New to Europe Cruising. Pls help select European cruise

[true45]

DH & I are retiring & have never been to Europe. Would like any advice on planning - selecting itinerary, time of the year (weather & fares), avoiding crowds. We are on a budget - looking at 7 -nights perhaps rome, barcelona.

 

Also could you tell us approx how expensive are shore excursions & your opinions on them.

 

Thanks alot.

[English_in_Spain]

My first comment would be that it is a long way to come for just 7 days. Could you not stretch your budget to 10 or 12 days?

Itinerary depends on where you want to visit. Only you can know that. write down your 'must see' cities and your 'like to see' cities and look for an itinerary around that.

Most western Med leave from Barcelona or Rome but quite a few are now leaving from Malaga.

A good time of the year would be May/June or later in the year Mid-September to Mid-October.

I don't know what sort of cruising you have done before but European cruising is nothing like the Caribbean. Very often the ship docks over 2 hours from the city. You will find your days very tiring. Try to pick an itinerary that has at least one sea day or one day you don't mind missing the port.

Let me know if you have any more specific questions

[newlifeca]

We did the seven day out of Barcelona, western meditterean. We went a week early and spent 4 and half days in Paris and 2 and half days in Barcelona before the cruise. The cruise stopped in Naples (we went to the Island of Capri and Sorrento on that stop) Civitavecchia, which is the stop for Rome, Livorgno - which is the stop for Florence, Villefrance and Marseille.

 

I'm not a good person to ask about excursion costs, we did all the excursions on our own.

 

You can learn about the ports and excursions on the ports of call bulletin boards on this site. They are a wealth of information and a good place to post questions.

 

The 12 day cruise on the Brillance also looks good, I would like to take that some time.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, but there's always too much too see in one day, and thats all you have in each city.

 

Going to Paris for a 4 days was nice, because we felt we had a chance to really see it.

 

Have fun on your trip

[true45]

Carol, thanks - did you mean that on each stop there is the possiblity that the city is 2 hours from the ports so that you can lose 4 hours of that day's visit or just where it embarks & disembarks?

 

We will take a look at costs to extend a bit, too.

 

We are so unknowledgeable, we don't even know where to begin to decide what we might like or not in cities -- but we will definitely try the port boards for info too. Thanks newlifeca.

[English_in_Spain]

Yes, Rome particularly is a long bus or train ride each way. Barcelona is near the ship. Florence and Pisa are long drives but not as far as Rome.

[vikielynne]

Yes, some ports are 2 hours from the city - Rome is about 1.5 hours & Florence is about 2 - 2.5 each way. I've done cruises from Barcelona 3 times now ( RCL, NCL & Orient) & love them. However, I've travelled to Europe many times over the years so I"m happy to have a short time in the port to visit my favorite spots or in some cases skip it all together.

 

Keep in mind there is so much to see & do in port that it's only going to give you a taste of the city & then you can decide if you want to go back & spend some time there later. I normally only do 7 day Europe cruises with 2 nights in the port city before we board & a 1 night stopover in London afterwards based on flight schedules. But I work for an airline so tend to get across the pond a couple times a year, it might be a different story if this was my "big" vacation.

 

Happy Planning:)

[Cruisebylandorsea]

While recovering from knee surgery, I watched Rick Steeves and other programs on PBS stations showing the different ports and sites on Mediterranean cruise. I was surprised by all the stairs in Italian cities. I figured I'd need to read up on port cities and plan to get library books.

 

One of the satelite channels has aerial shows with commentary from helicopter or small planes. This has been an interesting alternative to see the ports while recovering.

 

Hope to there sometime, but for now................

[xpcdoojk]

Well if you are on a budget, I would opt for a transatlantic cruise. Some start from England, some from Spain and some from Rome. They are extremely cheap compared to in season cruises. They do require more vacation time, but I think you mentioned retired:D. One of the big expenses is the flight, and doing a transatlantic will reduce the cost, and you only have the long long overnight flight one way. You can do a TA in either direction (I prefer Europe to USA because of those 25 hour days coming across versus 23 hour days). The tours in Europe are expensive and time consuming. The worst thing about cruises in Europe are that they tend to be tiring because you are in port almost every day, plus often have long bus rides at the beginning and end of each day. Thus the long crossing means lots of relaxing days at sea.

 

jc

[THEWIFE]

I agree that a transatlantic is the least expensive way to go. I would check out X and RCCL. They seem to me to have the best deals. When you run your check, on the destination click on "transatlantic" and also check out "repositioning". I've recently seen trips offered for as little as $895 for a balcony stateroom for a 14-day cruise. We left out of Ft. Lauderdale for the Med and had 6 sea days. The weather was bad at the Azores, so we didn't port and that meant 8 sea days. We loved it. As stated, the stops do come one after the other and is somewhat hectic, but what fun we had!

 

A few years ago, we did Princess to Northern Europe. It was great, but the only sailing was in August and a huge portion of the passengers were kids. Need I mention that it was anything but quiet? In addition, we needed a vacation from our vacation when we were done. Not as bad with the Med, I guess because we had less ports and we were able to go while the kids were in school.

 

Now that you are retired, you can pretty much go without much preplanning, so look for the best deals. In April/May it was warmer in the Med than here in Jersey, but we found Northern Europe to be somewhat cooler.

 

Most of our shore excursions averaged between $50 -$60 pp. Some were a little more, some a little less.

 

Whatever you choose, have a great cruise!;)

[kdowneymd]

In 2003 we did the Brilliance 12 day cruise out of BArcelona. My husband had only been to PAris for our honeymoon 17 years previously. We took our 4 children with us to expose them as well as ourselves. At that time there was a wealth of information about the cruise and ports in the ports section of this site. If you have never been to europe I think this is a great introduction. I would also seriously consider taking independent tours rather than ship tours. Trying to arrive a day or two early is great. If you can only swing 7 days then I would just go to Rome for 3-4 days and up to the florence area for the remainder and not do a cruise.

[mlfallis]

DH & I are retiring & have never been to Europe. Would like any advice on planning - selecting itinerary, time of the year (weather & fares), avoiding crowds. We are on a budget - looking at 7 -nights perhaps rome, barcelona.

 

Also could you tell us approx how expensive are shore excursions & your opinions on them.

 

Thanks alot.

 

Our first cruise was on out of Barcelona. We did an 8 day cruise with 2 extra days before in Barcelona and one day after. Honeslty I would not recommend flying and getting on the boat your first day. The time change will hit you and since you are in port most days you don't want to miss it. We did all our port adventures with the boat and for any post where you have to travel a great distance (Rome) I would recommend it as we left many people on shore that day.

 

We went in September and the weather was great, my in-laws did a similar cruise in November and ran into bad weather and missed 2 ports.

 

Another great option (but you need longer than 7 days) is a transalantic that goes from England to France, Scotland, Iceland, Canada, and lands in Boston. My in laws did this one as well and LOVED it.

[Browezilla]

For price, pick something in Oct. I've found Rome is cheaper to fly into, but be prepared to pay about as much for airfare as you do for the cruise.

If you take the trains, Rome is about 90 minutes away. Florence is 45 minutes. Barcelona is right at the port, as is Naples. As others have said, I would recommend arriving at least a day before your cruise, and ideally more than that.

 

The Med has been my favorite cruise, but it isn't cheap. Everything will be expensive, e.g. the cruise, the airfare, the excursions, etc. Roughly, plan for about a $1000/person for air, $1000/person for the cruise, and likely another $1000 for excursions. So, for a couple, it'll be in the $4-5000 range

[marci22]

The 12 night Brilliance itineraries offer a great selection of ports (Med-Venice and Med-Greek Isles). If I could, I would go early June or early September for good weather/light crowds but I have school-age kids so I have to choose July or August :(

 

As one poster stated, $4-5k range is a good estimate for a couple. It was about 23k for my family of 5 on a mid-summer Brilliance 12-night with balcony rooms and a mix of private driver/self-guided tours in each port.

[true45]

Thanks everyone - I really want to be prepared financially. Have heard Brilliance is a great cruise from alot of people. Right now am comparing RCCL & Celebrity. Have so far only done ship excursions in the carib except for a couple of taxi to beach trips. But I can research other ways. Thanks -- just afraid to get stuck in traffic & miss the ship.

Linda