Coming Back to P&O

Hello All

My wife and I have booked two future cruises with P&O:-

Ventura N824 (Spain, Monaco & Italy)

Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Rome, Naples, Cagliari & Gibraltar

Britannia B902B (Fly-Cruise Caribbean)

Barbados, Curacao, Bonaire, Grenada, St Vincent & St Lucia

We now have five cruises under our belts, Oriana x 2, Britannia, Celebrity Constellation & Celebrity Eclipse, usually we undertake a mix of DIY/Ships Excursions/3rd Party Excursions, when we have cruised before.

On the Ventura cruise, when we are docked in Barcelona I would like to see the inside of the Sagrada Familia and when we are in Rome my wife would like to see the inside of the Colosseum. Does anybody know if P&O operate excursions and a rough idea of the cost.

Presumably Monte Carlo you could walk around by yourself, we have been to Gib previously (done the Rock, Apes & Siege Caves) so again we could walk into town on our own. We have docked at Salerno before on a Celebrity cruise and have visited Pompeii, Amalfi Coast & Sorrento, are there any recommendations for Naples. I have seen TV programmes where Michael Portillo & Jayne MacDonald visited Capri when they where in Naples, is it possible to visit Capri when the ship is docked in Naples and again a rough idea of the cost. This will be our first visit to Cagliari/Sardinia.

We will be newbies to the Caribbean, so again any recommendations would be grateful, we will be flying into Barbados and flying back from St Lucia, so I don't know how much time we would have to explore these places.

Our last P&O cruise was on Britannia in September 2015, so it will be interesting to compare the P&O experience to that of our recent Celebrity cruises.

Kind Regards

Sid & Pen

Hi....we are off on Azura jan 13th to caribean...done caribean many times ...also stayed on various islands...it is so easy to get around most of the islands. Barbados is our favorite Island....just pick up a taxi / minibus at the terminal.the same applies to most of them, tell them where you want to go,...the normal thing is they take you ,,drop you off and pick you up whatever time you say.....you only pay them when they pick you up. or take a local bus ...bright yellow "reggea" buses $1 US or $2 ECD to virtually anywhere on the Island. Its quite a small Island so if you are off early find a minibus that is willing to do a island tour with other passengers (trust me there will be others) Either sides of the island is so different the west coast...with beautiful beaches....the east rugged and a lot windier....its a beautiful place with friendly people, dont be afraid to "go local"

In Barcelona it is fairly simply to simply walk up Las Ramblas and go to the Segrada. I can definitely recommend the Hop on Hop off bus in Monaco. We weren't going to bother, but we were glad we did. You can walk from the ship up to the Palace. It's not a long walk and then there are lifts up to the Palace Square. After we had done that, we got the HOHO bus. Really great day.

We used a company called SmartCruiseTours in Rome for a coach into Rome. 19 Euros. The ship wanted £51 for Rome On Your own. It was very good. We wandered around, saw the main sites, apart from the Vatican where we have been before. We were back 2 hours ahead of time.

You will find lots of useful advice on the 'Ports of Call' boards here on Cruise Critic.

You can take yourselves to the Sagrada Familia. Book online and take a taxi from the ship. The Coliseum can either be done by a ship tour or by doing an 'on your own' excursion or taking the train to Rome. Your choice.

We’ve done the Rome tour before and we went to the colosseum,st peters basilica,Vatican and the Sistine chapel. It included lunch and cost about £90.00 per person

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When we visited Naples we went on a half day tour to sorrento and a half day tour to Pompeii I can’t remember the cost but it was well worth it

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Ah just been to Naples. We walked ashore and visited the Palace, then we went for a coffee in a famous coffee house. After that we walked across to the Opera House and for 5 euro had a tour of that. Fascinating. Then we visited a large circular cathedral and there was a police wedding going on. We all stood and watched and then the bride and groom came out under an arch made by the Caribineri (sp). Lovely day and hardly cost a thing.

We did the ship excursion in Barcelona, which took in the Segrada Familia and also Park Guell, which is also a Gaudi creation, and well worth a visit. Think we paid around £50 each.

You can easily do Capri on your own - the ferry goes right near the where ship is docked. We have done this 3 times with no problems. It is not cheap- about 40 euro each return, but still probably cheaper than the ships trips and they will have to use the same ferry, Capri has 3 levels - the harbour, Capri and Anacapri. For my money Anacapri is the best to visit if you are short of time. There is a lift up from Harbour to Capri and from there buses or taxis to Anacapri. There are also taxis direct from the harbour to Anacapri. Plenty of info available online.

In Barcelona we have previously bought a T10 Travel Ticket and used the Metro Underground to get to both the Sagrada Familia and Camp Nou in the same day. We shared a ticket between 2 of us and had a lovely day travelling around and stopping for tapas and drinks when it suited us in our own time.

We have previously travelled from Civitavecchia to Rome by train and it is straightforward. On the way there we got off at San Pietro (St Peter) which is just around the corner from the Vatican then came back from Termini to avoid the crowds further down the line.

We were in Naples earlier this year and I noticed that there were independent coach tours touting for business in the cruise terminal offering trips to Herculaneum and Pompeii. We've previously done this ourselves by train but the station is a fair trek from the terminal. We've also taken the ferry to Sorrento in the past.

We were also in Cagliari this year and we just took a coach ride to the beach (again there were tour operators in the terminal area offering this service). The beach was lovely and there was a good choice of bars and restaurants. Previously we've done a coach tour of the city, again booked via a tour operator once we were ashore. I'd be interested to hear what anyone else suggests for Cagliari as we struggled to find things to do there (despite our usual best efforts to plan ahead).

All the best.

Damian