Need NCL Grand Med excursion help and opinions

[irishinkc]

I am taking my first cruise in July, the 12-day Grand Med on NCL Spirit. I am beyond overwhelmed with trying to choose which excursions to do in each port. Since we will be three females travelling alone, I kind of feel the need to do our excursions through NCL in the big cities and not on our own, but will probably do our pre-cruise and post-cruise days in Venice and Barcelona on our own, as well as maybe Mykonos and Toulon??? I would love some help from those of you who have taken the NCL-sponsored excursions and tell me which ones you chose in each port and why, along with any other information you would like to offer to a first-time cruiser. I would love opinions on the must-see attractions and those we could do without. I would really like to stick with the NCL group excursions since this is my first time in Europe. I have read about those doing tours with other companies, but for some reason I feel like we should stick with NCL. I would love advice for the smaller ports that I am thinking of just doing on our own and keeping low key (like maybe a beach day). Thanks in advance for any advice. I am also new to Cruise Critic, so hope I am posting correctly!:)

Edited February 6, 2015 by irishinkc

[California Traveler]

We are on the Jade 14 day Mediterranian and Greece crusie this May, we booked the majority of our excursions thru the website: www.cruisingexcursion.com They have excellent reviews and reasonable pricing with samller groups. Just plug in the ship name and dates and they will show all the tours available for that cruise. They also offer package discounts. We are very excited to use them for most of our tours.

 

Enjoy your crusie :D

CT

[fabnfortysomething]

I am taking my first cruise in July, the 12-day Grand Med on NCL Spirit. I am beyond overwhelmed with trying to choose which excursions to do in each port. Since we will be three females travelling alone, I kind of feel the need to do our excursions through NCL in the big cities and not on our own, but will probably do our pre-cruise and post-cruise days in Venice and Barcelona on our own, as well as maybe Mykonos and Toulon??? I would love some help from those of you who have taken the NCL-sponsored excursions and tell me which ones you chose in each port and why, along with any other information you would like to offer to a first-time cruiser. I would love opinions on the must-see attractions and those we could do without. I would really like to stick with the NCL group excursions since this is my first time in Europe. I have read about those doing tours with other companies, but for some reason I feel like we should stick with NCL. I would love advice for the smaller ports that I am thinking of just doing on our own and keeping low key (like maybe a beach day). Thanks in advance for any advice. I am also new to Cruise Critic, so hope I am posting correctly!:)

 

we did a similar cruise couple of years ago-there is a link to my review at the bottom of my post

 

have you joined your roll call as there may be fellow cruisers on there who are looking to share private tours-many if not most cruise critic members prefer to DIY or share private tours rather than using ship excursions.Reasons are cost-NCL excursions are very expensive and you are on large coaches.Compare that to a minivan with 8 or so people and the costs are often less.

 

However advice is do research on the ports of call forums-Europe and you will find lots of information on the ports you will be visiting

 

If after all your research you still prefer to go with ships tours for your own peace of mind then that's the right decision for you but remember you have options

 

happy planning