Just Returned from the Mediterranean Enchanted

[ldubs]

We were on Enchanted earlier this year.   Love the Enchanted Princess!    

[Booboochase]

Hello fellow upstate'er! We are on the Enchanted Sept. 2 for two weeks, Athens to Rome.  First time Med cruise, first time Princess! We have many early excursions scheduled, how is it getting off the ship for them? How were those long flights?! We did book through EZ air, and have a stop in Rome on the way after JFK. Thanks for sharing your experiences!! 

[cruisin1357]

Enjoying your posts and glad to hear it was such an enjoyable trip.  We are sailing on her August 26 from Rome to Athens,  We also booked with Ephesus Shuttle (private option) for Ephesus and Istanbul (using tram service as well). Glad to hear you were happy with their services.  This is our first time with independent tours (generally use Princess or just explore on own) so it seems we chose well with this tour company.  

 

Like the previous cruiser, assuming no issues with getting off the ships at the Turkey ports in timely manner to catch the tours? We arrive at 7 in Kusadasi and are supposed to meet at 7:30 on shore.  I'm assuming the tour company is familiar and realizes this is doable.

 

 

[Senga]

@BooboochaseCome on over and join our Roll Call!

[Senga]

@mevs904Interested in hearing what you did independently in Kotor and Messina.

[mevs904]

4 hours ago, cruisin1357 said:

Enjoying your posts and glad to hear it was such an enjoyable trip.  We are sailing on her August 26 from Rome to Athens,  We also booked with Ephesus Shuttle (private option) for Ephesus and Istanbul (using tram service as well). Glad to hear you were happy with their services.  This is our first time with independent tours (generally use Princess or just explore on own) so it seems we chose well with this tour company.  

 

Like the previous cruiser, assuming no issues with getting off the ships at the Turkey ports in timely manner to catch the tours? We arrive at 7 in Kusadasi and are supposed to meet at 7:30 on shore.  I'm assuming the tour company is familiar and realizes this is doable.

 

 

We had no problems getting off of the ships in either Turkey port.  We also had a 7:30 meeting time with our guide in Kusadasi and she was right there as we came out holding a sign with our names on it.  The van was waiting nearby in the street.  It was the same in Istanbul where we had a 9:30 meeting time.  Both guides were fluent in English and very knowledgeable.  As I mentioned before, both guides were very conscientious about getting us back to the ship in plenty of time for the All Aboard.

[mevs904]

1 hour ago, Senga said:

@mevs904Interested in hearing what you did independently in Kotor and Messina.

     In Kotor we just enjoyed walking around the town and taking photos.  Some passengers climbed up to enjoy the views, but we chose not to do that.

     Since we had recently had a great land tour of Sicily we chose to stay in town and explore the area around the port.  At this port we would definitely recommend looking into excursions to Taormina or Mt. Etna.  We’ve been to both and they are very interesting.

[mevs904]

10 hours ago, Booboochase said:

Hello fellow upstate'er! We are on the Enchanted Sept. 2 for two weeks, Athens to Rome.  First time Med cruise, first time Princess! We have many early excursions scheduled, how is it getting off the ship for them? How were those long flights?! We did book through EZ air, and have a stop in Rome on the way after JFK. Thanks for sharing your experiences!! 

No problems with either of our flights. We flew from JFK to Rome and then boarded the ship.  Our return was from Barcelona to JFK.  Both flights were smooth and arrived on time.  As we checked in for our flight from Barcelona they informed us that the flight was overbooked and offered us $1200 and overnight hotel accommodations if we would fly home the next day instead.  We politely declined.  
    Both airports are modern and very clean, especially Barcelona.

[Senga]

21 minutes ago, mevs904 said:

     In Kotor we just enjoyed walking around the town and taking photos.  Some passengers climbed up to enjoy the views, but we chose not to do that.

     Since we had recently had a great land tour of Sicily we chose to stay in town and explore the area around the port.  At this port we would definitely recommend looking into excursions to Taormina or Mt. Etna.  We’ve been to both and they are very interesting.

Thanks.  We’ve been to Sicily on 2 land vacations; LOVED Taormina.  No desire to fight the hordes on a day trip.  😂

[Moxiefurball]

On 7/10/2023 at 8:08 AM, mevs904 said:

We were on the Enchanted Mediterranean cruise from June 24 (Rome) to July 8 (Barcelona).  It was an excellent cruise with beautiful weather and a wonderful itinerary.  This was our first post-Covid cruise and the experience was completely positive.  There were no indications of illness on board, very little coughing, and fewer than 1% of the passengers wore masks.  
     Both embarkation and disembarkation were flawless.  We did not have our medallions mailed to us and it took us less than 2 minutes to get them at check-in.  They worked quite well for us, but we are not inclined to order food or drinks with them.  We prefer to do it ourselves.  We did order drinks once or twice, but decided it was quicker to do it ourselves.  (Besides, it was better for us to get up and burn a few of the calories that we were consuming.

     We can’t say enough for the wonderful crew on this ship.  They were a delight to interact with.    Here are a few random thoughts about the cruise.

—Wonderful ports, Istanbul was the highlight for us and we had an outstanding excursion through Ephesus Shuttle who also gave us our Kusadasi excursion.  Excellent guides, maximum of 10 passengers in a modern comfortable van.  We highly recommend them

—Brilliant destination talks by Johanna Grove who unfortunately had to leave mid-cruise due to family illness, but are pre-recorded her talks for each port before she left.

 

 I can see that this is getting very long, so I’ll just stop and will be happy to answer any questions.  Bottom line:  best cruise ever and we would love to do it again!

By any chance did your itinerary include Alghero, Sardinia as one of the stops and if so, was it a tender into the Old Town of Alghero from the ship docked in Bay of Alghero?

[mevs904]

1 hour ago, Moxiefurball said:

By any chance did your itinerary include Alghero, Sardinia as one of the stops and if so, was it a tender into the Old Town of Alghero from the ship docked in Bay of Alghero?

Unfortunately, Alghero wasn’t on our itinerary.

[RNRcruisers]

Sounds fabulous! We have only been on one Mediterranean cruise back in 2015. Need to go again!

 

[mevs904]

9 minutes ago, RNRcruisers said:

Sounds fabulous! We have only been on one Mediterranean cruise back in 2015. Need to go again!

 

Interesting…fabulous is the word that we’ve been using to describe our cruise to inquiring relatives and friends.  We would love to do it again, but there are other adventures that we are looking at.  I’m sure that you will have a wonderful time on a future Med cruise.

[DJ Cruisers]

How were the cable car lines at Santorini?  We will be the first ship in port with another arriving an hour after.  We plan on getting off as soon as we can and are elite.  Hoping the line won't be too long going up.  Coming back based on our last two cruises the line was at least 1 hour long.

 

Also did you tender at Mykonos or dock.  Arriving at noon in Mykonos seems like tendering would be  slow with everyone wanting to get off at once.

 

Thanks for your info.