and believe me; we could have spent a lot longer! We concentrated just on the finds from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabia including the “Secret Room” (do you know about that? you must be 18 or above to get in there!). We saw the hop-on hop-Off bus (I think City Sightseeing which has a website) but didn’t use it. We saw the bus very near the cruise ship terminal. According to their website, it goes up to the Archaeology Museum.

 

Let me know if you need more information.

 

 

Ferne: I might be able to tell you about the weather tomorrow -- need sleep now. We had great weather in late May to early June. Istanbul was the coolest (mid-to-late 60s). If you go to weather.com and put in the different cities, you can see the average temperatures for May.

 

Kathy

[ggrizzy]

for a private tour for a group of 40, how would we tip? separately for the driver and the guide or just tip together? if our tour cost around 1700 euros, would we still tip 15%?