Ancient Splendours | Venice to Athens

[travelingmcmahans]

I'm looking for info on this cruise. My husband and I would like to celebrate our 10 year anniversary in 2007 with a big exciting trip, and I think this would fit the bill, visiting:

Athens (Piraeus), Greece, Varna, Bulgaria, Odessa, Ukraine ,Constanta, Romania, Istanbul, Turkey, Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey, Rhodes, Greece, Cairo/Giza(alexandria), Egypt, Corfu, Greece, Dubrovnik, Croatia and Venice, Italy.

 

Any journals, reviews, blogs etc on this cruise? Any input would be appreciated. Vantage Travel keeps sending my catalogs and one of their trips is built around this cruise with a pre and post stay. I think we could do it on our own for the same or a lower cost though.

[Balliett]

Our october 05 rotterdam cruise was venice to venice. best advice: pick pre and post hotels from tripadvisor.com and do the port transfers independently. even a limo costs less for two than ship-bus transfers, and is quicker. your planned cruise sounds great! I am not a big fan of super-hot weather (which it is in high season) so we chose October and were happy.

[Karen H]

We terminated a 30 day cruise from Bangkok in Venice and saw some of the ports mentioned. I totally agree with Baillett about making your own hotel reservations. Venice is not an inexpensive place and I think their high season runs from April 1 until October 31. We spent one night in Venice post cruise at a B&B for $100 euro. During high season some places require a minimum number of nights to stay. The worst part was schlepping the luggage through Venice to a water bus station in order to get to the airport. We will be cruising in October 2006 from Venice to Athens and this time I have booked a hotel that can be reached via land from the airport to the train station and the hotel is about 300 metrers from the train station and not far via vaparetto to get to the pier.

 

For me, the search for the best hotel, at the right price and in the right location is the great part of planning the trip. I love researching on the internet and fellow travellers are so helpful.

 

Good Luck and enjoy the preparations.

[travelingmcmahans]

Thanks for the tips. We're going to Venice for the second time in March, so luckily by our 07 trip, we'll have a good handle on it. ;)

Any comments on the days at port in the various countries? I'm fascinated especially by being able to visit Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria.

[Aussie Gal]

travellingmcmahons,

We sailed on the Prinsendam in 2004 and went to quite a few of your ports. We left Athens and went to Istanbul, then Nesebur in Bulgaria, then Yalta and Odessa in the Ukraine, then Kusadasi and on to Santorini, then Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia and finally sailed into Venice.

 

The 2007 trip has even more exciting ports. We loved the cruise and it was very interesting visiting Bulgaria and the Ukraine.

 

We always do our own pre and post cruise bookings. We flew into Athens 2 nights before our cruise and we stayed at our favourite hotel there which is the Grand Bretagne. If you haven't been to Athens before I would allow 3 nights as a visit to Delphi is a must. We had done it years ago.

 

When we disembarked we spent another 3 nights in Venice at the Hotel Metropole which is right on the lagoon and very comfortable. We were lucky, we only paid for a courtyard room and were upgraded and given a wonderful front corner room overlooking the lagoon. In fact we watched the Prinsendam sail by our windows on her next voyage.

 

We then flew to Paris for another wonderful week before flying home. I always do all our bookings on the net.

 

Here is a site that I used for our Venice hotel: http://www.veniceby.com/

 

You deal directly with the hotel you choose and all you need to do is give them your card number as a guarantee and you pay the account when you check out.

 

Hope this helps and I will be happy to answer any questions on the ports we visited.

 

Jennie

[travelingmcmahans]

Thanks Jennie. Can you tell me about what you did in Bulgaria and the Ukraine? We're not much for ship excursions, as we typically travel very independently. Did you go on your own or on excursions? Did you feel you were able to get a good glimpse of the country in the short amount of time there?

[Aussie Gal]

travellingmacmahans,

In Nessebur which was a tender port and I think the first time a cruise ship had been there, we did take a ships tour and visited a village. We went into a home and then we were welcomed by the Mayor in the local Town Hall. It was a most interesting excursion and we did see quite a bit of the countryside etc. The port itself is a seaside resort with a casino. Some of the passengers walked around the town but there wasn't a lot to see there. I don't think HAL has been back there since. We were only there half a day.

 

Again in Odessa we took an all day excursion as we didn't need a visa if we went with the ship. It was just too hard to organize a visa as the form was impossible to fill out!! Odessa is a delightful city, though lacking in money and very cultural. The Opera House which was designed by the architect who did Vienna's was undergoing a massive restoration.

 

We first of all did a walking tour which took in some of the public buildings, statues etc. We then went to the main park and saw the War Memorial and the young school children who take turns each week at being on guard there.

The Russian Fleet was stationed at Odessa for many years. We went to a Orthodox Cathedral and listened to a beautiful choir, then on to the Art Gallery. We then had lunch at the Mozart Hotel, - a good lunch with opera singers entertaining us.

 

After lunch - it was a Friday - we saw lots of brides being photographed. Apparently Friday is the day they get married in the Registry Office and on Saturday they have the Church wedding. They were so young, around 17-18. Apparently the girls wait until they are married before living with their boyfriends. We then went to a performance of the Ballet which was lovely and had a drink of their "champagne" at interval.

 

It was a great day and we did see quite a lot of the city. It has the most old fashioned trams running around the city, and they look as though they are only just being held together. Coming from a city of trams I was intrigued with the state of the trams.

 

 

It is a pity you are not going to Yalta. That was the highlight of our time in the Black Sea. It is a beautiful resort set on a cliff, a bit like the area around Positano only very green with lots of lovely pines etc.

 

Jennie