Norwegian Viva Ports - What to See

[Usamickey]

Hi

Looking for recommendations for a few ports. Should I stay in the port city or head out to neighboring areas to see more.  This is a 9 day cruise with no sea days…BUSY. 
Palermo

Valletta

Messina - not Mt Etna

Corfu

Split

Dubrovnik

Thanks in advance very much for your help. 
Debby

 

[Globaliser]

You're really needing these boards:

• Italy Ports
• Other Mediterranean Ports

[Host Carolyn]

You beat me to it!  These are indeed best places to look for information on your ports. Great itinerary 

[edinburgher]

19 hours ago, Usamickey said:

Palermo

Valletta

Messina - not Mt Etna

Corfu

Split

Dubrovnik

Thanks in advance very much for your help. 
Debby

Most of these ports you will be docking in a central position so very easy to DIY.

 

Dubrovnik  instead of a longish walk, you might want to take either a ship shuttle or a taxi or the public bus to the Pile Gate, where all transport ends as the Old City is pedestrian only.

 

There is very little to see or do in Messina so you might want to consider an out of town trip to Taormina if Mt Etna doesn't appeal. Much info on how to do this can be found in past threads or you could consider a shorex.

 

Corfu town is OK, but if you think you would prefer to visit other parts of Corfu, you should consider a taxi tour, perhaps shared with others on your Roll Call.

there will be other occasions where it will be easy enough to DIY to the sights which interest you most and at a fraction of the cost.Whether you can DIY or not  depends on your plans in each and for that you need to read, read and read.

 

Best advice is that you do your port research for each port call and get some idea of what you might want to do as that will determine whether or not you can DIY or whether you might want to look at using public transport such as buses or trains or a private tour or a taxi etc.

 

There is a huge amount of info available for most ports  on the boards in previous threads. You will want to begin researching by looking at guidebooks, Tripadvisor and other online information sources to get some of the basics which will help you form ideas of the possibilities, and do look at your ship shorex even if you do not want to book any as they too  will give you some ideas. And some towns and cities have excellent info for visitors on their Official Tourist information website so include these too.  Google really is your new best friend.

 

For previous threads and posts, instead of back paging, use the SEARCH TOOL.  If you do not know how to use it, go to the relevant board for that country. You have a variety of geographical ares on your list so the boards would be Italy Ports, Greek ports and Other Mediterranean Ports.Beginning with your first port, go to the relevant board and stay on that General board,   ( not an individual thread) and insert the name of the port in the empty search box under your username. Hit the little spy glass, and in a few seconds all the results will appear showing previous threads where that word is included. You can then choose which to read.  Repeat the process with your other ports on the relevant geographic forum. Some ports will have many hundreds of results, others very few, and it is also worth looking for "stickies" at the top of each. Repeat the process with your other ports on the relevant geographic forum.

 

And to avoid becoming overwhelmed, tackle ports one at a time and don't move on to another one until you have finished the previous one. You might want to keep a document or something similar  for each as there will be too much info overall to remember.

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by edinburgher