Norwegian Spirit - 14 day Mediterranean - May 2017 - Looking for help with excursion

We are doing an adults only family trip in May 2017 on the Norwegian Spirit to the Mediterranean. I'm looking for help with shore excursion. Since we have 12 ports, I can't afford to book shore excursion with the ship at every port. Are there any ports that you would recommend skipping a shore excursion and just walking around the city on our own? Or if you have any recommendations on local tour companies, I would love to hear those too. This will be our first and probably most of us our last time visiting these countries and we want to see everything we can without breaking the bank.

Here are our ports....

Barcelona, Spain

Valencia, Spain

Cartagena, Spain

Granada (Malaga), Spain

Cagliari, Sardinia

Valletta, Malta

Athens (Piraeus), Greece

Santorini, Greece

Olympia (Katakolon), Greece

Messina (Sicily), Italy

Naples, Italy

Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

Thanks in advance! :)

Here is a good resource on Cruise Critic for you to start doing research. Europe ports of call forums:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

Plenty of info that will help you out.

We are doing an adults only family trip in May 2017 on the Norwegian Spirit to the Mediterranean. I'm looking for help with shore excursion. Since we have 12 ports, I can't afford to book shore excursion with the ship at every port. Are there any ports that you would recommend skipping a shore excursion and just walking around the city on our own? Or if you have any recommendations on local tour companies, I would love to hear those too. This will be our first and probably most of us our last time visiting these countries and we want to see everything we can without breaking the bank.

 

Here are our ports....

Barcelona, Spain

Valencia, Spain

Cartagena, Spain

Granada (Malaga), Spain

Cagliari, Sardinia

Valletta, Malta

Athens (Piraeus), Greece

Santorini, Greece

Olympia (Katakolon), Greece

Messina (Sicily), Italy

Naples, Italy

Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

 

Thanks in advance! :)

A good source for information could be the Roll Call for your sailing

http://www.cruisecritic.com/rollcalls/?cruise_line_id=24&ship_id=299

Hope this helps

how many are in your group?

You can hire a 4 seater taxi or 7-8 seater minivan with a private tour company in many ports[expect 200 euros plus for taxi and 500 for minivan for 7-8 hour tour

I bet that will work out much cheaper than all of you booking via ship excursion and you will be able to plan your day better

as mentioned visit the Europe ports of call forum for research

You will soon get an idea of which ports you could DIY and which you would prefer a tour

Goggle Toms Port Guides which is a site that has DIY info for some of the ports you will be visiting.

Valleys you can easily walk around from port. I woul d recommend the wwII underground rooms. They were fascinates.

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We walked off the ship at Barcelona - probably a 25 minute walk from the port (across a bridge and then headed right towards the city) then we caught a HoHo bus.

We split tours with others we met through our roll calls here on cruise critic. One of our favorite tours was a walking Tapas food tour in Valencia. One of the roll call members set it up and we joined. We had a blast and it was a great way to see the city and learn some history. We also tried things we normally wouldn't try on our own. Now whenever we go to a new city we always look for a walking food tour! Great way to see a city from a locals perspective and try new small restaurants that we would never be able to find on our own.