Med Cruise

[acme510]

Can anyone reccommend a first time cruise in the Med that is about 10 nights and is on a wonderful ship?

[MercedMike]

Can anyone reccommend a first time cruise in the Med that is about 10 nights and is on a wonderful ship?

 

LOL -- yes, almost all of us can!! And every recommendation will be different, based on our different experiences!!

 

With such a broad general question, absolutely the best advice I can give you is to find a good local Travel Agent who is a CLIA Accredited Cruise Counselor (look for the agent's diploma on the wall, not just an agency sticker). Ask your friends and co-workers for a recommendation. The service is entirely free to you. ACC's are trained to find the very best cruise for you, after learning your personal situation and preferences, and work hard to get you the very best rate.

 

The TA will have access to much more information and many more options than any of us, even the most experienced cruisers and posters, can have.

 

So, having said that, here is my two cents worth:

 

Check out our review and pics at http://www.elite.net/~thehalls/med.html

and

http://www.bully4.us/holyland.html

as well as

http://www.bully4.us/blacksea.html

for some great Med cruises.

[eandj]

Can anyone reccommend a first time cruise in the Med that is about 10 nights and is on a wonderful ship?

 

 

You need to decide a couple things. Western or Eastern? Lots of Greece with a stop in Istanbul? More of Italy? Start and finish in the same port?

 

We did Celebrity 12 days in September. Started in Barcelona...a FANTASTIC city that even 3 pre cruise days wasn't enough..

Cannes, Naples, Rome, Florence, Athens, Santorini, Dubrovnik and Venice with an added 2 days there. We LOVED the itinerary...had a couple sea days which was good for recharging. Enough variety, great ship, food, service and weather that could only be described as freakingly perfect for all 16 days.

 

I'd do it all again tomorrow. Well, give me a couple days to get packed and find a sitter for the dog!:)

 

I agree as you are not sure where to begin, I'd sit down with a cruise specialist agent for starters.

[sandinmyshoes]

Check out the Celebrity Solstice! Amazing new ship with amenities different from all other ships. Great itineraries...mostly Italy and Greece, but with variations too. She crosses to the US in Dec. for the winter, but should be back in the Med. next spring. Great rates too!

[kaerofan]

Royal has a great 12 night itinerary on the Brilliance of the Seas, with an overnight in Venice.

[pete_coach]

Check out the Celebrity Solstice! Amazing new ship with amenities different from all other ships. Great itineraries...mostly Italy and Greece, but with variations too. She crosses to the US in Dec. for the winter, but should be back in the Med. next spring. Great rates too!

Unfortunately, the Solstice will not be back in the Med. They decided to keep the ship in the carribean. Equinox is in the Med and is the identical ship. She was our first cruise and it was fantastic.

I suggest that you do an eastern Med cruise, one that encompasses some of the Greek Islands for the first cruise. It is just amazing and everything you can imagine of a Med cruise.

We are planning our second cruise and it will be one departing from Spain as this is another country we wish to see.

[rsquare]

Another thing to think about is ship size. The Equinox carries 3000 people, and can just obliterate a small port like Rhodes. On our recent eastern Med cruise, Solstice and Equinox were in Kusadasi the same day, and Ephesus was like the NY subway at rush hour. A medium-sized ship like Celebrity's Century or HAL's Maasdam is big enough to be interesting but not so big as to be overwhelming.

 

Our first Med cruise was western Med, round trip from Rome to Florence, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Tunis, Malta and Naples, on HAL's Westerdam. We found this itinerary to be a good mix of the relatively familiar and the truly foreign, as opposed to an eastern Med cruise where you are often in countries with different alphabets so that you can't even read street signs.