Mediterranean cruise question

[scaught]

Kind of a general question about Mediterranean cruises. We are considering one in September, the 'Spanish obsession' itinerary. We want to do a cruise because it seems like a good way to experience a few different European cities (we live in the US).

We know from the dozen or so Caribbean cruises that you basically see the cruise economy in port and not much else (t shirt shops, senor frogs, etc). My assumption is the European cruises are different and you can probably see the actual city/culture/etc? Am i wrong? 

[cantgetin]

We've done a couple of Med cruises.  Depending on the port, you may be at a big city or a small community.  Example--at Dubrovnik. the cruise line provided complimentary bus transportation to the walled city.  We went on our own from there.  Yes, there was a tourist industry, but all the old features of the walled city were there...we walked the area and enjoyed them.

 

In Kushadasi, we did an excurtion that took up to Ephesus, to a museum, and to lunch at a villa where we could pick and eat fruit, there were pony rides for kids, etc.  We had traditional Turkish food and were invited to see the first floor of the home (where the kitchen, etc. was).

 

The ports for places like Rome and Florence were quite remote from the cities--a couple hours on a bus/hour on a train.  Again, there were cruise line sponsored excursions to see the city, others to just provide transportation and then you could do the city on your own, or you could do the whole thing on your own.  If you want to get in to any of the popular attractions, you'll need the "skip the line" tickets that are usually part of excursions.  These can also be purchased on your own on line.  What surprised me was how many more tourists there were than when I visited 40 years ago.  In Florence, we went about a block off the tourist track and had probably the best pizza I've ever eaten at a small place that all the workmen were eating!

In Spain (not sure which port) we did an excursion to the Alahambra which included lunch at a local restaurant...fun, worth seeing, not my all time favorite excursion.  In Funchal, we went off walking on our own as there were some things that are not traditional tourist things that I wanted to see...and easy walking.  It is usually easy to do the "hop on, hop off" bus on your own in many large cities.

So yes, you can see the culture, the city, etc.  HOW you do it is sometimes a choice--do your homework for each port in advance.

[geleisen]

12 hours ago, scaught said:

We know from the dozen or so Caribbean cruises that you basically see the cruise economy in port and not much else (t shirt shops, senor frogs, etc). My assumption is the European cruises are different and you can probably see the actual city/culture/etc? Am i wrong? 

I would say that it depends on how long they give you in port, and which city. Some cities you can see pretty much everything in the day and on others, it will give you just a good taster of what you would want to see when you plan a longer trip. But yes, it is much different from the stops in Caribbean, in part because cruising in Europe is a MUCH smaller share of tourism, so you don't really have much built around it the way you do there. Also the Caribbean caters more to Americans and Europe more to Europeans so that also impacts what's on offer.  

[CruzinMermaid]

Spanish Obsession looks like so much fun!  

 

To build on geleisen's comments, for Spanish Obsession you're in Ibiza over night so you'll have ample opportunity to party all night with the locals, eat dinner late, watch the sun rise from the beaches before toddling back to the ship to recoup.

 

Have a great time!