Cruise Tours or Private Tours

[312182wlv]

Hi I will be going on new Carnival Vista in Aug 2016 for 12 night Mediterranean cruise. I am looking at tours via ship but wanted to know has anyone done private tours and which is best? Ports I am visiting:

 

Marseilles France

Livorno (Florence/Pisa)

Civitavecchia (Rome)

Naples (Pompeii/Capri)

Dubrovnik Croatia

Corfu Greece

Messina Italy (Sicily)

Cagliari Italy (Sardinia)

 

Any ideas/contacts pricing etc would be helpful, I am new to this site and I appreciate any help.

[cb at sea]

I would recommend you get a guidebook and learn about your ports before you start booking any kind of tour! Some places are easy DIY....others, not so much! Plus, the book will give you ALL there is to do and see...not just a smattering of stuff to choose from!

 

Then, after your research, go to the "Port of Call" boards, and find out how others have done what you want to do!

[Essiesmom]

And the best guidebook is Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports. He will tell you what there is to do in each port, how much you can do in the time you have available, and how to do it on your own. He does not cover the islands, so for Messina and Cagliari he recommends Lonely Planet. For Naples/Pompeii, Rome, Livorno/Florence, he has free audio tours for ipod/mp3 that you can download from his website, and print out maps to go along with them.

 

Find your roll call here on CC and see what other CC members cruising with you are planning. To find your roll call, go back to the main boards page, scroll down to ROLL CALLS, click on Carnival, then Vista, and look for a thread with the dates for your cruise. EM

[312182wlv]

Thanks

[CruiserBruce]

The Med Ports boards are here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

 

The concepts of private tours are discussed there all the time. It just takes some research and planning.

[Keith1010]

I agree that the guide book mentioned is a great source. There are also good sources on the internet such as Frommers.

 

And you can learn a lot from visiting the med boards mentioned by CruiserBruce.

 

And another source that has a lot of information is also on Cruise Critic and this will take you there. It will discuss what to do in port. From there you can find recommendation for guides on the Med ports that CruiserBruce has recommended.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/ports/

 

Keith

[Krazy Kruizers]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

The place to discuss private excursions is your Roll Call. Scroll down this link until you find the date of your cruise:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1000

[paul929207]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

The place to discuss private excursions is your Roll Call. Scroll down this link until you find the date of your cruise:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1000

Roll Calls are a great place to find private tours. Often people will have found a tour and planned it out. They are looking for additional people to fill out the tour and cut the cost.

[rockdoctor]

For us the decision private or ship excursion is based on distance from port to excursion destination. Naples and Dubrovnik are DIY while Marsilles, Civiteveccia and Luvorno are definitely ship tours. We have been on too many ship tours traveling long distances that have been late, but the ship waited.