Our Mediterranean Star Princess Cruise Experience - Part 1

[Jeller]

This is my thanks to Luv to Travel and all of the others who have written suggestions on travels in the Mediterranean that I have read over the past 9 months! Your input enabled my family to have a great voyage on the 9 June Star Princess out of Barcelona.

 

Back to the beginning. We were a party of four--my wife, our daughter in her 30s, her friend and myself. We signed up for the Princess 7 day Land Cruisetour that started in London. We booked our own flights and decided to go two days early to help us adjust to the 5 hour time change. That was a great decision as it allowed us to sign up for an all day tour out to Stonehenge and Salisbury and to see part of the country outside of London.

 

Books: I used Rick Steves’ book, Best of Europe 2003 for ideas of what to see, where to stay, where to eat, etc. A great book that was very helpful. I also used a group of books published in conjunction with the Discovery Channel called Insight Guides London (Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, etc.) that were very informative and educational. (http://www.insightguides.com ; available from Amazon at a savings.) Read all you can before the trip and you will find it very helpful. Finally I bought maps of London, Paris and Venice—cities we were exploring on our own. Money well spent. I would not suggest taking the books with you other then Rick Steves’ book, but more on that later.

 

I will not say much about the Princess Land Cruisetour that started in London (2 days), visited Paris (2 days), and southern France in the Avignon area (2 days) and boarded our ship in Barcelona since most people are interested in the cruise. The land tour was first class and that is how you are treated for seven days. Our escort/guide was exceptional, and we stayed in the very best hotels, had great meals, interesting side tours, and yet had time to do some things on our own.

 

We embarked on the Star Princess late afternoon on 9 June in Barcelona. Our bus (there were 32 on our land tour, but I believe that most of the tours have fewer people) dropped us off at the ship around 6 pm. and we were in our room within 30 minutes. We had a quick bite to eat and headed back into town to Las Ramblas to see the sights and the nightlife. Very interesting and not to be missed At 9 pm. we headed back to the ship (used taxis, no problems) to unpack and get organized for the next morning. Back into town at 8 am. to see Gaudi’s Cathedral La Sagrada Familia, (we walked around it and took pictures) and from there a taxi to the Gothic area to see the Cathedral of Barcelona. Here, be sure to go inside and explore. There is a lot to see. Because the ship departed at 1 pm we had little time, but we made the most of it. If one has more time there is much more to see. Barcelona is inexpensive and easy to get around.

 

The stop at Monte Carlo was a nice surprise in that we thought we would be anchoring at Villefranche sur Mer and would need to take a train over to Monte Carlo, but the ship anchored just outside the Monte Carlo harbor and we were tendered to the dock just below the Prince’s Palace. We hiked up the hill and saw everything around the Palace, the changing of the guard, the church where Princess Grace was married, etc. We took a small-motorized “train” tour for 4 euros down into the city and passed the casino. This is a delightful and easy way to see the city and is well worth it. We returned to the ship in the afternoon for our first formal night and to prepare for our trips the next three days.

 

Livorno/Florence and Pisa; Naples/Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast; and Civitavecchia/Rome. First let me say the Mediterranean cruise is a “working cruise” because of all the sight seeing we wanted to do, not like the Caribbean cruises where we generally relax and do very little sight seeing (we have been there several times). I had pre-booked all of our tours with Cruise Critic-recommended tour guides. Our tours of these three cities were 8 or 9 hour tours. We would be up at 6:30, dress, get organized, have a bite to eat and try to met our guide as soon as they allowed people of the ship, usually around 7-8 am. That is really the way to go. As I mentioned before there were four of us, so we decided to see if another couple would join us for tours in these three ports to share the costs. I posted on Cruise Critic, and we connected with another great couple that just fit in with our group. Then because the Rome tour was even more expensive, we decide to find an additional couple, which we did.

 

Florence: Paola Migiliorini (http://www.florencetour.com, e-mail info@florencetour.com), who is named in Rick Steves’ book, met us at 7:30 and we spent the day with Paola. What a terrific young lady! Paola lives right in Florence and is able drive anywhere in the old city in her van. This is an enormous plus as only people who live in the old central part of Florence can have cars there. She was able to drive us directly to the locales we wanted to visit; tour busses had to park outside the old city, and those people walked a considerable distance. Paola is the very best guide one could hope to have show you around Florence, and her English is impeccable. She is very knowledgeable (she was an art history major at the Accademia), gets you to the best viewing places, is fearless where she parks, and just fun to be with. We stopped at Pisa on the way back to the ship. For me, seeing the statue of David in the Accademia was the highlight of the day. The tower of Pisa really leans more than I thought it would!

 

Naples/Amalfi Coast: We met Marcello Maresca (http://www.seesorrento.com, e-mail marcellomaresca@tin.it) at 7:45 am. and spent the day with him. What a day! We drove right out of Naples and spent the better part of the day driving along and viewing the spectacular scenery of the Amalfi coast. We visited several small towns along the coast and made many stops to take photographs. We had a fantastic lunch at a special restaurant high in the hills above the coastline. The food and wine just did not stop coming. We sampled everything. The cost for lunch was about 18 euros (including Marcello’s lunch). Marcello is a very special person with a deep love of the area where he grew up and lives today. He loves people and talks with his hands with true Italian flair! On the way back we stopped at Pompeii and had a tour guide that Marcello had arranged for us. If you can ever get Marcello for you tour, I promise you that you will have the very best guide and driver for seeing the Amalfi Coast. This day was my wife’s favorite day of all our visits—if she could repeat only one day of our 23 day trip, this would be the day and Marcello would be a must!

 

Rome: We met our guide & driver dockside at 7 am. and headed into the city. Rome is a very interesting city with its own distinctive character and architecture. We visited the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. The art is amazing and beautiful. Lots of tourists!! Our guide was very knowledgeable and I am sure we saw all of the sites of Rome. We returned to the Star Princess around 4 pm ready for a day at sea and rest.

 

Athens: The four of us had booked a tour with “George the Famous Taxi Driver”. George said HE would meet us at 9:30 am. A driver from his “company” met us. I guess I was not too surprised. Chris, our driver/guide, showed us all around Athens, waited while we visited the Acropolis, and then took us to Corinth at our request. We had a very nice day and Chris did not want to stop showing us the sites around Athens.

 

Kusadasi/ Ephesus, Turkey: Again I had booked a tour for the four of us with the Sardimua Travel Agency (http://www.************.com, e-mail info@************.com ). They had told me that a tour guide and a driver would meet us at 8 am. The owner of the agency would also be there to meet us, which he was. Our guide was a young man named Sedat. He had a driver with an 11-passenger air-conditioned van. Sedat was an outstanding tour guide and extremely knowledgeable. We had an excellent day with him--he gave us a lot of history of what we were seeing, and we had a delicious lunch sampling some of the foods of Turkey. The ruins of Ephesus were very impressive and made us realize even more how young our county really is. I highly recommend using the Sardimua Travel Agency. Ask for Sedat Kirkan. For the price we paid for Sedat, a driver and a nice large van, I do not know how they can make any money. Speaking of which, Kudadasi was the best shopping and most reasonable priced place where we had a chance to shop. But don’t forget to barter.

 

This is continued in Part 2.