Mediterranian ports...on your own or tours?

So my wife and I are taking a Med cruise in early Oct. We cruised 10 years ago and were exhausted because I had planned excursions at every port. We would stay up at night enjoying the night life on the boat and then have to get up at the crack of dawn to get some breakfast and get in line to get off the ship.....looking back, I'm sure many rookie cruisers do this.

So now we are going to the Med...little longer cruise, but we still don't want to be overwhelmed by the port intensive cruise. We want to be able to see the stops, but don't really like the idea of being tied to a group or have to ride in a bus for an hour to see some ruins.

So I guess my question(s) is/are....of the stops below, which ones could you truly do on your own? This is not a question of being cheap....I can afford the excursions....it's more, do I have to pay for it if I could walk or take local transportation. I also know that there may be a lot of factors...are we docked or tendered? how many other cruise ships are in port at the same time? I just don't want to get off at a port and find it's only a one block size shopping area and to get beyond that, you need a tour.

Our stops...

Santorini, Greece

Istanbul, Turkey...staying overnight

Ephesus, Turkey

Athens, Greece

Mykonos, Greece

Naples, Italy

Some of these places we want to see the obvious things...the Acropolis in Athens...but that may be 10-15 min and get a few pics...I know there is a big area with more to see, but that's pictures. I just can't see myself wandering around for a couple of hours up there...no desire for the museum. We would love to see the true culture and shop and sit at a streetside cafe and have a coffee or glass of wine and try foods. This is why we don't want to get tied into a tour. Celebrity offers a wine and cuisine tour in Ephesus which sound interesting and we may look into that.

Can these be done on your own...safely..while still getting to see, say the Blue Mosque in Istanbul?

Come over to the various Ports of Call boards here on CC where we deal with these questions all the time. But the simple answer to your question is that it all depends on you. DW and I have traveled to all those places multiple times and do everything on our own. However, most would suggest you get a good private/guide for Kusadasi/Ephesus and there are any excellent companies you can book online (we like Ekol). For all the other places much depends on exactly what you want to do with your port days. In a port like Naples we could easily give you a 1 week itinerary (we have spent 2 long vacations in the area)...but you only have a day :). It is similar for several other ports.

Hank

All if those bar Istanbul and Ephesus I've walked

And re other options there also

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I did a similar itenary last October, most of it went well. Here is my feedback on the places you mentioned:

Santorini- We did a ship excursion because we were tendered and wanted to make sure we could get to Oia and do the wine thing and back to the port. If I was doing this again, I would have done it on my own or just taken a taxi to Oia. Oia was nice and I'm glad I got to see it, but doing it on a ship tour was not the best way to go IMO. The winery part was nice and relaxing, but again felt too commercial cookie cutter or something.

Ephesus- We used a private tour that had good reviews on these boards (we used Ephesus Deluxe and were very pleased). If you want to go to Ephesus then def do private tour. Ship tours were crowded and moved slow, we were able to go at our own pace and make adjustments to our itenary as we saw fit. You could probably have a good time just enjoying the beaches of Izmir, via cab as well. Check the boards on here for more info and ideas.

Athens: We took the train to the city center and then went to the acropolis and plaka etc on our own. I would do it the same way again. Went at our own pace and really enjoyed the day, and still got to see everything we wanted to see. I enjoyed taking public transport but my parents were not as adventerous so they took a HOHO bus outside the port. It took them around to the main sites and they really enjoyed it. It also probably saved them a good amout of walking, but I don't know that they saw as much or had as genuine of an experience of Athens from comparing our stories. I'd not bother with a planned tour here or excursion, it's easy to do on your own and cheap. Doing the acropolis on our own was also a better route to go, download an audio guide if you want before you leave or just read up on things and experience it on your own. The people in groups looked miserable and moved SOOOOO slow, plus the guides were constantly yelling over one another. I wouldn't have had a good time on one of these guided tours.

Mykonos: Def just walk it. No need to get a tour or excurion here. Walk through the winding streets, up to the windmills, and just take it easy.

Naples: We did a private tour which was fantastic. We planned to go see Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii and then back to Naples. The weather wasn't great so our guide suggested that we alter our plans to see pompeii and then go to sorrento and along the amalfi coast then back to Naples. This was fantastic. Sorrento and Amalfi coast towns were a pleasure. The cloud cover was thick the entire day with periods of rain so it was great that we had the ability to alter our plans, as we wouldn't have had a view at all from Vesuvius and the treck up would have been a soggy one all for nothing. People who did the ship's excursion didn't have the option to alter their plans like we did and said they wasted their time and money by going up. Pompeii was also pretty great, once again we were very glad we were on a private tour so we were not being guided like cattle. I would really recommend a private driver along the Amalfi coast and Sorrento, or even taking a cab to sorrento to just hang out for the day. We were not in Naples too long but I think our time was better spent in Sorrento. Check the message boards here for more suggestions as well.

Overall I was not impressed with the ship excursions I took, or even the ones I saw. I was very impressed with the private tours we took, they were cheaper and less wasted time. We did jam pack our days on a few days, but you could easily do less when you are doing a private tour or just wanderng around on your own. The message boards here were fantastic in helping me plan.

Istanbul is very easy to do on your own. Walk off the ship, get cash from the very handy ATMs, buy tickets for the tram and take it into the old town (to the left as you leave the ship.) There are many links to information about this if you do a search. Look to the top right of the blue bar at the top of the main page for Ports of Call - Other Mediterranean Ports.

You can do as much or as little as you like in Istanbul. The setting itself is special.

Santorini, Greece - easy-peasy. Get the cable car up to Fira, and wander to your heart's content;

Istanbul, Turkey - as already said, tram is great for getting around. Arm yourself with a good map/guidebook;

Ephesus, Turkey - hire a taxi at the port and go. Also very easy;

Athens, Greece - this was the one port we took an excursion, but that's because we wanted to go to Corinth. However, here again there are good public transport options;

Mykonos, Greece - see Santorini, minus the cable car;

Naples, Italy - if you want to see Pompeii, lots of posts describing how to get there by public transport (in the Italy board). If staying in Naples, there are 4 different HOHO routes, for which you can get a combined ticket, that you can catch about a 5-minute walk from the dock.

I can't comment on any except Ephesus and Istanbul - my experience was that Istanbul is super easy to do by yourself and Ephesus is fabulous with a guide there to explain things. There is a link to my blog below and that has accounts of what we did for these two ports.

Get a copy of Rick Steve's' Mediterranean Cruise Ports. Tells you what there is to do in the ports, and how to do it, and how much you can do in the time you will have. EM