Trip Report: Amalfi Coast (Salerno) and Siracusa ports!

[fishiecrackers]

We just returned from our European adventure, and I wanted to post a report on our Italy port experiences, as this board was so helpful to me when planning!

 

About our trip: I traveled with my husband and 3 teenagers (ages 13, 16, and 17). We were in Italy for a week before the cruise and went to Venice, Florence, and Rome. Happy to answer any questions on these cities as well, but we didn't do them as port days. Our trip was at the beginning of high season, from June 4-22.

 

Transportation: We decided to take private transport from Rome to Civitavecchia. We used RomeCabs, and it was pretty easy. By this point in the trip I figured we'd be tired of navigating, and didn't want to deal with public transportation. Our driver was running a little late due to blocked streets near our VRBO, so I think we ended up leaving about a half hour later than we were supposed to, but we made it right on time for a 1pm checkin. I purposely did a late checkin because we had so many early mornings on this trip, and I wanted to stay at our VRBO as long as possible in the morning.

 

Day 1: Amalfi Coast (Salerno)

This was one of our longest days of our cruise. My husband and two of my kids REALLY wanted to see Pompeii, and my daughter and I REALLY wanted to see Positano. We decided to book a private tour through Italytours.eu that does both, largely because they have a guarantee to get you back to the boat on time, and I know the roads can be a little hairy around that area. I had told them ahead of time that Positano was important to me, and I wanted to spend more time there than Sorrento.

 

I have mixed feelings about this excursion. It ended up being a LOT of time in the car. It was an 8-hour excursion, and we probably spent 5 hours in the car. Our driver was excellent, and pulled off for some great pictures and told us interesting things the entire time. From the port, we went north to the highway, then dropped down through the mountains, popping out near Ravello, instead of driving completely along the coast. We met our driver at 8:15am and got to Positano at about 11:15am. We got about an hour in Positano, and I would've loved to have had more time. By the time we found a bathroom and got a little snack, we hardly had any time left to walk around. Then it was back in the car at about 12:15. We drove through Sorrento but did not stop, and honestly I think we all fell asleep during this leg. We got to Pompeii around 1:15 and met our guide, since we had chosen to do a guided tour. She was fantastic. This was one of the only places we paid for a guide in our whole trip, and it was DEFINITELY worth the extra cost. We all loved Pompeii. We met back up with our driver at 3:30ish, and drove back to the port from there. We had a stop for some fresh mozzarella, and I think we got to the port at about 4:30pm.

 

Day 2: Siracusa, Sicily

This day we were originally scheduled to do a Royal Caribbean excursion called Taormina On Your Own, which was essentially just transportation to and from Taormina. However, we were getting tired by this point in the trip, and all of us unanimously felt like we didn't want another early morning with a bunch of driving to just see somewhere for an hour or so, and we canceled it. Our port had been changed from Messina (45 mins from Taormina) to Siracusa (1.5 mins from Taormina), and it was just too much driving. I'm sad because I really wanted to go to Taormina, but we needed a quieter day after what we'd done so far. So we slept in, had breakfast, and then walked into the town of Ortigia (about 10 mins from port). We went to the market, and then walked around to some shops. Then we split up, because some of us wanted to go to the little beach and some didn't. My son, daughter, and I had a little beach time, then went to get some sandwiches at a place we had seen on TikTok, haha. We finished up with some delicious gelato and granita, then got back on the boat! While I'm bummed to have missed Taormina, I've learned when traveling with my kids that pushing ourselves never ends well, so I'm glad we had kind of a chill day.

 

And that was it for Italy! We also had one port in Turkey and two in Greece, which I will also add to those port forums. We finished with a few days in Athens, and then went home! Happy to answer any questions about any part of the trip!

Edited June 29, 2023 by fishiecrackers

[euro cruiser]

11 hours ago, fishiecrackers said:

I have mixed feelings about this excursion. It ended up being a LOT of time in the car. It was an 8-hour excursion, and we probably spent 5 hours in the car.

 

We hear this frequently.  Knowing what you do now, would you choose to do it again?  What would you change about the day?

 

I always feel like the bearer of doom and gloom when posters ask how to cram in Pompei and the Amalfi Coast into one day.

 

I wonder if your day would have been more of what you wanted if you'd taken a ferry from Salerno to Positano, then had the driver pick you up there for the rest of the day.  A ferry from Molo Manfredi, adjacent to the cruise port, would have dropped you in Positano at 9:30, giving you two more hours in Positano.

 

Doing it this way would have cost you more, because the car service was going to charge you the same amount for five hours as they did for eight, but in retrospect would you have made that tradeoff?

[fishiecrackers]

That would've been a better way to do it, yeah. I actually sort of considered that, but in my head we were going to Pompeii first so it didn't get super hot, and then Positano, and I was too nervous about taking the ferry back and missing it, and then missing the ship. It never occurred to me to do Positano first and then Pompeii, which is obviously what we ended up doing. 

 

I had never traveled internationally before, and one of the reasons we booked the cruise was to see places and not deal with the travel logistics because I was scared of it. But Italy is super easy, and now that I've been there, yours seems like a very doable plan and not one that I considered, but a good option.

 

I am glad we did it though, because both places were really awesome. And the drive was beautiful, and interesting. But VERY curvy roads and just a LOT of driving. I just have some personal regrets about Positano because my daughter wanted to shop for souvenirs, my son ordered something that took a really long time to come out, and my husband had to use the bathroom which was a whole big production. What I should've done is just left my family to do all of that together and walked around Positano by myself. 😆 I think I could've been okay with an hour if it hadn't been taken up by so many dumb things. So I'm just sort of frustrated with myself that I didn't just split up and do what I wanted while I was there since I was mostly the one that wanted to go in the first place. 

 

So, in retrospect... a ferry to Positano for a few hours and then a car picking us up from there to do a few hours in Pompeii would've been the best plan. But if I'm choosing between the excursion we actually did versus only seeing Pompeii OR Positano.... I think I would still do the long excursion. They were both really cool stops. And if we'd only gone to Pompeii I know I would've been sulking on the boat the rest of the day, like, "I should be on the Amalfi Coast right now." 🤣

[bighedz]

Did you buy your tickets to Pompeii separate?  We are looking at doing a similar tour with italytours.eu and it says the tickets are not included in the price, but it is a guided tour of Pompeii.  Do they get the tickets for you and you pay on the spot or do they expect you to arrive with tickets already purchased?  If so, was it skip the line tickets?

 

       thank you

[euro cruiser]

You can purchase tickets on line ahead of time but there's really no need to, lines are almost never more than 15 minutes long (this is the limit imposed by the service contract).

 

The only official on line purchase site is here:  Pompeii - TicketOne

[bighedz]

9 minutes ago, euro cruiser said:

You can purchase tickets on line ahead of time but there's really no need to, lines are almost never more than 15 minutes long (this is the limit imposed by the service contract).

 

The only official on line purchase site is here:  Pompeii - TicketOne

  Thanks!  Yeah, the official site is not terribly friendly and only goes out 30 days.  Since we travel in  late August, I'll just wait to get them as it approaches.  I also fear that the lines will be crazy when August rolls around.

[fishiecrackers]

On 7/1/2023 at 7:34 PM, bighedz said:

  Thanks!  Yeah, the official site is not terribly friendly and only goes out 30 days.  Since we travel in  late August, I'll just wait to get them as it approaches.  I also fear that the lines will be crazy when August rolls around.

We were told to have cash to get them upon arrival, so that's what we did. Then when we got there, our guide told us that there's a (newish?) kiosk past where everyone is lining up to buy tickets, more over where you go through the turnstiles to go inside, so she just marched us over there and we bought our tickets that way, with a credit card. The lines didn't look too bad from what I saw - nothing like some of the major tourist attractions in Florence and Rome. Probably no harm in getting them ahead of time, though!

[euro cruiser]

When you purchase the ticket on line you still have to line up at Pompei to pick up a paper ticket, which you need to get through the turnstile.  Sooner or later they will have the technology to simply read the code off your phone, but at this point that's not how they are doing it.

 

There is zero chance of being shut out at Pompei, the site can hold 15,000 visitors before it is declared "full".  That has only happened on free Sundays in the summer months.

 

The service contract at Pompei "guarantees" that lines for entry will not exceed 15 minutes in length.  I have not seen any reports or data on how well they achieve this goal, but I also have not heard complaints about long waits on line (Trip Advisor forums discuss Pompei frequently).  If people were waiting on long lines to enter, the online b&m would be loud and continuous.