Lobster night never arrived

[londongal796]

How was the NOS? We sail soon, on the 9th. Not very many post about the cruise in general or the ports.

 

Cruise was very good, I will focus on the ports if you'd like (looks like your itinterary is the same as ours was, excellent!). We started in Civitavecchia (Rome), ended up taking a cruise transfer with Civitavecchiacabservice.com which I would recommend if you are travelling with at least one other person, the cost for a shuttle transfer is €85 for 2 people, with RC it's $92 per person--totally worth it in my opinion!! And they were super friendly/helpful. And waited for us for ages as my father's luggage got lost and never made it (more on that later) so we were like a good hour late getting to meet our driver.

 

We went to Messina in Sicily, I will admit I found the excursions to be a little less than stellar, and frankly it was a bit of a disappointing one we did (Treasures of Messina). I usually have good luck with excursions but this one was just a bit bland. It was probably worth just doing your own thing as you were right in the city centre and the first thing they did was drive us about 100m from the cruise ship to an amazing church with a churchyard and glockenspiel-type clock. Very neat. It goes off at 1pm for sure so be sure to catch that.

 

Next was a day at sea, very enjoyable. Then we were in Athens which was what I'd picked the cruise for specifically. I had looked at the excursions but none of them seemed to quite encompass absolutely everything we wanted to do, so we booked a private taxi tour with toursofathens.com and it was seriously the best decision ever. We paid €250 for the three of us to share a taxi for the whole day... considering it's about $100-$150 for a full days excursion per person, this was practically a bargain. We did opt for a tour guide at the Acropolis for an additional €100 but I must admit, we didn't actually enjoy it. It just wasn't really necessary, but the tour guide was very good and extremely informative... We did still need to pay our entrance fees but that was I believe €22 each which got us into almost all of the ancient sites including the Acropolis (but not the New Acropolis Museum which was an additional €5, worth the €5 but really not necessary as there was very little in there).

 

First we were driven into town and stopped along the way by the Piraeus harbour to see Athens stretched out before us. Then we were taken straight to the Acropolis where we met our tour guide. We were there for maybe an hour and a half but you only really needed 45mins-1hour to see the whole site. From there you could look down on some of the other ancient sites, like the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Arch of Hadrian.

 

Then we were sort of driven around to some neat spots, like the original Modern Olympic Stadium from 1896, we were allowed out of the car and grabbed some photos. We were also taken to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and went in on the same ticket from The Acropolis and took some fab photos. Then we went and saw the changing of the guards at the Parliament or something ? ... can't quite remember, sorry. We saw so many things I can't quite remember everything, but it was really good. We saw some more like ancient ruins, near the bottom of the Acropolis, again using the same ticket from The Acropolis.

 

We went to see Hadrian's Library and grabbed lunch as well at a spot recommended to us by our driver. It was a delicious meal and I was a bit wary at first of the 'host' (they seemed a bit ... scheming?) but actually the food was fantastic, not overpriced, and the portions were gigantic. It was a great meal, served very quickly. And after they accidentally broke a glass, and my dad shouted 'Oompa!', they seriously brought us all a round of Ouzo on the house!!

 

After that our driver had some suggestions to make about vistas and panaromic views but time was tight and my dad really wanted to see the New Acropolis Museum and since it was our own tour, we got to do what we wanted! We had about 1 hour at the site and it was more than ample time to do everything there. It was a humble yet very modern museum and was very enjoyable.

 

Our next stop was Turkey, port in Kusadasi, and we did the RC excursion Ephesus, Didyma & Miletus with Lunch. It was okay, but maybe avoid the lunch--seriously. My husband did not feel well after it, although my father and I had no stomach issues. But the lunch was really nothing to write home about so maybe not worth it. The excursion was okay, our guide was just a bit abrasive in his personality so I didn't hit it off with him. But first we visited Ephesus which was absolutely fantastic, really great. Followed by an incredibly long drive to Miletus which was an interesting site. We then went and had lunch and then walked to Didyma and the Temple of Apollo, which I seriously liked more than the Acropolis and the Parthenon as you could walk on this temple, go into it's inner sanctum, it was amaaazing. Much more impressive really. The tour (and every single RC tour) ended with a 'carpet presentation' but it's at a shop right next to your cruise ship port so we just got off the bus and went back to the cruise ship.

 

Final stop was in Crete (Souda), RC had no worthwhile excursions so we just grabbed the local shuttle bus for €3 return each (totally affordable and worth it), it drops you off right down town in Chania and we walked around the town a bit. We went into the Merchant Naval Museum, that was nice enough, my dad did the Byzantium ? Museum as well but we skipped it, he said it was tiny though nice. We were a bit tired at this point so we didn't do a whole lot but the town had enough to occupy you for a few hours and was just the most beautiful harbour.

 

The cruise returned to Civitavecchia and we stayed on in Rome for one night so I could do a tour of the Sistine Chapel first thing the next morning. We booked through Viator who used Enjoy Rome for their 'Skip the Line' Vatican guided tour. It was 100% worth getting a guided tour because seriously, that place is jam packed and it was often times the only way to get through (the signs lead you on an endless journey through the museum). We also walked around Rome on our own and used the metro system (€1.50 per journey or I believe €6 for an all-day pass) which was clean and easy to use.

 

Let me know if you have any other q's as I did a ton of research in advance and could offer some other tips if you need them.

 

Posted but forgot to say about my dad's lost luggage--RC were super helpful in this department. We reported it to Guest Services on board who took down all the details the airline had taken and made about the lost luggage report, and then promised to follow up with the airline and once the luggage was found have it sent to the nearest airport based on our itinerary and get it sent to the ship. The Guest Services agent gave him 2 free 'express' laundry vouchers plus a free tuxedo rental. Plus some free t-shirts--and when they were discovered to be two sizes too small, the staff allowed him to purchase a t-shirt from the onboard shop and have it reimbursed. It was soooo kind and thoughtful of everyone. They tracked his luggage down in Rome and had it sent on to Athens where it was reunited with him that evening.

 

But, did they serve escargots?

They did, the first night both my husband and another diner at our table had the escargot. Later on in the cruise, I asked our waiter about the notice saying that it may not be available due to a worldwide shortage and yet it was on the menu every night, I quipped that 'are we the ones causing the worldwide shortage?' and he just laughed and said the customers like it so it's on the menu every night. He definitely didn't say 'we have run out' and never mentioned it being unavailable any other night of the cruise, so hopefully you will be okay. Could depend on the supplies while they are in port, at the very least our ship was fully stocked!

[Melozone]

Thanks for all the info on your cruise, great stuff! You need to do a review or cut and paste this into one.