Europe ports shuttle bus info thread

[jjow]

We sailed on the Epic last month, and in my pre-cruise research I had a really hard time finding information about transportation at each port, especially the ones where walking to the city center isn't an option. I basically couldn't find any information online about the shuttle buses, and when I did it would basically just say "some cruise lines have shuttle buses" but never specified which ones, and were always pretty vague about drop off points and whatnot. I found it really frustrating that I would do all this research and be fully prepared to take public buses to get to the city center only to step off the ship and realize there were shuttles right there. I just wanted to post here with some information about the shuttle buses that we either used ourselves or saw at the port. I thought other people might be able to add other ports where NCL offers shuttles. These are all shuttles that are run by the cruise line (they are not public buses), so in our case they all had the "Norwegian Epic" sign in the window, but NCL seems to offer little to no information online about them. 

 

Here's the cities that we saw had shuttles:

 

Livorno - drops off near the Piazza del Municipio in Livorno, cost a few Euro per person, paid at the shuttle

 

Palma de Mallorca - drops off pretty close to the cathedral. This one cost the most (I want to say like $10?) and was booked in advance at the shore excursion desk, but I believe you could also pay at the shuttle itself. There is a much cheaper public bus that will also take you into the city center, but the bus stop seemed to be quite a walk away from the ship so we decided to take the shuttle instead since it picks up and drops off at the ship itself. 

 

Barcelona - drops off at the World Trade Center. Cost a few Euro, paid at the shuttle. (Be aware there is a bus thats run by the port called the Cruise Bus that will take you to the exact same spot and is a little cheaper. However, I believe it will make a couple stops at other ships along the way. The NCL shuttle will take you right to your ship, but we did sit for a few minutes waiting for the bus to fill up before we even left, so I'm not sure it would matter in the end.)

 

Rome/Civitavecchi - there is a free shuttle that will take you to outside the main port area. I'm not sure how close it was to the actual Civitavecchia city center, but we took another shuttle (NOT run by Norwegian, this one cost a few Euro) to the train station to take the Civitavecchia Express train into Rome itself. 

 

 

If anyone else has info on NCL shuttles in other ports of call in Europe (or even elsewhere) feel free to reply. It would be really nice to have all this info in one place!

[TYTY]

I'm doing a Baltic cruise 6/2020, anybody have shuttle info for those ports?

[Sauer-kraut]

 

28 minutes ago, TYTY said:

I'm doing a Baltic cruise 6/2020, anybody have shuttle info for those ports?

Tallein and Warnemünde are walk to town ports.  St. Petersburg your tour guide will walk you to your transport after clearing immigration. 

[erdoran]

At Punta Delgado we docked at the commercial port and NCL offered a 15 euro shuttle into town, which I thought was very pricey.  We had a private tour and NCL insisted to another roll call member that he MUST take their shuttle or he’d miss the tour - I reconfirmed with the tour operator that they’d pick us up right at the boat.

 

OP, for the shuttles you mentioned,  did you get some sort of ticket when you paid so you could get back?  I’m thinking I might want to walk into town if doable, but have the option to take the shuttle back and was wondering if you paid at the shuttle for each way separately, or if you got a ticket.

[SeaShark]

4 hours ago, jjow said:

 

If anyone else has info on NCL shuttles in other ports of call in Europe (or even elsewhere) feel free to reply. It would be really nice to have all this info in one place!

 

Couldn't agree more, but the info also has to be in the right place.

 

FWIW, this forum covers things that happen ON an NCL cruise. Cruise Critic has different forums for the ports themselves. These are the places that you should research excursions, shuttle buses, etc. You might want to consider putting your shuttle bus info on the appropriate port board(s) so that people who are researching those ports looking for information can benefit from your research.

[mapleleaves]

In Livorno  we took the NCL shuttle directly to the train station,  $15pp.  They put a red sticker on our card to show that we had paid.    We could have taken the shuttle to downtown, then a city bus to the train station, but our time was limited and we planned to visit Pisa AND Florence, so it was worth the $15.

 

In Majorca, it was easy enough to walk thru the pier and hop on the city bus which stopped a block away.

[Corgster]

8 hours ago, TYTY said:

I'm doing a Baltic cruise 6/2020, anybody have shuttle info for those ports?

I did the NCL Baltic capitals cruise in May. Here is the info for each port. In every port except for St Petersburg there was either a public bus or a NCL shuttle.  All NCL shuttles were $15.

 

Warnemunde-Walk

Riga-Walk

Tallin-Walk

Gdansk- NCL Shuttle

Helsinki- NCL Shuttle

Stockholm- Public bus available

Copenhagen- Public bus 10 minutes walk from ship. Well signed-posted. Use credit card to buy tickets from machine before boarding bus.

St Petersburg- Must take ships tour or have private guide

Klapedia, Lithuania: I think there was a NCL shuttle.

 

feel free to message me if you have any more questions

 

 

 

[Moulshree]

If u are 3 or more people taxis work out cheaper in all the ports whether it's the Mediterranean cruise or Baltic. We were a family of four and never had any problems finding taxis and they were cheaper than shuttles and took you where you wanted specifically. Also I had noticed the last shuttle back is always couple of hrs before the all aboard time so your time gets cut short in the port.

[Budget Queen]

17 hours ago, jjow said:

We sailed on the Epic last month, and in my pre-cruise research I had a really hard time finding information about transportation at each port, especially the ones where walking to the city center isn't an option. I basically couldn't find any information online about the shuttle buses, and when I did it would basically just say "some cruise lines have shuttle buses" but never specified which ones, and were always pretty vague about drop off points and whatnot. I found it really frustrating that I would do all this research and be fully prepared to take public buses to get to the city center only to step off the ship and realize there were shuttles right there. I just wanted to post here with some information about the shuttle buses that we either used ourselves or saw at the port. I thought other people might be able to add other ports where NCL offers shuttles. These are all shuttles that are run by the cruise line (they are not public buses), so in our case they all had the "Norwegian Epic" sign in the window, but NCL seems to offer little to no information online about them. 

 

Here's the cities that we saw had shuttles:

 

Livorno - drops off near the Piazza del Municipio in Livorno, cost a few Euro per person, paid at the shuttle

 

Palma de Mallorca - drops off pretty close to the cathedral. This one cost the most (I want to say like $10?) and was booked in advance at the shore excursion desk, but I believe you could also pay at the shuttle itself. There is a much cheaper public bus that will also take you into the city center, but the bus stop seemed to be quite a walk away from the ship so we decided to take the shuttle instead since it picks up and drops off at the ship itself. 

 

Barcelona - drops off at the World Trade Center. Cost a few Euro, paid at the shuttle. (Be aware there is a bus thats run by the port called the Cruise Bus that will take you to the exact same spot and is a little cheaper. However, I believe it will make a couple stops at other ships along the way. The NCL shuttle will take you right to your ship, but we did sit for a few minutes waiting for the bus to fill up before we even left, so I'm not sure it would matter in the end.)

 

Rome/Civitavecchi - there is a free shuttle that will take you to outside the main port area. I'm not sure how close it was to the actual Civitavecchia city center, but we took another shuttle (NOT run by Norwegian, this one cost a few Euro) to the train station to take the Civitavecchia Express train into Rome itself. 

 

 

If anyone else has info on NCL shuttles in other ports of call in Europe (or even elsewhere) feel free to reply. It would be really nice to have all this info in one place!

Still vague information.  

 

 Civ. Free port bus.   City bus to/from train station is $2 euros each way.  Burg pass for Rome is 12 euros (Barcelona embark).  

 

Barcelona port bus is 3 euros 1 way 5 euros etc. World Trade plaza    -  NEW stop from previous.  

 

Palma-  bus 1 ,  1.5 euros to Cathedral   Have to walk all the outside the port to Main Street. 

 

Livorno-  5 euros. Ryan port bus.  Walk. 1+ blocks.  1.5 euros.  Blue bus.to train station   Buy tickets at tobacco shops stop across street near H& M store.      

 

Naples.  I walk to the Garabaldi train station.  

 

Have downloaded maps.    I purchase Vodafone SIM cards.