Which Itenerary

Which one would you choose and why? They are both through NCL in June for 7 days.

CRUISE PORTS Embark Venice (Italy); Dubrovnik (Croatia); Athens (Piraeus) (Greece); Ephesus (Kusadasi) (Turkey); Split (Croatia); Disembark Venice (Italy)

CRUISE PORTS Embark Venice (Italy); Corfu (Greece); Santorini (Greece); Mykonos (Greece); Olympia (Katakolon) (Greece); Disembark Venice (Italy)

If we had to choose we would take the first itinerary because of Dubrovnik, Athens and Kusadasi. That is a great itinerary if you are interested in ruins (Ephesus is among the best in the world). However, we offer some bitter with the sweet. Personally we would not book either cruise...and the reason is because of the hours spend in several ports. For example, arriving at Dubrovnik at 2pm is not ideal for spending a port day in a fabulous place. It could be near 3pm before many passengers would even get into the city. And that same cruise does not get to Split until 11 am! And the other itinerary has similar issues. It does not even get to Santorini until 1:30 and it can take well over 1 hour to get the passengers tendered ashore. And the early 3:30 departure from Corfu means everyone will have to be back aboard by 3....which equals only a partial port day.

We have long recommended that cruisers take a hard look at the details of itineraries before booking. You should be looking at the day of the week you are in various ports (there can be many closures on Sundays (and Mondays in Italy)). And the times in any port are important with the longer port days (or even overnights) the best. We have long been critical of quite a few NCL itineraries in Europe because it seems like they try to substitute more ports at the expense of allowing enough time in a fewer number of ports. Some have speculated that part of the issue is that cruise lines now prefer to slow down their ships (to save valuable fuel) at the expense of extra hours in ports. And the other part of the equation is that some cruisers simply want more ports and pay little attention to the time in the ports.

Hank

Athens and Ephesus are awesome places, IMHO. So that route by a small nose over the other.

I agree with the concerns Hank expressed and probably wouldn't choose either due to the timing. They are trying to cram too much into a 7-day itinerary, so the port times suffer. This is an itinerary for the "been there, done that, took a photo" crowd, IMO.

That said, if pressed I'd say that if you are interested in ancient history and ruins, pick the first one. If you are interested in the iconic Greek islands (picturesque, charming but not as historic), pick the second one.

Number one for all the above reasons:D