<p>I think IF I were to do a tour, the only guide I would consider would be Rick Steves. His shows are very cool, especially in hi-def. Even if you aren’t an art fan, his thinking is, “you’re already here, why wouldn’t you see some of this great art?” For our Italian trip 15 months ago, I used a lot of his tips.</p>
<p>I remember being in Rome at this hole-in-the-wall joint called ‘Filetti di Baccala’, which specializes in fried cod sandwiches, mostly to go. An English-speaking couple sat down next to us & we struck up a conversation. I asked how they found the place (we just happened upon it), and they said it was in the Rick Steves book.</p>
<p>Just to make sure, jnm, you didn’t mean that you thought Rick Steves himself guides the tours, right? He has a massive business, and spends his time running it and doing his shows and writing books…not giving tours. It seems every time I talk about his tours, people ask me what he’s like (he is a nice, interesting guy-we just went to a tour reunion a few days ago), but it’s like the CEO doing janitorial duties. Doesn’t happen!</p>
<p>What I really liked about the tour is that besides our own guide, who was an incredible historian and knew every in and out of the places, they hire local guides to show you the very best of museums and historical spots. They made it absolutely fascinating and optimized every second of our time, though we had some half days off. And we didn’t have to plan logistics for anything. I hate spending months reading about every little thing and then wishing I’d done it another way or ending up spending hours waiting in line. But if I was to go somewhere on my own, his books are amazing, useful inside information.</p>
<p>busdriver - Thanks for the excellent comparisons. We did a 4 day cruise to Bermuda for our honeymoon (returning to NYC with Hurricane Gloria -lots of excitement!). But it was on a boat that had been converted to hospital ship in WWII, so we are not all that spoiled. In my mind EPIC is overkill for a Med tour, where much time is spent on land tours (including bus trip to/from)… but we are not sure how often we’ll get a 2 week window of vacation so considering it anyway. </p>
<p>The EPIC base price not much different than Royal Carribean, but the EPIC-arrange land tours are killers (sometime over $200/pp per day). Probably great tours, but yikes. Many arrange their own land tours, but more risks for getting back to port on time etc. Will investigate that. The idea of ending in Venice appeals to me, except that we need to do this trip with United Frequent Flyers, and they seem to want you to do RT with same cities.</p>
<p>Wow, that is crazy expensive for the land tours. I know the Norwegian Jade does Europe too, I wonder if they have the same prices. That is a huge difference. I think I would definitely book a land tour with the cruise line for Citavecchia, as it is such a long distance to Rome, seems dicey to do it on your own.</p>
<p>We use Delta’s frequent flier program, and they are very liberal about doing open jaw mileage flights if the points are pretty close, within a couple hundred miles or so. Is United the same way? I think I might book that frequent flier flight pretty soon, as it seems as the time gets closer, they start upping the miles. When we went to Europe last summer, it started at 92,500 miles and the week before the flight went up to 350K miles!!</p>
<p>One great place that we book our cruises on are the Delta or Alaska sites. I’m sure UAL has a similar one. They always seem to give great discounts, onboard credit and miles that aren’t on the cruise line site. Are you going to be able to spend an extra couple of days in Europe? It might be worth really looking at where you want to start or end up at. I would definitely like something that allows me to spend some time in Venice, Florence, or especially Rome. Actually, there are so many great places in Europe. It is really hard to get enough of Rome in just that one day cruise stop. You know, you just can’t go wrong whatever you choose. There seems to be benefits to all of your choices!</p>
<p>We’d only be able to spend extra time at the ends of cruise (Barcelona, possibly also Venice if open jaw works). Working through those details. We’ve “drug our feet” a few year on scheduling due to kid tbds and work woes… but this year we’re thinking we could both get off late April, while in school. Fall is another lovely time for vacation weatherwise, but not sure that will work with work.</p>
<p>Yeah, Rick Steves was our bible as well. It was before internet was prevalent but we did a lot of faxing to make our B&B reservations. It was much more trouble-free than we had feared & we had a wonderful time. </p>
<p>Had planned a great trip for after S graduated in 2010 but we were pre-empted by the volcanic eruption. Ended up having a 3-week road trip up & down the west coast instead. It was a lot of great family memories together! We even took a sleeper train car from LA to Seattle! Saw some snow & several lovely national parks.</p>
<p>Rick Steves has a lot of fans! In general he encourages independent travel. (Even though we intend to do a tour or cruise for this trip I’m reading his “Back Door to Europe” book. We really liked his Ireland book in 2003 and assume they are all good.) I’ve heard that his tour company is great too.</p>
<p>Uh oh… my Europe-dreaming thread has dropped below the threads on vacuums and kitchen sink. We’re a practical crowd. </p>
<p>DH and I talked for a long time on the phone to a cruise rep. Her group sells Norwegian and other cruises. It was very helpful! We’re getting close to booking the Epic Med cruise from Barcelona Apr 29. Starting to check on frequent flier opportunities, either to Barcelona or Madrid (a city that DH has visited on business). </p>
<p>I’m concerned on how busy the cruise is with so many ports (and activities on the boat)… and limited time in each city. But it still seems our top choice. </p>
<p>Cruise Itinerary:
Day Ports of Call Arrival Departure </p>
<p>Well you sure as heck don’t want to drop below the kitchen sink, that’s just boring!</p>
<p>Advice on that cruise, don’t worry about how busy it is. It is a great itinerary. If you think it’s too busy, you aren’t forced to get off at every stop, it’s just an option. And you can get back on the boat whenever you want. What is nice, is that except for the last day, they have a long time in each port. There is nothing bad about extra port time, it’s just an option you can take advantage of. And you must, must, must explore Rome and Florence (forget about Pisa, don’t waste your time). I don’t know anything about the others, but I have no enthusiasm about seeing Naples personally. Maybe someone knowledgeable can comment.</p>
<p>Make sure and prebook your land tours early (the good ones sell out, and I think you can call and cancel if you change your mind…but verify that). Also prebook entertainment, the free stuff. Book it on the days that you are not in port, or aren’t planning on a long land tour, so you can spread out your entertainment on days where much isn’t going on. Make sure and book the Blue Man group, and Second City. Make sure and see Howling at the Moon early (don’t have to book), because you may enjoy it so much you’ll go back every night. Those guys are fantastic.</p>
<p>I can’t understand the appeal of cruises, especially short ones on the Med. It’s cheaper and faster to travel between cities by train. You have more time and more freedom to visit places you want and you will meet locals and make friends staying in small bed and breakfasts.</p>
<p>In general colorado_mom your itinerary looks okay, if a little boring but Livorno is quite a distance from Florence, do you know how much of your day will be spent travelling? As for Marseille yuk! It’s dirty and horrible, it’s a shame you won’t have time to visit the beauties of Provence, places like Avignon, Menton, Aix-en-Provence, Gordes and St Remy-de-Provence.</p>
<p>Yes, colorado_mom, I will agree that it looks fine except for doing Pisa & Florence in one day. By train they are 90 minutes apart, probably close to the same by bus. You’ll be on the road a lot that day. And the shame of it is, you’ll be in Florence only long enough to see how chaotic it is. It took me 4 days to figure out the charm of it, and then it was time to leave–I could’ve spent a month, and plan to do that one day!</p>
<p>Like Dionysus, I’m not a big fan of cruising, but to each his/her own. As I said upthread, I just can’t see running around like that, and being on someone else’s timetable. Yes, I suppose it’s easier not doing the packing/unpacking thang. We did a 5-day quickie cruise a few years ago from Tampa to Cozumel & Grand Cayman. It was OK, but my favorite part was wandering Cozumel during the day we were at port there, which we could’ve done on a separate trip. I don’t like standing in lines, and on this ship they were endless. Dressing up for dinner & forced conversations with strangers at our table? Not my thang, but maybe I’m antisocial… </p>
<p>When wife & myself planned and then did our Italian trip 15 months ago, I was truly amazed at how easy it was to accomplish online. I started about 3 months in advance, beginning with the travel logistics, then working inward to the hotels, tours, restaurants, etc. Took advantage of multiple travel forums & reviews. Got tips from friends, took everything with a grain of salt. And it worked out great. I just think that you cannot get a real sense of a destination without spending at least a couple days there & wandering, talking to folks. But that’s just me.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the good comments. Although we are leaning toward the cruise, I do understand the appeal of other options for most couples. Hopefully the thread will expired other families too, as time and finances permit… after taking care of the kitchen sink </p>
<p>I found a link with more details of the shore excursions.<br>
EXAMPLE - NAPLES: We’d probably want to do “Flavors of Sorrento & Pompeii” or “Amalfi Coast & Pompeii”. DH has Pompeii high on his list, even though DD has read that it is overrated. That’s one of the days that would require a long bus ride to/from. A shorter “Walking Tour through Naples’ Secrets” is also an option, or possibly self-touring.</p>
<p>Aha, so that is the reason to cruise through Naples as a port stop. I didn’t understand why cruise boats use that as a destination, as a friend was based there a few years ago, and she called it a garbagy smelling, dangerous craphole! Okay, that sounds bad. I’d surely look carefully into whether you’d want to self-tour or walk through Naples. But Pompeii, wonderful,I’ve heard that was fascinating. And if you can do the Amalfi coast or Sorrento, all the better. I’ve always wanted to do the Amalfi coast, I’ve heard it’s incredible, though a little bit hair raising driving there. Definitely on our next trip.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine the tours go to both Pisa and Florence on the same day. Don’t know why they would, it’s probably either/or. A couple of the cities I visited there, the guides had such scorn for Pisa, that there was no reason to visit besides the leaning tower, which they had little respect for. Apparently it doesn’t uphold Italy’s standard of beauty. But I’ll bet an arranged tour through Florence can hit alot. It would be hard to do much in one day there on your own, but if you have a guide to walk you through it, you could see alot.
Hope you update us after your trip is over.</p>
<p>The Livorno stop works the same way. You can do bus tour of Florence, or Pisa, or both… or other variations. There are van tours too, but I think those may need to be arranged by group. Similar variety of tours for Rome and the French ports. The French ports sound more walkable.</p>
<p>One summer when we could only afford 7 days, we did Prague and Budapest. Flew into Prague, train to Budapest, and flew home from Budapest. Gorgeous cities, architecture, music, castles, baths and fabulous food!!! Not enough time to do Vienna, but we did an unforgetable day-trip to Auschwitz.</p>
<p>A great winter trip would be Spain & Portugal. The lights and decorations are over-the-top, weather is much milder and drier than other parts of Europe, fly into Barcelona and out of Lisbon with trains everywhere else. </p>
<p>I would be afraid of missing out by being on a cruise.</p>
<p>choc - yep… pros/cons to cruise choice. Like colleges, fit will vary by family. </p>
<p>TRAIN TIP - For those of you interested in train travel, I really like the one page summary diagram in Rick Steves Backdoor book (page 110) - “Point-to-Point Rail Tickets: Cost & Time”. Between each city (coded as Eurorail or not it shows a line with approx cost and time. He also gives other info on the eurorail passes and such.</p>
<p>For cruise dreamers… today we bought the Rick Steves “Mediterranean Cruise Ports” book. </p>
<p>We probably should have also bought his Barcelona book… or another brand (we need to decide whether to book our own room or do it as a cruise add-oon)… but wow, there wers so many different interesting Barcelona books at B&N that I was on overload. </p>
<p>We also looked at Spanish phrase books. No rush on that, so we waited. Any suggestions for a good one? Simple/light and usable is a bigger priority than completeness.</p>
<p>Progress… cruise booked… frequent-flier flts booked (incl $160 of fees)… and pre-cruise hotel in Barcelona. Yay - the hotel has superb location, good rate (plus another 10euro for balcony room overlooking the city excitement).</p>
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