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Looking for feedback on the Constellation Barcelona-Venice 9-day Mediterranean cruise


Men of Armour
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We've done it on both July, September and October. You can book lots of tours privately for less and recommend taking a look at the port boards and trip advisor for ideas. Dubrovnik taxi into town is €13 and Rick steves books are really useful. We did a private tour to Bosnia which was fantastic.

 

 

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Kotor is likely to be a tender port. The old walled city is right where the tenders dock and is charming and walkable. Get the Lonely Planet chapter on Kotor as your guide. Don't miss the sailin/out along the fjord. As lovely as Norway but not as cold...Split is walkable also, if you are interested in the old town and ruins of Diocletian's Palace. You no longer have to tender there, which may or may not be a good thing. the tenders used to let you off right at the Old Town, but the dock is about a km from the town. Don't know if there is a shuttle from the dock, as we tendered both times we were there. In Catania take the shuttle to Taormina (Taormina on your own). EM

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August is very hot....

 

August is also very crowded with tourists....

 

August is when many Europeans take their vacations and many shops and restaurants are closed. Was in Paris this August for DW's big birthday and many restaurants and shops were closed.

 

Suggest September----even mid-later September = cooler, less crowded and everything is open!

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A heart-felt THANK YOU to all of you "first responders"... since the August trip is so close to fully booked I will take your collective advice and try for September... also, for you who are Americans... what kinds of airfares did you find? My assumed flight itinerary is Portland>Amsterdam>Barcelona. Delta has this amazing non-stop on that first leg on an A330.

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A heart-felt THANK YOU to all of you "first responders"... since the August trip is so close to fully booked I will take your collective advice and try for September... also, for you who are Americans... what kinds of airfares did you find? My assumed flight itinerary is Portland>Amsterdam>Barcelona. Delta has this amazing non-stop on that first leg on an A330.

 

I paid $1100 Denver-venice, Barcelona-Denver. Booked in Feb for September. Check on upcoming Black Friday. I’ve gotten great bargains then

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Just to throw this idea out before you book it....Consider going from Venice up to Barcelona. The sail away from Venice is something spectacular. We did it last September and even though the weather was not perfect it was still an amazing sight. If you are committed to the BCN to VCE route then make sure to be up early to watch the sail in and hope you have some daylight to enjoy it. As other have said, forget Celebrity's tours and book your own private tours. Join your roll call and you can find others to join you to make a small group. We did groups of 6 when we did tours and it was great.

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Kotor is likely to be a tender port. The old walled city is right where the tenders dock and is charming and walkable. Get the Lonely Planet chapter on Kotor as your guide. Don't miss the sailin/out along the fjord. As lovely as Norway but not as cold...Split is walkable also, if you are interested in the old town and ruins of Diocletian's Palace. You no longer have to tender there, which may or may not be a good thing. the tenders used to let you off right at the Old Town, but the dock is about a km from the town. Don't know if there is a shuttle from the dock, as we tendered both times we were there. In Catania take the shuttle to Taormina (Taormina on your own). EM

 

Some good points here ;).

 

Don’t go in August if you don’t have to, OP. Crowds, crowds and more crowds :eek:.

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Following. I booked the September 2019 Venice - Barcelona itinerary on Constellation since we had to cancel our 2018 booking. After reading the posts about the sail away in Venice, I decided that was the way to go. Very excited since both Venice and Barcelona are bucket list cities for me.

 

Enjoy your cruise in 2018 - please let us know what you decided to do re: excursions.

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After reading the posts about the sail away in Venice' date=' I decided that was the way to go. Very excited since both Venice and Barcelona are bucket list cities for me.[/quote']

 

Sail away from Venice is unforgettable:

 

-lLQjw6_0sQ

 

More about our cruise and also contacts of recommendable tour operators here:

http://travellove.one/Our-Trips/Adriatic-Constellation-1---Ven/adriatic-constellation-1---venice.html

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Sail away from Venice is unforgettable:

 

-lLQjw6_0sQ

 

More about our cruise and also contacts of recommendable tour operators here:

http://travellove.one/Our-Trips/Adriatic-Constellation-1---Ven/adriatic-constellation-1---venice.html

 

Thank you for sharing! I will spend some time reading your review/journal. I have looked at some of your other posts and they are wonderful reads.

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We did the Barcelona to Venice cruise earlier in the Year. Itinerary was Barcelona, Monaco, Nice, Genoa, Livorno, Civitivecchia, Kotor Zadar , Venice. We got off to a slow start as the cruise started two days late because of engineering problems but the compensation and the fact that the cruise line flew us up and back for the Monaco Grand Prix made for in our opinion a great start. Genoa we felt was just a real old city and did the HOHO bus. Livorno we freedom travelled to Florence by train visited Uffuzi/ Accademia (Michaelangelo statue) and trained back to Pisa for Leaning tower and train back to Livorno. Very busy day be what a day. We were able to purchase train tickets and prebook all entries and pay for them on line before leaving home.

Civitivecchia we stayed on board as we had been Rome the previous year. Suggestion if a freedom traveller get a BIRG rail ticket from Civitivecchia train station cost 12 Euros cover cost of train to and from Rome and have full use of metro. Kotor we visited the blue grotto and had a walk around the walled city. Zadar was a walking tour by Sime who really knows his onions. Our tours were limited to around 10 as cruise line tours of 50 are too big and impersonal. Venice we overnighted and we did the Doges palace (booked and paid on line) and used the HOHO ferry to have a look around the city. Whilst we only did an entry into Venice early in the morning it was still a magnificent experience. When going into Kotor get onto the helipad if you can. It would have to be one of the most scenic entries into a port on the planet outside the icy fiords.

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