Grandiosa shore excursions-winter in the Mediterranean

[Southern latitudes]

We are sailing on the Grandiosa in early January.  We will not be able to leave the ship except on MSC excursions.  We will leave from Barcelona and will visit Marseille, Genoa, Civitavecchia, Palermo and Valletta.  We have never been to any of these places.  We know the circumstances aren't ideal, but this is the best way for us to spend some time with our son and is the only free time we all have.  I have booked the Vatican museum tour for Rome, but have not decided on anything else.  The Avignon and Aix-En-Provence looks intriguing in Marseille, but I welcome any and all recommendations for these and the other ports.  We are active, fully vaccinated and generally healthy, so a moderate activity level is fine; we could probably do a mildly strenuous one as well.

 

Thanks for all suggestions.

[zekekelso]

I just booked my excursions for that itinerary. Not saying these are right for you, but wanted to share my choices. 
 

Marseilles: e-bike tour. Saw a couple reviews that said the e-bike tours were fun and wanted to try one. 
 

Genoa: Aquarium. I love aquariums and wanted a break from “city” tours. 
 

Civitavecchia: Dying town of Bagnoregio. Since I’m being forced to take ship tours, I figured I’d go someplace I’d never go on a self tour. 
 

Sicily: Cefalu tour. Looked like an interesting city

 

Malta: Harbor tour. Really annoyed that there’s no way to walk around Malta - but I believe that’s Malta’s choice, not MSC’s. 

[perakcruiser]

On 11/11/2021 at 1:10 AM, Southern latitudes said:

The Avignon and Aix-En-Provence looks intriguing in Marseille, but I welcome any and all recommendations for these and the other ports. 

This is one of the best excursions in the Med. Marseille itself is not too interesting.

 

If the Cinque Terre are available from Genoa, go for it. 

[Morgsmom]

13 hours ago, zekekelso said:

Marseilles: e-bike tour. Saw a couple reviews that said the e-bike tours were fun and wanted to try one. 

E-bikes In January?  ⛄ brrrrrr 🙂

 

[Markanddonna]

We took the MSC bus to Marseille and did an independent tour. Maybe that is available?  The town was quite charming but I wouldn't spend a lot of money on a tour.

[LeCommandant]

4 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

We took the MSC bus to Marseille and did an independent tour. Maybe that is available?  The town was quite charming but I wouldn't spend a lot of money on a tour.

Unfortunately you cannot go on your own in Mediterranean cruises. You have to pay for an "official" –and costly– excursion. 

[soloadventurer]

Doing the same cruise won’t be getting off if MSC continues with its restrictions on passengers going ashore on their own.

[Southern latitudes]

Thank you to everyone!    Not thrilled to have only sponsored excursions but we’ve never been to any of the ports so it will all be new and different 

[Tapi]

We did the same exact itinerary with our kids 3 years ago (needless to say, pre Covid). Because we had children with us (6 and 8 at the time), we selected activities that would be “kid friendly”. 
 

We did everything on our own (didn’t book a single excursion, independent or through the cruise line), but I’ll list the things we did in case you can find excursions that incorporate them. We were very happy with our choices and would recommend all of them:

 

- Rome: The Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica

- Palermo: Hop on / Hop off Bus (for the record, we didn’t hop off. We just rode around).

- Malta: The three cities of Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua.

- Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia and the FC Barcelona Soccer stadium.

- Marseille: Cathedrale La Major and Vieux Port.

- Genoa: The Genoa Aquarium.

 

Hope you have a wonderful cruise. We thoroughly enjoyed doing this itinerary with MSC. 
 

By the way, we cruise in November, so the temperatures were already on the cool side and days were short (it was dark by 5pm). But none of that hindered our enjoyment. In fact, it was nice to sail when we did. Nicer temperatures and considerably less crowds. 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Tapi

[elbarney]

On 11/13/2021 at 11:58 PM, zekekelso said:

I just booked my excursions for that itinerary. Not saying these are right for you, but wanted to share my choices. 
 

Marseilles: e-bike tour. Saw a couple reviews that said the e-bike tours were fun and wanted to try one. 
 

Genoa: Aquarium. I love aquariums and wanted a break from “city” tours. 
 

Civitavecchia: Dying town of Bagnoregio. Since I’m being forced to take ship tours, I figured I’d go someplace I’d never go on a self tour. 
 

Sicily: Cefalu tour. Looked like an interesting city

 

Malta: Harbor tour. Really annoyed that there’s no way to walk around Malta - but I believe that’s Malta’s choice, not MSC’s. 

Of these, I would strongly recommend you to consider other options in Palermo.

I did the Cefalu excursion this summer and I found it underwhelming; you visit  church and a small walk on the village. IMHO not enough for the length of the bus trip. This could be much better if you were allowed to wander on your own, but that's not the case in MSC Covid times. For this December I'll try Monreale, I loved it when we did by ourselves, and if you have never visited the cathedral is incredible.

 

On the other hand, this summer we visited Civita of Bagnoreggio and I loved it. It's also far away from the ship, but IMHO this is worthy of the trip. Take into account that you have to go down to cross the bridge to go up, so it requires some physical fitness.

 

[zekekelso]

1 hour ago, elbarney said:

Of these, I would strongly recommend you to consider other options in Palermo.

Thanks for the tip. I certainly didn’t have my heart set on Cefalu.