Best Cruise to Europe- Advice needed

[thelemalove93]

Hello- My husband and I (both 27 years old) are planning on going on a cruise to Europe next year with my parents (both in early 60's). I am looking for recomendations (Carnival is NOT an option) of ship reccomendations as I am a little confussed on where to even start. Our main destination is Italy and we would like to see as much of italy as possible. We are looking at a 10 o 11 day cruise (a little longer would be ok). Any advice is welcome!!!

 

Thanks,

 

Ann

[Susan-M]

Hi Ann,

 

I found it very confusing too when I started my search for a med cruise. We chose Celebrity's Millennium and it was wonderful!

 

A few questions though to help with recommendations:

 

Would you want to start and end in the same city (e.g. Rome) or, in different cities (e.g. Rome - Venice) so that you can spend extra time in each city pre and post cruise?

 

The popular ports in Italy include Venice, Sicily, Naples, Civitavecchia (Rome), and Livorno (Florence/Pisa).

Civitavecchia, Livorno and Naples are included in most cruises with stops in Italy .... Venice and Sicily not always .... are there certain places that are 'musts'?

 

Is the size of the ship important? They range from 700+ passengers to 3000+.

 

Do you have a time of year in mind? If you can go during spring or fall, you'll avoid the really hot weather and there will be fewer children on board. Itineraries for most cruise lines for the 2008 season will be out shortly (hopefully by the end of this month).

 

Good luck with your planning!

[Bruin Steve]

Susan said a lot of what I would have said...just less rambling and more concise...

I, too, strongly recommend the Celebrity Millennium (best cruise I've ever taken)...

 

I love the one-way itineraries...they give you the opportunity to do two distinct pre- and post-cruise stays in Venice and Barcelona...

And the ship is spacious...with only 2,000 passengers on a 91,000 gross ton ship...and the food and service are the best of any of the mass market large ship lines (and, trust me, I've cruised on 7 different lines)...

 

You might want to look into Princess, Oceania and Royal Caribbean as well...but the Celebrity Millennium would be my first choice...Oceania is excellent as well...if you want a smaller ship and open seating dining, but don't care as much about activities and entertainment (and are willing to pay about 20% more)...

 

Good luck...

[Susan-M]

I, too, strongly recommend the Celebrity Millennium (best cruise I've ever taken)...

 

 

Hi Steve - I'm impressed to hear that Millennium has been your best cruise yet (it's mine also, but I've only been on 6). I am interested in trying Oceania and would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the difference between the two lines .... you mentioned several things (ship size, entertainment and open dining) - are there other things that you preferred about Millennium over Nautica on your Med cruises?

[KathiB]

Susan,

 

Check out the Brililance of the Seas RCCL cruise out of Barcelona. My husband and I and our two teenage daughters did this cruise last summer. It is 12 days round trip out of Barcelona.We got there 3 days early to enjoy Barcelona and I'm so glad we did...it is a fabulous city.

 

My husband and I had wanted to go to Italy with our daughters but they were not thrilled about being in a car with just their parents for 2 weeks. So we decided to find a cruise that concentrated on Italy but had some other hightlights as well. This cruise was a perfect compromise since we had 5 days in Italy with an overnight in Venice, the city I was most anxious to see. Sailing in and out of Venice was the highpoint of the whole cruise to me. My husband and I spend the evening there after a wonderful dinner with our daughters. They went back to the ship and we got to enjoy Venice at night which is something many cruisers do not get to do.

 

The Brilliance is a beautiful ship and there was a good mix of ages. Plenty of younger people like you who might want a variety of activities but it was also classy enough to satisfy the older generations.

 

Check it out. It could be just what you are looking for. I am also very interested in an Oceana cruise but for a couple in their 20's I think it would be way too quiet and you would certainly be amoung the youngest onboard. Once again, I think the Brilliance would really satisfy all the members of your group.

 

KathiB

[pcur]

We also took the Brilliance on her 12 night Barcelona-Venice-Barcelona cruise, and loved the ports.

 

We're on the Millie in April, but we've sailed on Celebrity twice before, and have never been disappointed.

 

I would go for the itinerary between these two lines (both owned by RCCL) that gives you the most Italy (ABSOLUTELY a MUST to include Venice), and then go for it.

[Susan-M]

Susan,

 

Check out the Brililance of the Seas RCCL cruise out of Barcelona. My husband and I and our two teenage daughters did this cruise last summer. It is 12 days round trip out of Barcelona.We got there 3 days early to enjoy Barcelona and I'm so glad we did...it is a fabulous city.

 

 

Hi Kathi - I think your answer was meant for Ann? We did Millennium Barcelona to Venice in 2005 - and also really enjoyed a precruise stay in Barcelona and post cruise in Venice :)

[Bruin Steve]

Hi Steve - I'm impressed to hear that Millennium has been your best cruise yet (it's mine also, but I've only been on 6). I am interested in trying Oceania and would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the difference between the two lines .... you mentioned several things (ship size, entertainment and open dining) - are there other things that you preferred about Millennium over Nautica on your Med cruises?

Susan,

Here's a quick comparison:

First, remember the Millie is virtually exactly three times the size of the Nautica (91,000 gross tons to 30,000 gross tons) and sails with approximately three times the passengers (about 2,000 to 684) so both ships are pretty close in feel as to "roominess"...the standard cabins on Nautica are about 10 square feet less than Millie at 160 sf...

 

We chose the Nautica because of the itinerary...and the chance to visit several ports we hadn't been to before...

 

Dining/Food: The Millie, of course, has very traditional dining--which I actually love...especially if we get a good group of table mates...The waiters really get to know you on these long cruises and the service is outstanding...but, of course, you deal with the structure...You eat the same time each day, no matter when you get back from port...but it also meshes with other night time activities on the ship--like the shows...The specialty restaurant on the Millie is excellent, but there's a sizable extra fee...

 

On the Nautica, all dinners in the main dining room are "open seating"...which is nice in Europe because you can go to dinner whenever you want...A large number of tables in the main dining room are tables for two...Of course, they're packed in so close together, it's almost like sitting at a bigger table with the people on either side--so it's not exactly the romantic setting some folks want...For me, I like to be sociable...and this setup doesn't exactly make for that...They will ask you if you would like to sit at a larger table with others...and we would often opt for that...and meet more people that way...Or, we'd arrange to meet for dinner with people we'd met on the cruise...But, with a different table and different waiters every night, the service never got as "personal" as on the Millie...

 

Nautica has two very good specialty restaurants...but you ned to make reservations for these as soon as you board the ship...and there's a "pecking order" based on what category of cabin you have (a balcony gets 4 reservations, an inside gets two, for example)...You can make additional reservations if available...But there is NO EXTRA charge for these...

 

The food on Oceania, by the way, may be the best on any cruise line--though Celebrity is not bad either...

 

Entertainment: Clearly an edge to Celebrity (assuming entertainment means anything to you). Nautica's showroom is very small (a lounge, really) and its stage facilities lacking...the shows tend to be fairly amateurish (no big production shows...no dedicated troupe of singers and dancers...singing shows are put on by the assistant cruise directors and with little production value)...They did have a pretty good magician who put on two good shows...But there is only one show per night--if that....several nights there was no show...To fill the time slot, they had things like the onboard guest lecturer (a former regular on the Benny Hill Show) doing a slide presentation on her memories of Benny Hill...or the "Karaeoke Finals"...or even just a dark lounge...

 

Activities: With only 680 passengers, many of whom seemed to go to bed early, there was never much going on, especially at night...the casino maybe being the sole exception...

 

Late night and off-hours food availability: I've become accustomed on my cruises to being able to go get a late night slice of pizza or other munchies...or being able to help myself to a glass of iced tea from the dispenser in the buffet...or getting a mid-afternoon ice cream cone when I return from port...NONE of this was available on Oceania...Pretty much we got our meals and that was it...

 

Cost: The actual cruise fare, once you stripped away all of the gimmicks (2 for 1, "Free Air") turned out to be about 15% higher than Celebrity for similar category cabins...Free Air really isn't...it's included and you can opt out and get a credit...

But that's only the start...Everything costs significantly more...and they hide a lot of add-ons...For example, even though we were getting air and cruise from Oceania, the transfers were EXTRA (Something Celebrity doesn't do) and they were costly...(We opted out of them)...

Hotel packages were incredibly overpriced (a One-night hotel add-on in Venice was $699 per person--and did not include transfers!! When we did this with Celebrity a couple of years earlier, our two-night hotel package was less than half of that)...

On board, the gift shop was priced like Rodeo Drive--Oceania T-shirts cost $29...And drinks on board seemed to run about 30% more than on Celebrity...

Shore excursions through the ship were overpriced...The exact Athens excursion we had done with Celebrity for $99 per person cost $149 on Oceania...I might attribute some of that to rise of the Euro...but we tended to do more private tours because we did better with only TWO of us and a private guide than we would have done with the Oceania Shore Excursions...For example, in Kusadasi, we arranged a full-day private tour for two to Miletus, Didyma and Ephesus which include lunch...and saved over $100 off what Oceania was charging for a shorter tour that only visited Ephesus--in a bus...

 

My thought is that Oceania truies to lure you in with the 2-for-one and free air stuff and gets their rates to be somewhat competitive (otherwise, economies of scale would say they have to charge a lot more), then they try to make up for it by overcharging everywhere else...

 

One other little quirk--They seem intent on making some sort of class distinction based on cabin category...They don't let the lower category cabin passengers onto the ship until much later than the higher category passengers...even if there's no one waiting...The people on line in front of us to board were two couples travelling together, one with a balcony, the other with an "inside"...They told the one couple they could board...but the other would have to wait in the terminal for another two hours...seems to be pointless...the first couple initially decided to just sit in the terminal with them, but their friends talked them into boarding and they'd catch up with them later...I personally find that policy by Oceania to be classless...

 

All in all, though, it really was a nice cruise, despite the deficiencies (and my attitude in price is that it is what it is)...The itinerary was outstanding...the food was great, the ship comfortable (even if dull)...

 

If the itinerary really wowed me, I'd go with them again...but, ifall things are equal, I prefer Celebrity...

[NeoJava]

Ann, here's something to keep in mind when picking a Europe cruise. We went on the RCCL Voyager of the Seas last Nov and the ship was great with ice rink, rock wall, night clubs, Broadway shows, everything you could want. BUT we found that every single port we stopped in was AWESOME and we were off the ship pretty much from early morning to early evening. After the day trips (many of which we took the train on our own) we were EXHAUSTED and on some nights we had barely enough energy to go to dinner on the ship! The Voyager is a great ship but we had little energy to really enjoy it since Europe is so spectacular.

 

Here's my point. The cruise ship you choose for a great place like Europe is the least of your worries. YOU SHOULD PICK A EUROPE CRUISE BASED ON THE PORTS!! Figure out which ports are most important (for us it was ROME) and if possible find a cruise that starts and ends at that port. Because of the time frame we wanted to travel the cruise we picked began/ended in Barcelona and stopped for a day in Rome so we flew back to Rome for a week after the cruise.

After you decide which ports you really want to see, pick out a few cruises and research the day trips provided by the cruise line. You don't have to use the daytips the cruise line provides but it does give you a start on what's available in each port. After you figure all that out, look at availability of trains and other transportation to see if you can plan at least a few ports on your own. It's much more enjoyable if you plan a couple day trips on your own. If you do the research you'll find that one or two cruises will present itself to you as THE CRUISE FOR YOU!

GOOD LUCK!

[Susan-M]

Susan,

Here's a quick comparison:

 

Thank you Steve - I have a much better understanding of Oceania now. I like some of their port- intensive itineraries and if I do book with them, it will be nice to know what to expect. But I will keep in mind that if itineraries are similar ....I should stick with Celebrity.

 

Thanks again :)

[Ashlea13vb]

Ann - I agree with NeoJava... for a cruise to Europe, the ports become very important. My boyfriend and I (age 25 and 28) took our first cruise last summer to Europe on the Grand Princess (Grand Mediterranean itinerary), and absolutely loved it! We had never cruised before, and so were willing to try just about any line in order to see the ports we wanted to hit.

 

Having said that, Princess was ideal for us. We loved the ports (did I mention that already :)), and the Grand offered so much to do while on board. One thing we also loved about Princess was the anytime dining. We did not want to have to rush back from our valuable time in the European ports in order to make an early seating, but also didn't want to be stuck with a late seating (especially because we wanted to spend time in the casino!). So Princess's dining options did have a slight influence in our decision, and it turned out it worked out perfect. There were all ages/nationalities on the cruise - a very diverse population, which we loved!

 

I would highly recommend Princess - it has great European itineraries, and was perfect for what we were looking for during our cruise.

 

Good luck!!

 

(an edit to mention that the itinerary we chose had for Italy stops - Florence, Naples, Rome, and it ended in Venice. Italy was important to us, too, and the Grand Med itinerary hit the ports that we were very interested in (and then some!).)

[Beth & Rob]

We are booked on the Brilliance for the 12 day in October with 3 days pre-cruise in Barcelona.

 

I've been to Europe a few times, but 1980 was my last trip.......DH has never been and has become interested in scene (landscape and architecture) photography.

 

I don't recall now that I'm writing this, but did you rent a car anyplace or take tours?

 

I don't want to restrict myself to long tours, I don't mind a couple of hours, but we'd like to get out into the countryside.

 

Any recommendations are appreciated......

 

Beth (rsimons@socal.rr.com)