Mediterranean Cruise, which shore excursion do you recommend?

[Coss]

I am going to be doing the Mediterranean Cruise in June. Do you guys have any shore excursion recommendation? I know some of the ports are 1.5 hours from the terminal, is it worth it to take the train yourself or better to pay the $100 transport from Disney?

 

[disneyfaninaz]

The Rick Steves Mediterranean Cruise Ports book is highly recommended and can give you step by step on how to get to the various locations via train. I guess it depends on how comfortable you are with striking out on your own or relying on DCL on which transportation to use.

We booked private tours for our July cruise.

 

[cedricandsophie]

I can only speak for myself. We usually take Disney excursions or just get off and hire a local driver to get around. For Florence my daughter and grandson did excursion with stop in Pisa. They liked it. My other daughter and granddaughter did a pizza cooking thing through Disney. They liked it. My husband and I took a Disney bus to start hike along the cinque terra. We did our own thing and got back on bus at other end. For Naples/sorrento, some of fam8ly did excursion to Pompeii; we hired taxi for a drive around. We thought about going to Capri but we have been there twice. Outside of Rome we took Disney bus into city and got on the hop on hop off bus to go around. Then got back on Disney bus to go back to ship.

Lots of people like private tours. I’m a bit of worrier so I prefer the excursions or hiring a local driver on the spot for a few hours out and about, knowing exactly when he will get us back...at least 2 to 3 hours ahead of the ship leave time. When my husband goes off on his own which he likes to do after I want to go back to ship, I worry constantly about him losing track of time.

 

[aggiedog]

I agree with the above, with the exception of worrying that private tours won’t get you back on time. If you hire a private or semi-private guide you have the benefit of reviews and other cruisers’ experiences to ensure you get someone reputable. I’d actually be more worried about someone I picked from a group of guys on the pier. Any company with any presence on TripAdvisor will not want a “they made us miss the boat” review.

As for what to do, there are so many options. We like to mix history with doing things like cooking classes, food tours, beach time, etc.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I am going to be doing the Mediterranean Cruise in June. Do you guys have any shore excursion recommendation? I know some of the ports are 1.5 hours from the terminal, is it worth it to take the train yourself or better to pay the $100 transport from Disney?

For those ports where the attraction I'm wanting to to see is a long distance, I'm more comfortable with ship's excursions. Yes, we were late back to the ship on both our excursions - Civitavecchia to Rome and La Spezia to Florence. Made me much more comfortable knowing they would most likely wait for "their" excursions to return before departing. For staying closer to the ship, if it's a port we've been to before, I'd just head out myself.

 

[LNMom]

I haven't been on a Med cruise so I can't offer any insights about excursion, but my family of 5 spent a month in Italy last summer (which was not nearly enough time). There is so much to do in Italy, so just choose the excursions that sound interesting to you and take notes about what you want to experience when you return!

My favorites: Florence--Fra Angelico paintings in the Convent of San Marco
Rome: The Pantheon; the Vatican, St. Peters in particular

Traffic is crazy in Rome and Florence, so you may be safest by taking a Disney excursion than a private tour.

Happy Sailing!

 

[SteveMouse]

Traffic between the port and Florence is highly unpredicatable. We had no problem with trains in Marseilles and elsewhere.

 

[kaseyC]

We've done multiple European cruises (Western Med, Eastern Med, Greek Isles and Baltics) and I've always have booked private driver/guides plus certified tour guides for specific sites. If you stick with the well known companies found on TripAdvisor and Cruise Critic, you should have no worries about getting back in time. These companies have been working with cruisers for years and have scheduling down. We are just not fans of cruise line excursions because of the unpredictability of other cruisers and no control over your day and time. We are a family of 5 and private tours have given us the ability to tailor our tours to our family's interests. When the girls were younger we built in more rest time and fun kid friendly activities. As they grew into teens and young adults we've added more active (physical) activities, fantastic meals and serious shopping options plus the usual historical sites and such. We've also found it's more cost effective for a family of our size to go with private tours. This is what works for our family.

 

[Coss]

Wife said we will skip Milan as there isn't much to see (she's been there), is there anything else going on in Genoa? Cinque Terre she has been, not sure if she wnats to go again

 

[anricat]

Wife said we will skip Milan as there isn't much to see (she's been there), is there anything else going on in Genoa? Cinque Terre she has been, not sure if she wnats to go again

Genoa is a new port for Disney so I'm not sure you'll get much in the way of a response (yet). I recently found this article that was kind of interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/travel/genoa-italy-charm-alternative-rome-florence-venice.html

We've booked a walking tour from a local on Tours By Locals and I think it will be nice just to walk around and have a feel for a seaside Italian town. We plan to then take in some lunch on our own and maybe find some gelato or a bakery. We're planning a fairly mellow day (in comparison to some of our other crazy long day trips).