Ultimate Rome excursion by NCL

[4774Papa]

Cruise prices are high and even higher when  you are forced to take excursions with the ship.  We booked a land tour of Israel and Jordan with Gate 1 instead of a cruise.  We get to see WAY more than port stops and it is WAY cheaper.

We will likely skip cruising for a while and look a more land tours.

[JennJ99738]

This new restriction from NCL is going to have some real effects.  I wonder how it will handle the "on your own" tours like "Florence on Your Own," "Pompeii on your own," etc.  We are scheduled for the 9/23 cruise out of Civitavecchia on Getaway but we have airline arrangements to arrive two days early and leave two days after the cruise.  What happens with that?

 

NCL hasn't done enough to both make passenger aware of this new mandate or on clear and what the ramifications are for those of us already booked, IMO.  

[cafevita]

Did this tour in june of 2019 and the bus was right at the port. We were escorted to the bus and the rest was taken care of! Skip the lines are a must if you want to visit several venues during your visit. If NCL excursions are the only way to visit now( and this too may change), why take the chance! Enjoy with your Mom, it is an amazing city!  Lunch is included and was fairly good but we did sneak off to a pizzeria while we had some free time , by the trevi  fountain . 

[CruizinKittie40]

20 hours ago, cafevita said:

Did this tour in june of 2019 and the bus was right at the port. We were escorted to the bus and the rest was taken care of! Skip the lines are a must if you want to visit several venues during your visit. If NCL excursions are the only way to visit now( and this too may change), why take the chance! Enjoy with your Mom, it is an amazing city!  Lunch is included and was fairly good but we did sneak off to a pizzeria while we had some free time , by the trevi  fountain . 

Thank you so much!

[ColdCruise]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:41 AM, DCGuy64 said:

I don't know how many people will cancel due to this, but we sure won't. We're scheduled to visit Italy next week on MSC and all of their excursions are cruise line-sponsored only. We've never had a problem doing their excursions and don't anticipate one now, either. My wife is a lot more concerned about Covid than I and I'm not sure she'd agree to anything else right now. So, IMHO, that's still a vacation. 😉

Having taken both NCL and MSC excursions, I would definitely choose MSC’s. Much more reasonably priced and not as much drive-by.

I am really torn on our upcoming port stop in Italy - it will cost us double to see less because we’ll be tied to a large bus group and trying to sight-see with 50 people who can’t/won’t/don’t follow instructions concerning times & thereby reduces my time to see/do things. 

Edited August 19, 2021 by ColdCruise

[lhwaters]

I know this is an old thread, but hoping it will be seen.  If anyone has taken this excursion, NCL rates it as a 3 (challenging).  Can anyone comment on this?  

[complawyer]

for what it's worth, the times we cruised to rome, we hired a cab. the price was reasonable, we told him what we wanted to see and he took us there. it's around an hr from the port to the city, so if you do this, give yourself enough time to get back.

 

rome being rome, (and it's a magnificent city) regardless of where you want to go, and what you want to see, there will be throngs of people in line.  trevi is packed, the vatican/sistine chapel are almost  impossible to get into unless you want to spend a lot of time waiting  in lines.

 

the best we could do was have the driver take us to the sights, stop for a few minutes and move on. at least the stops were at our direction.

 

unfortunately, just like "rome wasnt built in a day"  you cant possibly do it all in the few hrs ncl is docked. so, i suggest you decide what sights are the most  important to you and go from there.

 

best bet, ( if possible) is to stay over a few days post cruise, or fly in a few days prior.

[9tee2Sea]

I think I did this tour a long time ago.  I would not do a private excursion in Rome.  Transportation strikes ( or any other strike) can happen, which may delay your return to the ship.  The lines to enter Vatican City are really long, but with the tour, you just walk right in ( or wait in a much smaller line).  If you did a private tour, you will usually be out of luck if you miss the ship.  Our NCL tour got back 1 hour late, but they were in contact with the Port, and the ship was waiting for us.we may not have gotten inside the Colosseum ( drove around for photos), but having time and a tour inside Vatican City, and seeing Sistine Chapel) was a once in a lifetime experience.  IMO, that was made only by doing the NCL Tour.   Lots of walking maybe not wheelchair friendly,

[Travel R]

On 8/15/2021 at 7:49 PM, CruizinKittie40 said:

I've never taken a private tour and am leery about doing anything outside of the cruise line

When we first started cruising, we either did it on our own or through the cruise line. During the past few cruises we changed our ways and began taking 3rd party / private tours.  For the most part they have been wonderful and many times offer more for less than the cruise-line tour.  There are some times when we will prefer a ship tour, such as on our recent cruise. [8 ports during the cruise]. Due to a tender (and a cable car) in Santorini, we opted for the NCL tour [although they took us to the unannounced pier which did not need a cable car] and it wasn't bad.  However, we also opted for an NCL tour in Istanbul due to potential political issues and were not happy with how it was handled, mostly due to poor communication and handling of the issue by the part of NCL and the tour group (although the sights themselves were amazing).  All of our third party / private tours were amazing.

Edited September 5 by Travel R

[smokeykat]

We booked the Ultimate Rome Tour for our upcoming cruise. This is our 1st time in Rome. I feel better knowing that if the tour is late getting back to the ship we will be fine. Rome is just to far away to chance it in my opinion.

 

[jkbec101]

In 2022, we did this tour through NCL and I will say this.  It was long exhausting and there are aspects of it that were great and others that were not so great.  

 

We boarded the bus and hit the road from the port to Rome on time, but we hit a huge traffic congestion due to some protest in the City that day, never saw it, so couldn't tell you what it was all about, but it put us about 45 minutes behind.  

Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain and it was fine, we then walked from there past the Pantheon (never stopped in) and took about three minutes for the guide to talk about it.  We then walked past the Piazza Navona, where the description for the excursion says you'll stop for lunch, we were excited about this because we ate at the cafes nearly every day during our honeymoon twenty-five years earlier.  So to say we were disappointed when we walked right past and didn't stop was an understatement.  

 

We then boarded the bus and drove to the Coliseum and we went inside.  We spent about two hours there, far more time than was needed, but I'm biased as we've been before. 

 

We boarded the bus again, this time next to the Justice Courts and drove to the Vatican, where we were told we have 1/2 hour for lunch.  The rest of the excursion was spent in the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St. Peters.  St. Peters was really rushed.  We then had about another 1/2 hour to use the restrooms and shop before boarding the bus back to the ship.  

 

All in all the excursion was around 10 hours from start to finish.  

 

As an aside, my wife tripped twice walking from the bus to the Trevi Fountain and was hurting, she ended up with a broken shoulder, sprained ankle and cut over her left eye.  She was in pain, but she soldiered on.  We went to medical (on the ship), where x-rays confirmed the fracture. We didn't pay a dime for the x-rays, sling or meds (still shocked) and they wanted my wife to see an orthopedist in Naples the following morning, but we declined.  

 

We're returning to Rome in October 2025 and since this will be our 3rd time in Rome, we're opting for either Rome on your own or the catacomb excursion.