Help with Med Cruise

[kissmeyoufool]

My husband and I are going on an Alaskan cruise Sept 5 on the Mercury.We are interested while on board to book a Med cruise if price is right,OBC offered, room upgrade etc.What Celebrity ship is better for med cruises?What are the must see ports to stop at?we would like to go 12- 14 days. WE want to be Aqua Class ( Want to eat @ BLU:D)Any great rooms I should know about with a bigger deck?And what time of year is best and why?Thank you ,Thank you all for any advise:p

[CaroleLee]

My husband and I are going on an Alaskan cruise Sept 5 on the Mercury.We are interested while on board to book a Med cruise if price is right,OBC offered, room upgrade etc.What Celebrity ship is better for med cruises?What are the must see ports to stop at?we would like to go 12- 14 days. WE want to be Aqua Class ( Want to eat @ BLU:D)Any great rooms I should know about with a bigger deck?And what time of year is best and why?Thank you ,Thank you all for any advise:p

 

Hi,

We did E. Med ( Italy, Greece, Turkey) in June 2009 on the Solstice in AQ- great ports did all pvt tours.Have a list of drivers etc. Next yr again on Solstice doing W. Med ( Spain, France Italy, Montenegro, Dubrovnik). It depends on what you want to see/do . The Solstice is a wonderful euro-cool design ship. We had great service & food in Blu was quite good.

Carole

[Denny01]

We cruised the Solstice in Nov 09 in the E Med and then a TA out of Rome so saw many W Med ports as we left, and loved both. I'd lean toward E Med becaue of the mix of very differnt ports - Italian, Greek and Turkey. For offseason, there was lower temps, but still nice, and we were the only ship in for many of the ports. A number of classic tourist spots in town were closed up, but the port visits were fantastic being off-season. And it is usually lower cost for Oct and on. One real surprise was Kusadasi (Ephesis) - very friendly and loved the Ephesis tours.

 

Some of the 2011 cruises go to Israel and Egypt - very interesting.

 

Since you said you wanted Aqua Class, you need to go on any of the S-Class ships (Solsice, Equinox, Eclipse, Silhouette). All of them are cruising the Med (East and West) next year. Might consider the Shilhouette since she's the newest. But all the S-Class are very similar with only minor differences. We loved the Solstice.

 

If you are going AQ, don't plan on any upgrades. It pretty well set as being one AQ category with the only differences in SR is location. And if you go for a lower category SR trying for AQ, I haven't heard of many getting upgrades to AQ and even if someone says they got one, I'd expect it to be very low chance and if you want AQ, don't bet on an upgrade to make it there. Upgrades are usually from Inside to Oceanview, Oceanvew to an better oceanview location or a Balcony, and maybe balcony to higher balcony Class (location differences) and just maybe to Concierge, but not upgrades to AQ.

 

Check with a TA for OBC.

 

Enjoy!

 

Denny

[Lsimon]

Our favorite cruise was a 2007 Barcelona To Rome cruise on the Millennium. We had a similar Itinerary booked for this Sept but they cancelled it a year ago so we're doing round trip out of Barcelona. If they've reinstated the one way trips between Barcelona and Venice that would really be great as they include French riviera, Italy, Greece, Croatia and/or Turkey in addition to the beginiing or end in Spain.

[Bet & Peg]

In 2008 we sailed the Summit (12 days) from Venice to Barcelona - FANTASTIC! Pre-cruise we spent a few days in Venice and post-cruise a few in Barcelona. Both were s different but equally fantastic cities! The ports we stopped at were: Dubrovnik, Santorini, Athens, Naples, Rome, Florence, Nice.

 

I think you have to look at the time of year & ships and itineraries. Compare them and then decide what YOU would like to see/do.

 

Have a great trip!!!!

[junglejane]

Hi there FotoPeg! Yes, our 2008 Summit cruise was fantastic! (We had an awesome Roll Call group.) We are returning to the Med in June on the Equinox. This time we want to disembark from Rome so that we can have a nice, leisurely pre-cruise visit to Rome instead of a mad rush through the city from the port. Also we want to see Istanbul this time.

 

We would go in May if we could, to beat some of the heat and crowds. But we are taking our kids so the earliest we could book was the June 6 sailing. I loved Venice, and my dream itinerary would've been a Rome-Venice that stopped in Istanbul. But I couldn't find that itinerary in June, so we are doing the Rome RT and will have to miss Venice this time.

[Onessa]

Any of the S-class ships would fit your needs. We've done several Med cruises (RCCI and X. X on Century a few years back out of Barcelona. Solstice last November - Rome and Eastern Med). I'd pick by itinerary.

 

If you plan on an earlier Spring (April-May) or later Autumn (Oct-Nov) look at southern Italy, Greek and Turkish ports or the Holy Land/Eygpt itineraries. You can get a good value, avoid the crowds, and still have great weather. Early June and September can still be pretty temperate in those areas and crowds will be less. Later in June, all of July and August are the height of the tourist season so there will be crowds, you will pay a premium price and the more southern itineraries may have some spots so hot you won't want to get off the ship :).

 

We've always gone really early (late April) or late (last week of November) -we've had great luck with weather and the crowds are not an issue.

[kissmeyoufool]

Thanks SO much for all the GREAt info we are looking forward to this trip even though we have not booked yet.October or late Sept sound like a good time to go my husband does not like the heat but will not complain because he wants rhis as bad as I do..:D

[Bet & Peg]

Hi junglejane ~ Yes! our Summit 2008 Roll Call was awesome! due to you beginning it!!!

 

Our Baltic Cruise was fantastic and now we've booked a September 2011 cruise - Amsterdam to Istanbul! John's dream has always been to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar - so here comes 2011!!!

 

Hope we run into each other again at some point!!!