Help with ports on med cruise... please

laurar3

Hi, I am going on a Royal Caribean Cruise in september and am visiting a number of ports, but the excursions are quite pricey and wondered if anyone could recommend any trips to do ? Or what ports I would not need to book an excursion on as I could occupy myself. Any help would be good as this will be my first time cruising.

The ports are
Vigo (Spain)
Lisbon
Malaga
Livorno Florance/Pisa (Italy)
Gibraltar
Cagliari, (sardinia)
Nice Villefranche (France)
Barcelona

taba

Would suggest you have a look on cruise critic but here is a start for you

Malaga - very easy to travel around using Public Transport there is a bus service that runs along the coast

Livorno Florance/Pisa (Italy) Livorno is about 1 hour drive from Florence you can get a train to Florence which stops at Pisa, the station is a long way from Port so if you want to see Florence by train would suggest you get a taxi from the Ship to the train station, we caught a shuttle bus, but then had to catch another bus to the station which wasted a lot of time, Florence is small enough to see most sights in a day not including Uffizi, would recomend going to Accademia to see David it would be better to buy advance tickets as you then bypass queue.

Cagliari, (sardinia) Was very manic very long queues for buses would suggest a taxi to the next village to get away from crowds!

Villefranche (France)- great train service to Monaco or Nice you can go to Eze but if you have not been to Monaco or Nice would not recommend it, it is beautiful but you have to get a train then a bus and unless you are lucky with timing it does take a while and it is very small and hilly. Villefranche is beautiful.
Barcelona would use the tourist bus they are excellent, just plan what you want to see. There are 2 different routes you should be able to find website for them. Would recommend Park Guell on of my favourite places in Europe.

Sorry can't help with other ports, have a great time.

moonrakerz

Lisbon: Taxi or good public transport system.

Gibraltar: Walk everywhere - twice !

loobs40

Barcelona has a good public transport system including a metro so need to book an excursion. Places to see include Camp Nou Tour and La Sagrada Familia all close to metro stations. There is a good Aquarium at the Port.

lawrenson

Hi

we went on a Med cruise last November, on Celebrity Century.

They are an American line.

We found that a lot of the excusrions were about 20% cheaper on board.

Cheers,
Karen

lisyloo

Lisbon: Taxi or good public transport system.

This may be true but just wanted to add my real life experience.

We got bus tickets for a tour in Lisbon.
Unfortunately we waited at the wrong bus stop (I think the ticket lady told us the wrong place but with the language issue we may have misunderstood).
Anyway we wasted a valuable hour waiting for a bus (which is quite a long time given the short time you have on a cruise).

We don't mind travelling independently but unless it's really easy I do have a preference for excursions because
a) they take you directly to the points of interest
b) it's their resposnsibility to get you back to the ship on time and the ship will wait for a late coach whereas it won't wait for individuals.
c) If the ship gets in late then chartered buses will wait. If you book something public and the ship is late (or boarding is delayed) then you might miss it.

Excursions might be expensive but you are pretty much guaranteed to get where you want and back on time without stress.

But I guess it's a trade off.

callow

At Vigo the town is directly in front of the port. It is a lovely little town with lots of shops and places to eat.

When I went on my cruise, most people just spent the day in the town.

laurar3

Thanks guys is there anything else that I should be thinking about before I go off on my cruise?

shinhead

we went on the ocean village round the med informal and very relaxed and if u look around you can get some great deals just a thought

moonrakerz

lisyloo wrote: »

Excursions might be expensive but you are pretty much guaranteed to get where you want and back on time without stress.

But I guess it's a trade off.

Agree, but it is worth looking where the ship is going to berth. In Lisbon it is almost walking distance into town, Gibraltar certainly is, Rome is a good hour from the port.
You can usually find details of berths by trawling the web. Before we went to Lisbon I found Queen Mary 2 berthed there on Google Earth !