Princess Rome excursions?

[Suesancy]

Hi - the highlight of our upcoming Grand Princess cruise - for us - will be Rome. I have just checked and there will be something like 16000 passengers in port the same day as us - so I want to be sure that we get to see the things we really want to see. So I guess the choice is between a private tour - expensive and no guarantees of getting back to the ship prior to sailing - or the ships tours. These again can prove problematic with so many people being in Rome. However - can anyone please tell me what tours Princess provides for Rome? I guess we want to do Vatican City - St. Peters/Cistine Chapel - and also possibly see the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and other major highlights. If anyone has details of the Rome trips could they give me a short description and idea of current costs please. Also can you tell me what the journey from Civitaveccia to Rome is like in coaches. I am not a good coach traveller at all. Many thanks,

h

[Longtonian]

This link should help

 

http://www.princess.com/shorex/index.jsp

 

There is so much to see, so you need to decide what your priorities are in advance. On our first trip to Rome. we went on a "Rome on your own" trip. We were dropped off near the Piazza del Populo and saw lots of sights without the constraints of being herded around on a coach. We walked to the Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, the Pantheon (my favourite), had coffees, lunch, ice creams then took the metro to Coloseo, where you can either go into the Colosseum or have a walk around the Forum (FOC), which is fascinating. This was done at a pretty relaxed pace, though we are not the sorts to stand reading all the plaques. St Peters is a bit further out, so we left that for a later weekend break (even then the queues were far too long to get into the church - if there was one major site I wouldn't have minded missing it would have been this.)

 

Hope this helps

[caber]

The queues for the Cistine Chapel can be huge. You may have to miss other points of interest if you wait for hours to see it.

We did the Rome on your own too.

We couldn`t find a tour which did the Trevi and Spanish Steps. Rome is very easy on your own but having the security of the Princess coach to and from the port is, to me, a must.

[Hlitner]

We have been to Civitavecchia many times (most recently in May) and I just want to assure you that 16.000 passengers in this port is really not a big deal. In fact, its probably quite typical. There are also many large ferry ships that stop in this port that you will not even find mentioned on most web sites (we love the hull paintings on the Moby Line ships). As to tours, the private tours seem to be more satisfying for most folks than the overpriced, overcrowded, cattle-like cruise tours. But for a first time visitor to Rome, you should book some kind of full day tour that includes a visit to the "Vatican Museum" (not open on Sundays). One other option is to simply do it on your own. There is a free port shuttle bus that takes you to the port entrance from which you can walk the 4 blocks to the local train station. There are 1 or 2 trains an hour to Rome and the journey takes about 1 hour. They even sell a one-day BIRG ticket at the station for 9 Euros which covers the round trip train plus unlimited use of the buses and metro (subway) in Rome.

 

Hank

[Mom33]

Hi - the highlight of our upcoming Grand Princess cruise - for us - will be Rome. I have just checked and there will be something like 16000 passengers in port the same day as us - so I want to be sure that we get to see the things we really want to see. So I guess the choice is between a private tour - expensive and no guarantees of getting back to the ship prior to sailing - or the ships tours. These again can prove problematic with so many people being in Rome. However - can anyone please tell me what tours Princess provides for Rome? I guess we want to do Vatican City - St. Peters/Cistine Chapel - and also possibly see the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and other major highlights. If anyone has details of the Rome trips could they give me a short description and idea of current costs please. Also can you tell me what the journey from Civitaveccia to Rome is like in coaches. I am not a good coach traveller at all. Many thanks,

h

 

If you use a guided tour for the Vatican and Sistine Chapel through the ship, you will not wait in the long lines. We walked right past the hordes of people waiting in line with our guide and entered the Vatican.

[chipmaster]

Hi - the highlight of our upcoming Grand Princess cruise - for us - will be Rome. I have just checked and there will be something like 16000 passengers in port the same day as us - so I want to be sure that we get to see the things we really want to see. So I guess the choice is between a private tour - expensive and no guarantees of getting back to the ship prior to sailing - or the ships tours. These again can prove problematic with so many people being in Rome. However - can anyone please tell me what tours Princess provides for Rome? I guess we want to do Vatican City - St. Peters/Cistine Chapel - and also possibly see the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and other major highlights. If anyone has details of the Rome trips could they give me a short description and idea of current costs please. Also can you tell me what the journey from Civitaveccia to Rome is like in coaches. I am not a good coach traveller at all. Many thanks,

h

 

Civitavecchia is a large port and Rome is an even larger city. You'll be lucky if the only people at the sights will be the cruisers. We were there in the middle of August, prime tourist time, 4 ships in port. No question the attractions were crowded but we still managed to see many of the highlights and the crowds were from much more then the ship. If the only tourists will be those from the cruises you'll be in fine shape!

 

I'm not sure why you feel that Private Tour runs some huge risk for missing the boat. My opinion is that for Florence, Naples, and Rome private tour is the ONLY way to see a city where you have many sites to see. Take a big ship sponsored tour and you'll be running at the pace of the slowest of your 40-50 best friends. The buses can't park or get nearly as close to the attractions and city so you hike much further for every attraction, again at the pace of the slowest of your 40-50 best friends. The better private drivers are very intuned to the road conditions, know the best routes, and if you are running tight know well enough their and their company's reputation hang on you not missing the boat.

 

On our just finished tour ( with Romeinlimo ) we saw the Colessum first. Our diver parked us on a hill above it. They secured the tickets for us while the other driver gave a detailed overview of the place. We then went in for 45' to tour. We made stops at Four Corners, Circus Maximus, Forum, Trevi, Pantheon. After lunch we had a private tour ( about 15 of us). We skipped by the long line ( my guess 150-200 meters long ). No question the Vatican and Sistine chapel were crowded, a sea of people, but we got to spend two hours including roughly 15-20' in the chapel. Then we got another 45' to tour St. Peters. At each stop we were dropped not more then 25 meters from the attraction, sometimes even closer. Never did we see a tour bus. Later in the day we saw many large Princess groups. I can only imagine they had made a much longer hike. The moral to the story, if you want to see the most during your short stay, go Private. With a little planning, tour sharing you will save money, but more importantly see more! I don't believe any of the Princess Tours enables you to actually stop at the similar number of sites we managed.

 

The drive from port is long, something like an hour and half assuming traffic. Our drive to it was a leisure one and we got the 1000 year history of Rome. It can be done in well less then an hour too! We did it coming back! For reasons unknown to us our drivers decided to come back at some crazy pace of nearly 140kph :eek: We were passing tour bus, cars, everything, I guess our drivers wanted to make sure we didnt' miss the boat:D Lucky for us these were Mercede vans.... We weren't late at all, getting back to the ship an hour and half before departure time. We figured they were in a hurry for "Miller Time" or something :confused:

 

 

Happy planning, Rome is a spectacular city impossible to do in a day :mad:

[Suesancy]

Just want to thank you all for your helpful and informative replies. The link to the Princess tours was really helpful and enabled me to see what the likelihood of doing a ship's tour would be. After reading all of your comments and advice we have decided to do the RomeinLimo tour as this definitely sounds the option most likely to give us what we want. Just hope that I can find someone else on our cruise who is interested in sharing with us. But hey - we're only going to be there the once so it will be worth every penny I am sure. Thanks again everyone,