Weather on January Cruise

[alibabacruisers]

Hi all! I am hoping to get your help. We are thinking about taking a cruise on IOTS in Jan 2011 (Portugal, Spain, Rome, Gibraltar) and we are wondering if the weather will adversely affect the cruise much. We realize it will be cold. Can you give me advice or your experience please. Also, what did you like or dislike about the IOTS? Thank you all so much!

[English_in_Spain]

The weather in the Med in January can vary quite a lot. At the moment here it is around 15-18C during the day but goes down to around 7-8C at night.

Some years we have had temperatures as high as 20-22C but other years have had snow. You will find the further north you go (eg northern Spain) the colder it will get.

It will definitely not be beach or pool weather but it might be ok for sightseeing depending on what sort of temperatures you are used to.

My recommendation is to plan on dressing in layers.

[alibabacruisers]

Thanks for the quick reply..it helps a lot for us to know this. Hopefully the weather won't cause problems for flights from Australia. We would definitely plan to arrive a day or so early and the same post-cruise.

[moogiechompy]

We've just booked the 8th Jan cruise on the Indy :)

 

London / Southampton will probably be either cold or rainy, definitely fly in a few days in advance because a bit of snow here will probably bring travel chaos. The reason we choose Jan was because I hate heat, have very fair skin so keep out the sun anyway and figured that there would be much less tourists in the big cities like Rome & Barcelona, plus we got a bargain for 18 nights compared to the 14 in summer. No matter what the weather is like on the cruise its better than those long dreary nights in Jan with nothing to look forward to...well for us anyway, you could try and bring some lovely Oz summer with you :)

[English_in_Spain]

Where are you flying into and starting your cruise and where are you finishing?

What are your ports of call?

[moogiechompy]

Not sure where the OP would be flying into but the two cruises on IOTS in Jan 11 are the 18 night ultimate med cruise from/to Southampton, stopping in Lisbon, Palma, Barcelona, Livorno, Rome, Naples, Cagliari, Gibraltar and Cadiz :)

[alibabacruisers]

Yes, we are thinking about that very cruise! It is a good deal for us too for the 18 nts. We are flying into/out of Southampton which we did before on our first cruise this past June on the QM2. We liked Southampton and flew in 2 days early to get time zone acclimated. We will do that again. This time though we would like to do some side trips to maybe Bath, Stone Henge and is it Warwick Castle? What do you think "English"? "Moogie" I agree about too much heat. It would be nice to be able to bring a small bottle of sunshine/heat for those possible dreary days on the ship. But I think it will be fun.

 

Since we took our first cruise in June I have been looking and trying to find the next one to choose. I had a good time except for the first few days out of Southampton...seasickness....luckily it got better! The IOTS is going to some of the same areas but a couple of new ones too. Such deicisions! For Nov-Jan I have picked out 3 possible but can only do one! IOTS (Jan), Norweigan Jade (Dec or Jan) and the QE (Nov). Maybe we'll win the lottery!

[English_in_Spain]

If you are sailing from Southampton in January you will probably experience cold weather for the first few days until you reach the Med. For example, tomorrow the forcast for here in Spain is 17C. For Southampton it is 3C.

I personally would not sail from the UK at that time of the year - too cold for me - but you might find it ok.

Can you not take a cruise that starts in Spain and goes to Southern Med ports of call?

[alibabacruisers]

English...we tried looking at diff departure ports but since IOTS had the 18 nts RT from Southampton we kind of liked that one. The N. Jade cruise we are looking at does RT from Barcelona. We will take another look though...thanks for the advice. Do you guys book on the RCCI site? Moogie...that would be good if we booked on the same cruise..already meeting another passenger...I get so excited about travelling and meeting others.

[alibabacruisers]

Moogie, we are contemplating 2 Jan versus 26 Jan 2011....our cheaper deal is the 26th ....are you booked on 2 Jan?

[moogiechompy]

Its the 8th Jan we've booked, the same room on the 26th sailing for us was £1000 each more :eek:

[mondas42]

This time though we would like to do some side trips to maybe Bath, Stone Henge and is it Warwick Castle?

 

Stonehenge would be easlily doable as it's only about 35 miles away, Bath is a little further at about 60 miles away, but Warwick Castle is over 100 miles away (111 actually), although very good (but expensive). Were you thinking of renting a car? If you do want to do these places, allow a day for the castle, and a day for Bath and Stonehenge

 

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.16472

 

http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk/