Guide Books

[karolm]

What guide books is anyone using for Mediterrean cruise?

 

Any recommendation?

 

Any save your money tips?

 

Thanks,

Carol M

[Liv4cruzin]

I personally LOVE the D-K Eyewitness Guide books. They publish them for just about any area of the world you would want to visit. They are an easy size to carry, a lot of color pictures, street guides, restaurant & hotel guide w/ great descriptions. Even has a few pages in the back w/ key phrases in the language of that given country.

[Bruin Steve]

What guide books is anyone using for Mediterrean cruise? Any recommendation? Any save your money tips?

Carol,

Here's my take on "guide books"...and I've bought a few over the years...

 

I generally stay away from those "general" "Cruising the Mediterranean or European" type guides...Fodor's, Frommer's or others...Half the book is usually taken up with "Choosing the right Ship" or something like that...and by the time you're buying guides, you've usually chosen your ship and cruise already...

Also avoid guide books that cover large areas--like entire countries or all of Europe...They tend to take up too much space discussing hotels, airports and logistics--things you don't need...

 

What I tend to do is to buy guides only for my pre- and post-cruise ports--where I typically spend a few days...or for regions where a good guide book will cover several ports if I'm making a few port stops--like the Greek Isles if I'm doing a cruise with multiple Greek Island ports (and with those, most of the book usually deals with ports I'm not visiting)...

 

That said, my absolute favorite Guide Books are the AAA Spiral Guides...The Venice book and the Barcelona book are absolutely indispensible when visiting those cities (I also own the London and Ireland Spiral Guides which I used for my cruise this past July)...The maps are excellent...as are the photos and illustrations...and they're really good with suggested walking tours and in pointing out highlights...The other benefit is that they are fairly lightweight, easy to use and to carry...and well bound with spiral wire...

 

When I can't get an AAA Spiral, my next choice is the D-K Eyewitness guides...They're pretty much first rate as far as maps and illustrations...only slightly less user-friendly than the Spirals...though a tad heavier being hard-bound...

 

Rick Steve's guides have great information and walking tours, but maps and illustrations are lacking...

 

Good luck...

[bunduo]

I second Luv's and Bruin Steve's recommendations. They are both top notch guide books. We have purchased the AAA spiral guide for Barcelona. A really excellent resource. You can't go wrong with the D-K Eyewitness guide books, either. If you are the outdoorsy type, generally speaking, the Lonely Planet books can be good for hikes and outdoor activities. I would of written more but Luv and Steve beat me too it. :)

[laughoutloud]

I bought the individual DK Eyewitness guides for each port we're stopping. I love the color illustrations & photos! There are many pages devoted to the history of each place, too. (I'll be reading up on that on the ship.) Plus, they will also serve as remembrances from our trip. For the actual sightseeing days, I plan on making photocopies of the pertinent pages so I don't have to drag around (and ruin) a nice book...

[happy1]

Having purchased both DK's guide to Med Cruising and Anne Vipond's Med by Cruise Ship, I agree with the above posters. Neither gave me the type of informnation I could get from reading more in-depth guides on the ports of call. Personally I enjoy the Frommer's guides, but have not checked out the AAA Spirals.

 

Has anyone read R. A. Staccioli's Ancient Rome Monument's past & present? I heard the overlays were excellent and interesting. I believe there is also a similar book on Pompeii.

 

Of course nothing compares with the in-depth information one obtains from this board!

[Cruisingonceagain]

I personally love the Rick Steves guidebooks and the water-resistant Mapeasy maps. I find that the Rick Steves' ones tend to have more practical and useful information than fodors and frommers. We are going on a Med cruise this year, and I have bought the recent versions of "Italy 2006", "Florence & Tuscany", "Venice" and "Spain". "Italy 2006" is loaded with information but I was pleasantly surprised how much more detailed the regional guidebooks were in comparison. I bought the "Spain" one because he does not have a regional guidebook for Barcelona, but Barcelona is extensively covered in this book. I plan to get the one on Rome, too.

 

I have used his guidebooks for London, Paris and Amsterdam, and they have been proven gems. You can go to his website and get a flavor of his books.

 

Whatever guidebooks you decide to get, please get the most recent ones. The updates are worthwhile.

 

The Mapeasy maps for Rome, Venice, Florence and Barcelona are great, especially since the print is huge. It is so user friendly with the major attractions clearly marked, some hotels, etc., and being water resistant adds to its versatility. I have always used Mapeasy maps, even for travels within the US.

[Susan-M]

I bought Fodor's CityPack books for Barcelona, Rome and Venice. They are small, highlight the top 25 sites and have good maps. If you are using public transportation in these cities, they provide detailed info on which route to take.

 

Rick Steves books are also a favourite, but taking the whole book is too much, so I photocopied relevant pages. We also used his on-line Athens info: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/greece/athens.htm

 

I also downloaded a lot of info from http://www.frommers.com/destinations/ for places that I did not purchase guide books for: e.g. Santorini & Mykonnos.

[Bill S]

We have used Rick Steves' guide books for Paris, Amsterdam andBruges and he has been "right on" for us. They are very informative, cut to the chase, and I find his klutzy maps are really easier to use than other guide book maps. His "tips" on how to save money and time are great, eg., visit the Anne Frank house after dinner: no lines! He was right! We walked right in.

I also like the Mapeasy maps.

[Keith1010]

We use different books depending on where we are going. For the mediterranean. For a cruise with as many ports as the Med. we used the DK Cruise Guide to Europe. It's doesn't go into great detail on each port but given that you are in a port for a day or less it provides the highlights that you might consider seeing. We will read though the book and then copy those pages that we are most interested in and take it on the cruise. We will also pick up a copy of Frommer's if we are doing a pre or post cruise and will be staying for a few days. And, we will also go to the various internet sites which list quite a bit of information from sources such as Frommers, and Fodors and others. And, lastly we will read many of the writeups on Cruise Critic.

 

In the end, most of these books are helpful. I would just go over to one of the larger bookstores and flip through some of the books to see which one looks the best for your particular trip. There is certainly many to choose from, particularly for the Mediterranean. We just in the Mediterranean in September (our second time there) and had a wonderful time.

 

Keith

[mountainmare]

We like Rick Steves (although be prepared for cruise passenger bashing), the Eyewitness guides and the Tripadvisor site--especially the forums. I go to the library and testdrive a book. Sometimes I have to own it, sometimes I can copy just the info I need, sometimes I borrow it for the trip. I learned from the world famous luv to travel Med reort that it's easiest for me to create a folder for each port with copies of the onfo I need right there.

I know that some people tear the pages needed out of the books--but I either make copies or write a list.

I include transportation tables, the port authority contact onfo, maps, guide phone numbers(if we're using a guide) and copied pages from a book,and some key phases just in case I forget what language we should be speaking.

The only books that I can see actually taking into port with us are the Fromers Past and Present books that have the plastic overlays for Rome, Athens and Pompeii. I picked them up on a sale table for $5 apiece!!!

[edinburgher]

In the UK, we also dip in and out of various guidebooks and do research on the internet. We print off the internet, and scan/copy relevant pages from books. This is because books are often much to bulky and heavy to take on a cruise which might be visiting various countries and regions. Sometimes you might want just a page or two for a particular port. We then divide the info we actually want into each port destination then put them all in a plastic folder to take with us. At each port we take out what we need. Nice and light to carry. The only exception to this was for our Baltic cruise last summer. We took the Lonely Planet Scandinavia and Baltic guidebook with us as it covered pretty much everywhere we went.

 

Internet resources include cruisecritic and www.virtualtourist.com which I like a lot. Rick Steves is also worth a look, especially for walking tours. Theres also some very good governement/regional/local Tourist Office websites although these can vary in quality and quantity depending on their skill with the English language.

 

We have yet to find the "perfect" series of guides as we find that each has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. We tend to dip into various ones, extracting only what we actually want. We also "cross reference" to see what they say about various sights etc. If we are short on time it helps us prioritise the most interesting.

 

DK for the lovely and detailed pictures, Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Footprint and any other which we can borrow from our library which might have info we might find helpful.