ONSHORE CRUISE OPERATORS

[mick rivers]

My brother and I are first time cruisers, we have booked 7 day cruise on MSC Meraviglia from Genoa, we are novices and are looking for any information as to independent onshore excursion operators, most especially from Civitavecchia/Rome, Barcelona, Marseille, what criteria we should follow, any warnings in booking one.

[mapleleaves]

If you look thru the first several pages of each forum, you'll find all the popular vendors used at each port. 

I'm doing a W Med cruise in Sept and have found over a dozen companies thru these forums ..... use the search tool to find old trip reports ( "w med review" or 'w med report' ), or go to MSC forum and look at Meraviglia threads.  I also bought Rick Steves book on Med Cruise ports, and borrowed a few travel books from the library. 

A little research will make you more comfortable about excursion choices.  

[mick rivers]

2 hours ago, mapleleaves said:

If you look thru the first several pages of each forum, you'll find all the popular vendors used at each port. 

I'm doing a W Med cruise in Sept and have found over a dozen companies thru these forums ..... use the search tool to find old trip reports ( "w med review" or 'w med report' ), or go to MSC forum and look at Meraviglia threads.  I also bought Rick Steves book on Med Cruise ports, and borrowed a few travel books from the library. 

A little research will make you more comfortable about excursion choices.  

 

[mick rivers]

Thanks so much will follow your lead.

[mapleleaves]

 

Here are past threads for  your ship.  Just skim thru the titles and look for W Med.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?q=meraviglia&type=forums_topic&nodes=49&sortby=newest&search_and_or=or&search_in=titles&page=1

 

Another suggestion is to join your ships Roll Call.   Many of your fellow travellers will be looking for tour suggestions whether it be DIY or a group.  Or sometimes they have found a great private excursion but need 2 or 3 more people to join them to keep the cost down or they want to join a small group excursion https://italytours.eu/rome-tours-civitavecchia/best-of-rome-full-day/

 

For Rome I couldn't find the itinerary I wanted for but in reading trip reports learned it was easy enough to take the train and DIY.    And in Naples I found a vendor who will let us customize one of their 8 hr tours.   

 

 

 

[fabnfortysomething]

just check total times in port

MSC and some other cruiselines tend to have shorter times in port so may not have as long to sightsee