Cangie

Thank you all so much for the helpful replies and input. To answer a few of your queries: (1) The current plan is to spend a few days in Rome before boarding ship. The mother and I have been back in 2008, but it will be the first time for the dad. (2) I plan to book a place to stay w/in walking distance of Roma Termini and the plan is to take the train from Roma Termini to Civitavecchia. (3) I hear you about whether the excursions are worth it in Santorini - it looks like Celebrity offers a coach bus to Fira for about $45 each, which I may consider towards the end. I would prefer the arrangements to Oia, but those are close $100 per person and it irks me that they charge so much for these arrangements. Since the trip is so far out, I plan to keep my eyes on potential sales. We are not interested in other comprehensive tours as we prefer having the freedom to roam about and do our own thing. ONE LAST QUESTION: If Mykonos is a tender port and the ship leaves at 6pm, what is a safe time to plan to be back at the dock to get on the tender?

Thank you so much, Philly burbs and tribbs1!! Last time to get back onto the ship at ports was going to be my next question and you beat me to it! Thank you so, so much!! And thanks for the tip on Santorini tribbs1! Our ship departs port at 10pm at Santorini. I think our plan will be to plan to board the ship much earlier to beat the crowds. My old folks will not be able to do the stairs there - bad knees.

Thank you so much for the prompt and super helpful response! So in terms of getting off the ship at ports, it sounds like the earliest possible would likely be 30 minutes after docking and so to be on the safe side, we should build in about an 1 hour buffer (i.e., don't count on getting off the ship at 7:30am but assume you will be off at 8am to be on the safe side, particularly for purposes of booking off-ship transportation)

Hello, I have just signed up for a cruise with Celebrity leaving and returning to Rome (Civitavecchia) and doing multiple ports in Greece and Turkey. This is my first time and I plan to do mostly DYI at each of the ports, so I would very much appreciate guidance on the following three points so that I can plan appropriately for my family: (1) If the cruise departs from Rome (Civitavecchia) at 5pm, what is the latest time by which we must be present at the ship? (2) If the cruise disembarks at 5am at Rome (Civitavecchia), by what time must we be ready to get off the ship and around what time can we expect to be off the ship? (3) For ports where the ship is docking (vs. tendering), how soon can we expect to be off the ship? For example, if the ship arrival time at Naples port is 7am, can we expect to be off the ship by 7:30am? Note that we would DIY so no priority getting off the ship, but we can commit to be ready/get ourselves together as early as needed to get off the ship as possible. Thank you so much in advance for your help.