eabb Posted February 2, 2009 #1 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I notice in the listing of shore excursions for the Insignia Athens to Venice sailing May 3, several ports have Ipod walking tours available. I think they cost $39.95 each. Has anyone tried one? And would you be able to use one Ipod for two people, perhaps by bringing your own speakers? It seems awfully costly to pay for two. Ellen Brantley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friscorays Posted February 2, 2009 #2 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Rick Steves has some free Italy and France Podcasts available, which we have downloaded for our upcoming cruise: http://www.ricksteves.com/news/podcast_menu.htm The Itunes store also has some free travel Podcasts available, just search the stops you are interested in. Additionally, walking tours can be purchased from sites such as www.audible.com We have purchased some walking tours of Barcelona, Nice and Pompeii from them. The price is a lot less than $40 bucks. Additionally, they can be transferred to more than one IPod. If you want to share an Ipod, adapters exist to allow the use of two sets of headphones with one machine (search "headphone splitter" at sites such as Amazon). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fetchpeople Posted February 2, 2009 #3 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I cannot comment on whether the ipods can provide service for 2 at the price of 1, nor on alternative walking tour options, but you may want to think hard about doing them at all. I tried one (and had reserved them for no less than 4 different ports) and found it to be relatively easy to use, involved lots of walking albeit for short bursts at a time, and included many stops that had little or no real meaning. I also was rather taken by the fact that it was not well sequenced, with some back tracking or doubling back to contend with. Additionally, some of the stops were of the "this is where the fire house used to be" kind. You can assume that the audio includes maybe 30 or 40 stops when you really only expect to see maybe a half dozen key places. Lastly, after this rather unsuccessful experience, I went back to my notes from such sources as Rick Steves, Fodor's etc. and confirmed my suspicion that there was so much chaff to find the wheat that I canceled the 3 remaining reservations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nparmelee Posted February 3, 2009 #4 Share Posted February 3, 2009 If you plan on taking your own iPod anyway, it is worth checking out some of the other podcast tours available. You can at least listen to the ahead of time and decide if you think they'll be useful to you on the trip. We have a splitter that we can use so two people can listen to the same podcast at one time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willmschen Posted February 3, 2009 #5 Share Posted February 3, 2009 We downloaded Rick Steve's walking tours before we went to Venice last September. We did the St. Marks Square and the Frari Church tours, and really enjoyed them. I hope Rick makes more of his walking tour available for downloading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChatKat in Ca. Posted February 3, 2009 #6 Share Posted February 3, 2009 We did the Rick Steves Ipod tour in Paris and it was out of date and it sent us on a wild goose chase. We were very disappointed. The O tours are recorded and the Ipods are loaned just like the whispers the guides use. They are prerecorded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlsdrgn Posted November 19, 2009 #7 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Hi, we just came back from a cruise on "Nautica" and used the IPod tours in Corfu, Dubrovnik, and Mykonos. Corfu's was OK, but the Dubrovnik and Mykonos tours were outstanding. There were many details about the sights that we would never have known from standard guidebooks, and it was great to be able to see the sights in whatever order you pleased, spending as much (or as little) time as you wanted. On one day, we shared one IPod with 2 people, which sort of works; we shared one headphone and each used an earbud. You had to walk exactly the same direction tho! It was easier with 2 IPods. an alternative -- check on the internet. A number of sites offer IPod tours, and might be cheaper.... Not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunDapple Posted November 19, 2009 #8 Share Posted November 19, 2009 We downloaded and used Rick Steves for the Roman Forum last summer. It was perfect. You can't really have an "out-dated" tour there. I highly recommend a splitter so that you can both hear the same thing at the same time, IMHO, it just makes for a better shared experience. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beach bunnie Posted November 19, 2009 #9 Share Posted November 19, 2009 You can also try Learning Out Loud. They have tours and books online. Some are free and others are low cost -- $5 - $10. www.learnoutloud.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LAexNY Posted November 19, 2009 #10 Share Posted November 19, 2009 We've used Discovery Walks tours. You can download them to your iTunes - I believe they are $15-20. http://www.discovery-walk.com/ We used them for Athens, Mykonos, Dubrovnik, Corfu and Rhodes. They were excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katz Posted November 22, 2009 #11 Share Posted November 22, 2009 We used them in Mykonos while on a Nautica cruise in October. I would suggest having a map to go with the Ipod. We had trouble getting our bearings. I thinks Ipod tours are good for visits to small ports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmgmd50 Posted September 12, 2011 #12 Share Posted September 12, 2011 We've used Discovery Walks tours.You can download them to your iTunes - I believe they are $15-20. http://www.discovery-walk.com/ We used them for Athens, Mykonos, Dubrovnik, Corfu and Rhodes. They were excellent. Hope you are still reading the boards. Are you able to download them to iTunes and then put them on two iPhones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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