Crown Princess land & sea cruise June 12-29

[Gabrielle R.]

I have broken down the trip into segments. These are the things we did and what we noticed. We did 5 days on land and then boarded the ship in Venice. This is a rundown of what my husband & I did for our 25th wedding anniversary. This really was a once in a lifetime trip! I can’t say enough good about the Crown Princess or Princess. We were really pleased with almost everything we did and experienced.

Land trip Rome, Florence and then on to Venice.

We did the land trip through Princess. We didn’t want to have to plan our land connections, hotels, side trips, etc. My husband worries ALL THE TIME, so it was also to give him peace of mind, and in the end it made my world easier.

Rome

Day 1 Pick up at the airport by Princess went well, and we were to the Boscolo Exedra Hotel by mid-morning. A short wait and we were able to get to our room. BEAUTIFUL doesn’t even cover this room! Marble bathroom, plush robes- Nice, Nice, NICE! We were well located- 15 minute walk from the Trevi Fountain, 10 minutes or less to the Victor Emmanuel monument….. I think less than 20 minutes we would’ve made the Coliseum if we walked there. We were all over the place walking and looking… We didn’t get lost. WE did have a good map given to us by our Princess rep. This map was terrific. We generally studied it before we started walking and we could pull it out if we need it. I generally do well with maps and directions, so IF I’m the leader I generally don’t get lost… Note Generally.

First night we had a wonderful dinner at a nearby restaurant- can’t remember the name. This was part of our travel with Princess. So, this was already paid for. We enjoyed the wine, food and service. I’m glad we had a chance to eat here- we may not have found it on our travels.

Day 2, we went to ancient Rome. The Coliseum was first on the list- amazing. Our guide was great. Nice that we could get to the front of the line- so no waiting to get in. History nerd that I am I could’ve spent hours here, but for my DH it was just right. We walked to the Circus Maximus and saw the Mouth of Truth. We picked our bus up over in this area. Then we went to the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon. Very cool. The afternoon we were on our own. We decided to eat a late lunch and ate at a little place just down the street and had some really good pasta for a late lunch. WE ate so much that we really didn’t need to eat dinner.

Day 3 The Vatican! Nice tour of the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel. Same great guide as yesterday. Again, this was nice that we could get to the front of the line for this. The museum and Chapel were packed with people. Time in St. Peters was nice too. Lines at the Vatican were normal and we avoided the very busy day of Wednesday- which had more people because the Pope gives a special audience on Wednesdays in the spring. It was his last public audience for the spring so it sounded like it was busier than usual. All afternoon open for us to do what we wanted. Some stayed at the Vatican, others went back, we did that and then enjoyed more exploring by the forum area. Great dinner- on our own- we found some little hole in the wall restaurant. The waiter helped us get a nice wine (House wine) then we ordered a pasta and main meal. It was very nice. Not busy since we were eating earlier than most ‘city folk’ would. In fact some restaurants weren’t open yet for dinner. So keep that in mind if you are like us and like to eat earlier.

Up next Florence.

[fishin' musician]

Great stuff so far. We did the cruise portion and would very much like to combine a cruise with a land tour in the hopefully not too distant future.

[Regan]

Thank you, thank you. We are doing the land tour next year along with our cruise, and I've been waiting to see someone write about the land part. So, again, thank you very much. Do you remember the names of the places where you ate? Can't wait to read the rest of your review.

[Gabrielle R.]

Regan, I can't remember where we ate with Princess. I will see if I wrote it down any where. I paid for restaurants in Rome with credit card... Some cash in Florence and Venice... I'll check my CC statements when I get them in! I do remember the name of the Irish pub in Rome: Flan O'Brien... We love Guiness so we had soem really good pasta and Guiness in Rome. Hope that helps.

[Gabrielle R.]

Day 4 Road trip to Florence.

What a great time! The trip to the winery was so nice! Reminded us of the Napa Valley area of CA. We had a tour of the Verrazano winery. The views were great. The lunch was outstanding. It was nice to try the various wines that the winery makes. We got to Florence at about 3:30. My DH really enjoyed this part of the trip- he said if he could stay somewhere this was one place that he would stay for a while.

Florence- Our hotel: Hotel Cerretani was very nice! The location was great. Just a few short blocks and there we were right at the Dumo of Florence. We had lots of time to go exploring. We walked and stopped and sat in the various squares and just enjoyed looking. We ended up sharing a pizza and wine at a nice little restaurant. Still full from our excellent lunch- so the small dinner was just perfect. Sunsets in Florence were nice to see. We caught the sun setting on the Arno.

Day 5

Florence: We had a great tour of Florence. We went to the Academy and saw Michelangelo’s The David. We had a HUGE line; ships tours from various lines were already there. No clue what time of day they had to have taken off- were had arrived at about 9AM. Our guide still got us in fairly quickly. So we budged line over the priority budggers…. Went through the history of Florence- I knew it since I’ve taught Renaissance history for 15 years. It still was excellent. The afternoon a group went to Pisa, we spent more time walking in Florence- DH & I agreed we just liked the feel of Florence. We had a nice little lunch at a side walk café and missed seeing Madonna emerge from a store that she was shopping at.

That evening we had a wonderful meal at a local restaurant. Again this was one Princess had picked out and we had paid for, and It was EXCELLENT! We both agreed that the meals on this land portion were outstanding and the hotels really nice- nicer than we would’ve picked on our own. We had time for one last sunset over the Arno River. Beautiful! WE had so much fun that we were sad to know that we were leaving… YET excited about seeing Venice.

[Gabrielle R.]

Day 6 Florence to Venice.

If anyone wonders what time you get to Venice on this land tour, it is about noon! Something I really wondered about. We took off about 9 AM and arrived by about noon.

Embarkation

We were priority since we are platinum, so by the time we finished we were in our state room on Rivera deck 603 by 12:30! That involves getting off the bus, getting our bags, getting the forms, trying to fill out the noro virus forms AND check in and go through security. This was really fast.

The Crown Princess:

We went in with all the horror stories of this ship- NONE were true for us! No Noro outbreaks. The crew was wonderful. ALL were friendly. The food was EXCELLENT! This was the first time we can honestly say we NEVER had a meal we didn’t like. From the Horizon court to the main dining room it was consistently good. OK, the coffee was the syrup stuff… BUT the rest was good. We didn’t do any of the specialty restaurants. Most nights the Crown Grill was mostly empty. I have no clue about Sabatini’s we just never went up to look in. The little bar next to Sabatini’s did have people there. Nice area.

We did take advantage of going to Sky walkers for the Platinum & Elite ‘happy hour’ get together. We went up a few different times and enjoyed the views as we sailed away from port.

I really can’t say enough good about this ship. Clean. Friendly. We always found a spot to go. No we didn’t pay for the Sanctuary. In fact it was mostly empty- even on the two sea days. Service was always good. Had a blast talking to people.

We were originally placed with 5:30 dining in the Da Vinci… We changed to anytime (Which we wanted just was placed there at the start.) No problem switching. We explained it wasn’t service for the switch, we just wanted to have enough time to watch the sail away and knew we wouldn’t be ready until 6:30/7 every night. We never had a problem with seating. We always shared a table. One night the line was rather long at the Da Vinci dining room so we went to the Michelangelo, there was no wait there so we were seated right away. So no problem trying to be seated for dinner. I did notice long lines for a 8:30/9 seatings….. but we don’t eat that late so it didn’t affect us.

One nice thing is how the ship set up a port talk for each port. It wasn’t the sales talk, but a person who has travelled in the area. She mentions what there is to see and do. What Princess does, BUT also what you can do on your own. This was nice. We often watched the TV replay of the port lecture. We generally watched that before going to bed. This was really nice since we liked what she said, and showed. It was about 20-30 minutes to watch from start to finish. Morning show was good too. Lisa Ball was the CD she did a nice job.

This was port intensive. We took a few ships tours and then we also explored on our own. I will break down by port:

Next up Venice:)

[Gabrielle R.]

Venice:

We got onboard the ship at 12:30. We checked out our stateroom and grabbed something to eat. It was so much fun just running around the ship. We spent time getting our suitcases unpacked and getting the lay of the ship set. We looked over the map for the City of Venice. DH said, Well, this should be easy to get around to St. Marks, we won’t need a map… You do know that those are the famous last words right?

We went into town after a few of the cruise ships were leaving. We ate at 5:30- and knew that we would have to change our dining to anytime at that point. We figured that now after 6:30 the city was A bit less crowded.

Getting into Venice from the port. We took the people mover. This was a raised el train that probably took us about 500-800 yards. For 1 Euro for one way it was OK… We saw some people walking, but with all the high bridges running over to the city we just got lazy and did the mover. It was just faster.

On our way to St. Marks- minus a map… we promptly got lost. Yes, I had that feeling. WE wandered through Venice and really just had to laugh when we ended up on THE OTHER side of the canal looking at St. Marks! We had wandered until almost 9:30 when we finally made our way back to the original starting point. We were tired and decided to go back to the ship. We laughed as we got back onboard about 10 PM and we just said, let’s just try it in the morning- WITH A MAP!

The next morning, armed with a map, we took off for St. Mark’s… there were few crowds at 8AM and we swiftly found our way. It was so neat to see the square with so few tourists there. In the end we just explored all around and finally headed back about 10:30(ish) and back on board by 11:00(ish). The sail away was set for 1:30.

Sailing from Venice is AMAZING! We pushed back from the pier and the Crown had beautiful Italian music playing as we quietly made our way along the city. (Some of the same areas that we found ourselves the night before.) I really cannot use enough words to describe this experience. We just looked at each other and said: Can we have a more romantic experience than this? We decided no. It really was amazing. I feel bad when I heard some won’t get to see that sail away since it was one of those things that we will remember always.

[cormike1]

Loving your review so far...looking forward to the rest. We are trying to decide how to tour Italy and this is giving us a great view. We are also looking at a bus tour. Was there an option going to Pisa as I really would like to see the Leaning Tower? I to would book everything through Princess if we chose this route...no worries about where to buy tickets or anything like that....my husband worries to lol. Thanks.

[Suzy'Q]

Thanks for the review! We're on this cruise in September, and are also doing Rome and Florence pre-cruise (on our own). Our first trip to the Med, can't wait!

[caribill]

Was there an option going to Pisa as I really would like to see the Leaning Tower?

 

I have been to Pisa twice with Princess excursions.

 

The first was a visit as part of a combined Florence and Pisa tour. There was suffient time at Pisa to see it all.

 

The second was to Pisa only and included climbing to the top of the tower, a great experience. I do not know if Princess still offers this excursion.

[srpilo]

Great start !!

 

 

 

 

Btw.. Very well written :)

Srpilo

[lovevacadays]

Fabulous! I'm looking forward to reading more of your review. The more reviews I read that include Venice the more excited I get for my cruise next year.

 

Happy to hear you had a wonderful cruise and enjoyed the lovely Crown Princess.:)

[Gabrielle R.]

Loving your review so far...looking forward to the rest. We are trying to decide how to tour Italy and this is giving us a great view. We are also looking at a bus tour. Was there an option going to Pisa as I really would like to see the Leaning Tower? I to would book everything through Princess if we chose this route...no worries about where to buy tickets or anything like that....my husband worries to lol. Thanks.

Cormike; When we were in Florence our guide set up a tour of Pisa. It is a bit over an hour drive to Pisa, then they did a tour and then time on their own, and then back to Florence. In all it was was about a 5 hour adventure.... I had seen Pisa before so we both decided to just hang out and explore Florence mroe. We really didn't get tired of exploring. Two other people went to the other big art museum... can't think of the name. They said that was outstanding too.

[Gabrielle R.]

Thanks for the kind words! I really searched for information on the trip before we left, so I know how excited all of you are getting to go on your trip! If you have any questions just fire away! I'll try to answer! OR someone else may know too!

[Gabrielle R.]

Dubrovnik

We did this port on our own. We walked into town- about 1 ½-2 miles. There is a shuttle I think it was 7 Euro each for round trip. DH & I walk a lot so this was the main reason why we chose to walk. It was a nice walk, and we often stopped and looked at the views. The city center was WILD. TONS of people there. We walked around trying to decide WHERE we should go to get up on the walls. We finally picked an entrance- Not sure which one, but it is the one where we had a higher (The most scary area for me) first.

The wall was really neat. I’m glad that we did it. I think the cost was about $12 each, not a bad price for a very enjoyable walk. (Our VISA bill shows $24.64 for cost). There is a stop about mid-way for a snack or beer break. We didn’t do it since we had just started out. We were almost done when we ran into another ‘rest stop.’ Nice to find these stops while walking! One area looks like you could swim in the sea.. not sure how to get down there... I didn't have a swim suit so it really wasn't an option either.

I have a really hard time with heights. There were a few spots that I hugged the wall, but I generally did ok. I was cautious walking to an edge- with nobody near me, and then I can do it. The walls are nice and thick so I didn’t feel like I was on the edge of a wall. That was the key to my comfort. My advice, BRING WATER! June was very hot already, and we were pretty hot when we got down from the wall. The walk back was long and hot too. (Yes, by this time I was wishing my DH wasn’t so tight with the money and had bought tickets. It was only because I was hot…… not crabby!) Though the walk back really was nice, and we stopped at a nice little park on the way back.. Oh yeah,,, it was sown hilll most of the way so that was a plus! It really was enjoyable. I don’t think we would’ve done anything different.

Music. This seems odd, but the music was so nice wherever we went. The Crown always had nice music playing. Mostly instrumental music. Especially the morning by the aft pool where we had our syrup coffee, the music was nice. AS we wandered the streets of Dubrovnik we often heard nice classical music. It just added to the atmosphere. (Keep in mind I am a rock-n-roller, with tendencies to odd music tastes.. I can go from 1930’s/40’s music, to Lady Gaga…. Country not so much- only short periods of it…., so I like most music. The instrumental music on this trip just made it so nice to listen to.

[Coolmama_1]

Thank you for sharing your fabulous trip!

[Gabrielle R.]

Thank you for sharing your fabulous trip!

You are welcome!

[Gabrielle R.]

Corfu Greece:

This we did on our own. Most of the tours offered by Princess seemed rather expensive. We walked into town from the ship. It was a nice easy walk- compared to Dubrovnik! WE walked through the market…. The fish stalls were really neat to see- wish I had a place to cook some of the food up… Of course I’d have to be a really good cook to cook up the squid we saw!

This is a very walkable city. Maps everywhere (In English) telling the walker where they are. We explored and saw St. Spiro’s church…. Even St. Spiro’s… mummified remains… still rather interesting. We didn’t go into the castle/fortress. I think it was about 10-12 Euro’s each. The sights would’ve been nice, but just chose not to. We walked the large park, and poked around the sites. Sat down by the water’s edge you could swim within sight of the fortress.

One thing that surprised us is the amount of marble everywhere. The sidewalks are marble. The reason is- marble is cheaper than cement. That was a surprise to us. I visited many of the churches. I wore a lose skirt that day and brought a shawl for my shoulders. There were so many beautiful churches just to see, I enjoyed that.

Olympia next!

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your review.

[nunuc2000]

Really enjoying your review so far... please keep it coming! We're on the same trip in October (but doing our own land tour portion for a week in advance) and I'm soaking up every bit of info I can get to help me plan for this trip of a lifetime. I'm especially enjoying reading about your experiences doing things on your own in each locale... thanks! :)

[fishin' musician]

Thanks again. Recall the excitement of the fire that left us hung up for a half hour or so just after entering the channel in Venice.

[Gabrielle R.]

Thanks again. Recall the excitement of the fire that left us hung up for a half hour or so just after entering the channel in Venice.

YUP! Chose not to mention that! Did you see the guard for the belt that 'melted'? We did... THREE workmen carried it out and it was toasted.

[Gabrielle R.]

I was really excited for this port. I really wanted to see ancient Olympus. We did chose a ship’s sponsored tour. I was worrying since it left in the afternoon. I KNEW it would be hot. DH would’ve been worrying about the train…. I wasn’t as worried, but figured the cost was close, so peace of mind for DH was worth the cost difference.

Where we docked there is a little beach- At the end and left of the pier as you walk out. ALL Rocks… you have to pay to use the chairs. We hung out on the little rocky beach for about 2 hours. We went in the VERY COLD water. I’m not a big wimp, but it was cold, so I didn’t get as wet as I wanted to. We did walk through the little town and looked at the tourist stuff… Nothing screamed buy me… but they did have some nice things.

Our tour for Olympia took off at 12:30. I was worried about the heat. Our guide was very good. We got to Olympia at about 1. The crowds had thinned out by the time we got there. I really enjoyed learning about the history. When we stopped to hear about some point of interest, our guide stopped under trees so the heat was bearable.

The high light for us was going onto the ancient Olympic track. We were the only ones there! We were big enough dorks to run on the track and of course posed at the starting line and the finish line. It was really neat. Yes, it was hot, but no crowds for 10 minutes on the track, that was really good. We had about an hour to wander and look at the rest of the grounds. Yes, I could’ve stayed here for an entire day, but DH felt that the time there (about 2 hours) was good for him. We didn’t do the museum there. If we had done the earlier tour we could’ve seen that. All in all we were really pleased with the tour. I haven’t ruined my husband out or museum-ed him out- which is part of my goal here. A true history geek could spend days and not be bored… I realize that. We got back to the ship with about ½ hour before we had to be back. So just enough time to do what we wanted.

[Gabrielle R.]

We again chose to do a tour with Princess. We really didn’t know how things would be since the election had just taken place… NO PROBLEMS! I was really surprised to find that Piraeus really is just part of Athens…. I was under the impression that it was an hour away from Athens… this wasn’t the case.

We did the Acropolis, National museum, lunch and the Plataka tour. We had booked early and it was actually $10 less than what the ship tour was shown, so booking early was good here. We left the ship about 8/8:15 AM, and were out and climbing to the Acropolis by 8:45/9 AM…. AND we weren’t the first group off the ship. Getting to the Acropolis was a hike. The steps are of marble so they do get slick. Marble is found throughout the acropolis so be careful walking, we slid more than once. The crowds were pretty thick, our guide gave us the basic information for the Parthenon, and then set us free to explore on our own. I would say we had a good hour of exploring the area. This really was just about the right amount of time. Very few areas had shade so getting there early was good.

The National Museum was interesting. We had about 2 hours there (?) We were shown the best known works of art and then had time on our own to explore. Our group was really good about getting to where we needed to be so we had time to explore more since we were all prompt.

Lunch was really good! We were at the Hilton (I think) in Athens, the food was very good. They had red or white wine for us, plus water- natural or fizzy as they called it. Plus some had Coke or Beer instead of the wine. Wine was good.

After lunch we walked through the shopping area of the Plataka. It was fine.. we spent about 1 hour there.. more than enough time for me. We did buy two bottles of wine and enjoyed them later on board the ship later on. You can buy just about anything possible here. Lots of table cloths, jewelry, other things…

We headed back to the ship, after a very long day. It was really interesting and we liked our ships tour. We were glad that we didn’t have any problem in Athens, we were worried, and the worries were for naught. Everything was fine. The Greek people were very nice and we enjoyed what we did. Up next Mykonos!

[Regan]

Gabrielle R, thanks again for your wonderful review. When you were in Rome, do you remember if Princess had excursions available (for purchase) on your free afternoons and/or nights? If so, do you remember what was available? We would like to do some other walks and, perhaps, visit some museums (would love to see the Borghese Gallery). I don’t want to book them elsewhere if Princess will have them available. Thanks again for all the info you are providing us.