Help me choose: Pursuit Italy intensive VS Journey Greece intensive

[amyhphoto]

I am torn between taking the Pursuit Italy vs Journey Greece intensive cruises in mid June. I would love any feedback on either the differences between the ships and ports or personal experiences on either ship to help me choose. I am interested in exploring the ports as much as possible by foot and doing some strenuous hiking/adventurous excursions. Thank you for any advice. 

[laurieb]

welcome to Azamara!

You'll find the ships basically the same.

It's really difficult to recommend when the two choices are so different.  If you can, look through the excursions for both cruises just to get an idea of what is commonly done in the ports that each cruise visits.  You might get an idea of which itinerary is going to give you more opportunities for the hiking and exploring you like to do.  That being said, I could never get too much Italy!

[uktog]

Greece every time for me because there’s such a variety of things to do history, modern, wine, food shopping, beaches and unlike Italy no long coach journeys to go and see things. I find Greece far easier to be an independent minded traveler than Italy and (personally) I feel safer in their smaller ports 

[Dr H]

DW and I are biased toward Italy, having lived there for almost 8 years. For us it's almost like going home, and fluency in the language certainly helps. We will be doing a B2B Athens-Istanbul-Athens in October, our first trip back to Greece in almost 14 years. UK just made some VERY interesting points about the travel in Greece, which I really wasn't aware of. From a practical standpoint, look at the prices of the cruises and excursions, as well as the local weather/temperatures. Italy is starting to get HOT, Greece is probably hotter. As for the ships and service, identical and interchangeable. Great crew, great food, small, cozy sailing. Whatever you decide, you really can't go wrong, so have a wonderful time!

[CynthiaP]

6 hours ago, amyhphoto said:

I am torn between taking the Pursuit Italy vs Journey Greece intensive cruises in mid June. I would love any feedback on either the differences between the ships and ports or personal experiences on either ship to help me choose. I am interested in exploring the ports as much as possible by foot and doing some strenuous hiking/adventurous excursions. Thank you for any advice. 

I've never been to Greece so can't comment, but been 5 times to Italy. I'm not sure what your idea of strenuous and adventurous is, but I wouldn't find any ship's excursions to be to that level. When the excursion is labeled strenuous that seems to mean you have to walk up 6 stairs and a half mile. If you want to cruise and hike then I'd recommend looking for private excursions.

 

Frankly, it sounds like you might like a land tour. There are several companies that have hiking or adventurous itineraries. We did a hiking tour of Tuscany and Cinque Terra with Nat Geo about 6 years ago and really enjoyed it. We did a some short hikes in Switzerland this past July. There are many travel  companies that offer hiking tours. Just do a search for hiking tours and the name of the country.

 

It will be hot in either Italy or Greece mid-June. If you're bothered by heat, a popular hike in Europe is around Mont Blanc in France. It takes about 10 days. There are lots of hikes in Switzerland. I'm afraid my strenuous hiking days are over so do as much hiking as you can while you can! You can always do cruises later.

[curmudgeon98]

I would say that both itineraries are excellent.  Both will give you a lot of time in interesting ports that are well suited to exploring on foot, though I'd probably give the edge to the Greece itinerary on that aspect.  

 

As others have mentioned, the ships are essentially the same.  Well maintained, but older and without glitzy features.  Note that most of the cabins, and especially the showers, are smaller than on most cruise ships.  Entertainment will likely have a couple of (good) big events, but be fairly limited otherwise.  For Azamara, the focus is the ports.  The smaller passenger count makes ports and tendering much less of a zoo than on big ships.   

[amyhphoto]

Thank you to everyone for all of this insight, its given me much to think about. 

 

Follow up question: Would one region be more crowded than the other? 

[laurieb]

I think you will find crowds everywhere in June

[curmudgeon98]

2 hours ago, amyhphoto said:

 

Follow up question: Would one region be more crowded than the other? 

There will be a mix.  Athens, Venice, and Rome will have crowds, but are big enough to handle them.  Mykonos, Santorini, Amalfi, and Sorrento may feel somewhat overrun.  Santorini in particular can be a zoo if there are several large ships on the same day.  I have seen Azamara adjust the port order on a cruise to try to reduce congested port days, but it's not always feasible.  Amalfi and Sorrento can be jammed by land vacationers.