Cruising to Europe

[venice2]

Any suggestions for a good itinerary this summer. We would like warm weather and some interesting ports. Thinking about France ( Marseilles), Nice, Venice or The Baltics .. St Petersburg etc.

 

We just came back from our first cruise ... to the Caribbean on the Constellation. Great ship.

 

Ports-- Aruba, Dominica and Curacoa. Not such good ports but the ship and the weather, food service etc. was fabulous.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[gkm]

If you're looking for warm weather, I would suggest the mediterranean. St. Petersburg is way north and will not be as warm.

 

Garry

[caviargal]

Yes, the Med for warm weather as well as the Greek Isles (not my favorite but meet your criteria).

 

What are you looking for re ports? The ones you named in the Caribbean I enjoy so perhaps you can be more specific.

 

Barcelona, Marseilles, Tunis, Venice, etc., all will be hot and all will be crowded. If you choose Livorno (for Florence) and Civitavecchia (for Rome) be aware that you have quite a distance to get to those cities. Are you interested in art? beaches? architecture?

 

My favorite Med itinerary includes Sicily and the Italian Riviera.

[tom_uk]

Actually, the eastern end of the Baltic is pretty reliably hot in summer, just as Canadian cities (say) are. The areas that are very unreliable, even in July or August, is anywhere exposed to the North Atlantic, which means the coast of the UK, Ireland, and (sadly) Norway. You might get days of blue skies & (quite) warm temperatures as you cruise the fjords, but you might equally get a week of grey skies and rain. Generally, June is drier than August, but there again if you're lucky and the weather is good, it's warmer in the later part of the summer than in the earlier. But even this advice has to be tempered - June might be very hot, or it might be wet; equally, August can be bone dry, or wet and cold.

 

Going further south, there's an old saw that in France you need to be south of the Loire before you can rely on good weather in summer.

 

In general, however, if this is your first cruise (or even visit) to Europe, then the Med is where you should start. Eastern med cruises major on Greek islands; mostly small, with small towns. Of course, there will also be visits to Athens and perhaps Istanbul which are anything but small, but places such as Mykonos, Katakolon, Santorini are not huge.

 

In the case of western Med cruises the itineraries generally run from one major coastal city to another - Barcelona, Marseilles, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Palma, etc, etc. Lots of culture, lots of history, but you might find yourself having to make a bit of an effort to find a beach.

 

Have a look at Galaxy's 'Best of the Med' cruises this coming summer - a mixture of west & east, giving you the best of both worlds. I think it's so good I've already booked for June....

[venice2]

Like art and architecture, nature. We don not want to go to FLorence or Rome . We were there last summer. (not by ship):)

 

We went to Aruba and it was very crowded, rainy and ugly.

[venice2]

WHat is the best ship to cruise in the Mediterrean.

 

We like to have good food, nice fitness center and a good size ship.

 

Thinking about the Princess, Celebrity or Costa

 

Any suggestions?:D

[Liat]

One of our more fun cruises was a repositioning cruise on Galaxy from Baltimore to Rome in early May 2004. I think they do it this year from Galveston. It lasts about 15 days, visits the Azores, Madeira, Spain and then ends in Rome. Millennium has a 14 day trip across from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona. and there are others. The advantage of any repositioning cruise are several. The first is price - they are the lowest doller per day available.

Then, there is the advantage of a number of relaxing sea days. Celebrity does a good job of activity/entertainmet on sea days, but you just may want to veg! Finally, and perhaps most important; you land in Europe in May before the crowds hit; and before it gets too hot. Also, you can start a Mediterranean tour for a back to back cruise experience, although there are no bargains for the second part of this advanture. If you take Millennium to Barcelona, you might want to spend a few days there or in other parts of Spain, which is very nice that time of year. We spent a week in a time share south of Barcelona prior to doing our Med cruise on Millenium in 2003.

You can also sail across on Constellation for about 8 days before this ship starts its Baltic summer cruises. Once again, early is better for European travel.

The other option is to take a late cruise in August or September and do the repositioning back to the US.

One final note. Also in August 2003 we did a cruise/tour with Princess. This involved flying to Budapest, spending two days there, then two in Vienna and finally two days in Prague. The tour company hired by Princess was first class, as were the hotel accomodations. We then flew from Prague to Copenhagen for an 11 day Baltic cruise on Regal Princess. The only two drawbacks were a 44 pound per person [not per bag] weight limit for the Prague>Copengahen flight and the fact that we hit one of the worst heat waves in recent European history. But this was an excellent, if not cheap; way to combine a land tour with a cruise and see parts of Europe that sea cruisers can't. This cruise is also reviewed, as are our Millennium and Galaxy cruises on http://www.cruisereviews.com, under the cruise line, the ships' names and my name; Philip M. Haggerty.

[cavkc]

Celebrity have a really good 12 night Med cruise starting in May and running through to about October. Lovely itinerary, leaving from Venice and ending in Barcelona (or the other way round on alternate cruises).

We are booked on this at the end of May on Millennium.

 

Also, Royal Caribbean have a good 12 night cruise during the summer months, leaving from Barcelona on Brilliance of the Sea.

 

Baltics cruise would be interesting but you wouldn't get sunbathing weather.

[goldminer1951]

We did the 11 night Eastern Med cruise on Galaxy last August and really enjoyed it. It is combination of Greek Islands (Mykonos/Delos, Rhodes, Santorini), Athens, Istanbul (two days), Kusadasi/Ephesus, and Naples/Pompei which starts and ends at Rome. The food and service on board were great. There was enough time in port to enjoy the fantastic sights and to do some beach time. We would do it again in a heart beat.

 

'Miner

[Bruin Steve]

Venice2,

My favorite, thus far, has been the Celebrity Millennium...They do a 12 night Venice to Barcelona or Barcelona to Venice itinerary...The ship, food, service are great...It will take you to Nice and Venice, but, you will also revisit Rome and Florence in the bargain (of course, you can do as we did and use the Livorno stop to visit other towns in Tuscany rather than Florence)...

 

For some variation this year, we are cruising on the Oceania Nautica....largely for the unique itinerary...It's a 14 nighter...Istanbul (overnight) to Kusadasi to Rhodes to Delos to Mykonos to Santorini to Athens to Amalfi to Taormina to Kotor to Dubrovnik to Venice (overnight)...We get in a lot of ports we haven't visited before...The food and service are supposed to be first rate on Oceania, but it is a much smaller ship than Celebrity's M-Class ships...It's the last half of July, so I am certain we will get VERY warm weather!