Air South Florida To Barcelone Spain

[datonamanmike]

im trying to plan a cruise to see italy and the like

we always wanted to see italy and what better way

then a cruise .

 

here is what im asking if my cruise starts on sept 21

i assume the ship leaves just like here at 4:00 pm

what day do i need to leave florida ???

 

thanks in advance this site rocks :)

 

i prefer not to have stay in a hotel

just fly in and board hopefully

[ab0si]

Let me comment on yur preamble first. I love cruising and I love Italy. However, cruising is really not a very good way of seeing Italy. The "Florence" port is 1 1/2 hours away. The "Rome" port is an hour away. Milan and the Lakes are too far from any port. Ditto for many of the other great places. Others disagee with me, of course.

 

To your question. If your cruise leaves on 21 Sept at 4 pm, you can most likely make it if you leave on 20 Sept. There are various routings. somewhat depending on where you leave from and where the ship departs .. which is usually ome or Venice. There are many more ways to get to Rome than Venice. To take a simple case: Miami->Atlanta (or New York or several other places) -> Rome. You'd arrive in Atlanta in the afternoon for an evening flight and be in Rome early morning on the next day.

 

However, if somethg goes wrong you might miss the start of the cruise. I strongly urge you to go at least a day early (leave home on the 19th for a cruise beginning on the 21st). This gives you a full day to get there when your flight is cancelled, you miss the connection, there is a 12-hour air traffic controller strike in Italy (although most of those are 4-hur strikes) or a day for your luggage to arrive if it is misrouted. It also gives you a day to see Rome (or Venice or ....).

 

go to Kayak or one of the other travel sites and check out the various routings. Often the less expensive ones will require an extra chane of planes. You need to decide cost versus hassles and more time in transit. there is no right or wrong answers here. (Well, flighing Iberian is always wrong, IMHO and Air Italia is quite likely to be reorganized or sold by next summer, so I would avoid them also)

 

Paul

[Globaliser]

im trying to plan a cruise to see italy and the like we always wanted to see italy and what better way then a cruise .

I agree with what ab0si says about this. A cruise is probably one of the worst possible ways to see Italy, if seeing Italy is what you want to do. Cruises are good if you basically want to have a cruise, with the occasional brief dip into one or two places. But you will never even get a reasonable overview of any of the places you visit if you do it from a cruise ship.

 

If you want to see Italy, you're probably better off doing a land tour. But if you want to do Italy's great sights any justice at all, remember that you probably need a week in each of the important cities as an absolute minimum - and probably more like two to three weeks in each of the most important.

[datonamanmike]

of course the cruise IS the vacation . its just we have been on five cruises now . all itn the caribean.

we are ready to try a cruise abroad.

the cruise starts and ends in barcelona spain with

three stops on the coast of italy. a few well chosen

shore excursions will be all we need to be able to say

we SEEN italy. (of course this is just my opinion and not ment to offend)

thank you ab0si your info has made me deside to go a day early.

[Globaliser]

a few well chosen shore excursions will be all we need to be able to say we SEEN italy.

Fair enough. Just as long as you don't try to kid yourself that you have actually seen Italy!

[datonamanmike]

well i wont be kidding myself

i will have have actually seen italy

and thats good enuff for me :)