Just back from our 7 day Venice cruise. This is my first post,but I got lots of information from this site before we went.
My summary- although more expensive, the private guides are worth it.
We had Daniella from RomeInLimo for a 3-4 hour Vatican/St.Peter's tour. That we could take an 11 and 12 year old for three hours in a hot, crowded art museum and not hear one complaint is a miracle! Do look for the elevator to the dome in st.peter's. In Turkey we had Vulcan through Ephesus Deluxe, also excellant. Again we went for hours w/ no "i'm bored".
On the other hand, at the Colosseum we joined an on-site group where woman had small microphone, too large a group, often stood w/ her back to us, we could barely hear her. (quote from my 11 yr old's journal "mom and dad tried to listen but I just pretended to and took pictures because I couldn't understand her). At Dubrovnik we rented mp3 players w/ audio tour, again the volume was insufficient, every time you tried to pause it froze up. one of them kept skipping. In both cases, the person soliciting the tour had virtually no accent but the person giving the tour had a strong accent.
I also recommend venere.com for hotel reservations. we did rome and venice on our own. were not able to buy train tickets from US but got them no problem in rome. new high speed train is under 4 hours and worked great (but bring your own lunch, food car selection is limited and runs out).
In all it was a great trip, the first few days were only mid-80s (weather is worse in NJ, expecting 101 today!). Happy sailing!
RomeInLimo questions
in Italy Ports
Posted
Just back from our 7 day Venice cruise. This is my first post,but I got lots of information from this site before we went.
My summary- although more expensive, the private guides are worth it.
We had Daniella from RomeInLimo for a 3-4 hour Vatican/St.Peter's tour. That we could take an 11 and 12 year old for three hours in a hot, crowded art museum and not hear one complaint is a miracle! Do look for the elevator to the dome in st.peter's. In Turkey we had Vulcan through Ephesus Deluxe, also excellant. Again we went for hours w/ no "i'm bored".
On the other hand, at the Colosseum we joined an on-site group where woman had small microphone, too large a group, often stood w/ her back to us, we could barely hear her. (quote from my 11 yr old's journal "mom and dad tried to listen but I just pretended to and took pictures because I couldn't understand her). At Dubrovnik we rented mp3 players w/ audio tour, again the volume was insufficient, every time you tried to pause it froze up. one of them kept skipping. In both cases, the person soliciting the tour had virtually no accent but the person giving the tour had a strong accent.
I also recommend venere.com for hotel reservations. we did rome and venice on our own. were not able to buy train tickets from US but got them no problem in rome. new high speed train is under 4 hours and worked great (but bring your own lunch, food car selection is limited and runs out).
In all it was a great trip, the first few days were only mid-80s (weather is worse in NJ, expecting 101 today!). Happy sailing!