European help needed!!

hi folks, we are D+ RC travelers, mainly with Carib cruises. Now that we are both retired (yeah) we are looking to branch out to Europe. Looking to do a 8-9 day cruise anywhere....but curious as to which port would be the easiest and most reasonable to cruise from? england? barcelona? venice? any and all suggestions and opinions are welcome...as always, thank you for your input:)

I am from the UK and would recommend going straight to the sunshine of Barcelona, beautiful city as well.

If you are wanting northern europe i.e. Scandanavia and Russia, sail from the UK

We've cruised the Med on Voyager out of Barcelona and flew out of Denver on British Airways (Lived in CO Springs at the time). Easy flight with one layover in Heathrow, UK.

Enjoy your cruise!

Karen

We've taken 3 12 niters out of Barcelona and cruised the Mediterranean with Venice as a port. It is a fantastic itinerary, and we seem to enjoy them better each time we sail. Venice is fantastic-- sailing by St. Mark's Square and the canals. We are also retired and there's only so much time left for us to enjoy as these cruises are very tour intensive and somewhat tiring. Some cruises you the dock at 7AM and return at 4-5 PM.

Another vote for Barcelona. We have sailed from Harwich in England, Rome and Barcelona (Harwich and Rome involved long trips from the airport to the port). As others have said Barcelona is a fun city and the port is a short cab ride from downtown. Lots to do in Barcelona, its warm all year and many North American airports have direct flights. We flew there direct from Toronto.

OMG so much to see and do....plz keep it coming...it builds on our excitment for travel...thank you everyone for your input

We just did a cruise out of Barcelona on Sept 21st. I am in the middle of a review it is under our families viewpoint of our Mediterranean cruise with pictures included! Check it out to see what's out there!

I have to agree--Barcelona is as easy as it comes.

Most Med cruises are 11-12-14 nighters, likewise with Scandinavia

Barcelona we have done and Southampton also.

DW and DD went from Harwich as well.

A few ideas for you to have a look at, we would choose the Explorer for the Suez Canal itinerary and ship class.

There are a few 7 nighters out there, but not too many, not sure if there are any 8-9 nighters in Med or Scandinavia.

Vision October 2015 (11 nights)

PORTS OF CALL:

Barcelona, Spain; Villefranche (Nice), France; Livorno (Florence), Italy; Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Naples (Salerno), Italy; Venice, Italy; Kotor, Montenegro; Barcelona, Spain

Vision October 2015 (12 nights)

PORTS OF CALL:

Barcelona, Spain; Cannes (Monte Carlo), France; Livorno (Florence), Italy; Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Piraeus (Athens), Greece; Kusadasi (Ephesus), Turkey; Santorini, Greece; Naples (Salerno), Italy; Barcelona, Spain

We did this on Splendour, actually my 1st RC cruise, ship and itinerary got me hooked.:eek:

Explorer October 2015 (14 nights)

PORTS OF CALL:

Barcelona, Spain; Chania (Souda), Crete, Greece; Ashdod, Israel; Suez Canal (Passage); Aqaba, Jordan; Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Obviously different embarkation to disembarkation.

Bucket list to do this itinerary.:)

Brilliance July 2015 (12 nights)

PORTS OF CALL:

Harwich, England; Bergen, Norway; Alesund, Norway; Geiranger, Norway; Klaksvik, Faroe Islands; Reykjavik, Iceland; Harwich, England

Great itinerary :D

Brilliance June 2015 (12 nights)

PORTS OF CALL:

Harwich, England; Copenhagen, Denmark; Tallinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden; Visby, Sweden; Harwich, England

DD and DW did this on Adventure, they said excellent Itinerary.

Depending on your time frame and when you want to travel will obviously make a big influence on your choice of ship and itinerary.

All will be great cruises, hope the info helps. enjoy whatever one you end up deciding to do:)

Just browsing through the options has already got us looking at pricing up the Explorer for October 2015.

Happy Days!

As someone who went out of Rome, the port being slightly out of the way in Civitavecchia was still well worth it! I had dreamed of seeing Sicily and Athens, so this was the cruise for me.

What ports are you just dying to see? That should guide your decision. With that said, my next European cruise (someday) will be out of Venice, as I'm dying to see Santorini and Croatia.

Found this one that might appeal to you being a 9 nighter.

Splendour May 2015 (9 nights)

PORTS OF CALL:

Barcelona, Spain; Cannes (Monte Carlo), France; Livorno (Florence), Italy; Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy; Naples (Capri), Italy; Santorini, Greece; Split, Croatia; Venice, Italy

Different embarkation and disembarkation, but a 9 nighter!! And great Itinerary out of Barcelona.

Happy Days!!

Easy Peasy out of Barcelona. Love love Venice! Go anywhere in Italy and start a tour on your roll call with a company called Rome in Limo. I joined 3 groups with RIL and saw Pompei, Rome, Piza, florence, Amalfi Coast....and Venice DIY....Dream cruise!😊

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Hope to do the Med cruises one day. I want to see Barcelona, Venice, Greek Isles.

We did a great B2B a couple of years ago on Brilliance. 7 nights RT from Copenhagen to the Baltic Capitals followed by 7 night Norwegian Fjords RT from Copenhagen

That was an amazingly beautiful experience..

Sailing out of Venice at sunset is simply amazing. Venice itself is a wonderful experience - no cars, great sights and food!

Transfers are easy. Take a bus from the airport and you'll be at P. Roma in half an hour. Then a simple transfer to the ship.

hi folks' date=' we are D+ RC travelers, mainly with Carib cruises. Now that we are both retired (yeah) we are looking to branch out to Europe. Looking to do a 8-9 day cruise anywhere....but curious as to which port would be the easiest and most reasonable to cruise from? england? barcelona? venice? any and all suggestions and opinions are welcome...as always, thank you for your input:)[/quote']

 

Here's some recent reviews with plenty of pics in many ports:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2081173

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2065892

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2108833

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2108833

 

I feel the Rhapsody & Vision itineraries are the best in 2015, especially the repositioning of Rhapsody out of Istanbul to Rome.

 

If you wish to branch over to Celebrity (with your D+ status), the Constellation has the very best itinerary almost of any cruise line available next year, specifically the May 38 or Aug 30 sailings.

As someone who went out of Rome, the port being slightly out of the way in Civitavecchia was still well worth it! I had dreamed of seeing Sicily and Athens, so this was the cruise for me.

 

What ports are you just dying to see? That should guide your decision. With that said, my next European cruise (someday) will be out of Venice, as I'm dying to see Santorini and Croatia.

Funny, I would say that is the worst post in Europe that I have sailed out of. I think Barcelona is easiest, followed by Copenhagen and maybe Venice (I have only driven there--not gone from the airport).

I do agree that it makes sense to choose by ports, but if the OP is equally interested in various ports and a bit overwhelmed about what to choose, narrowing the field by embarkation port is a valid way to go :)

BARCELONA our favourite so easy and not far from the airport. We usually stay 2 or 3 days before and 1 night after cruise then fly down to Greek Islands. A cruise that stops in Villefranche then you can catch the train to MONACO and back to NICE in a day. ROME is good even though it takes 45 mins to Port the place has lots of History. So many great places to visit in Europe unfortunately for us Australians it takes 24hours to get there.:D

We flew from Phoenix to Chicago to Rome. Spent 2 nights then cruised for 7 nights. Came back and spent another night in Rome. We knew we wanted to see the Vatican and all other Rome popular places. These are port intensive cruises. We did Athens with RCI and most others we booked with private groups. Spent a lot of time on CC with our Roll Call. Used TripAdvisor a lot! I would like to do Barcelona next but will never regret Rome and Greece first!

casting a vote for Rome. Yes it's far from the city, but Civitavecchia is a lovely little town in which to spend a pre-cruise evening. My family and I all had the best pasta of our lives there! Plus, you get to spend more time exploring Rome either before or after your cruise. That's what we did this past summer (on NCL - sorry I know this is RCI board but it was a great trip!)

I felt sorry for the folks who had Rome as a port day - it's really not possible to enjoy it given the travel time and constraints of getting back to the ship.

My advice is, figure out which city you would like to spend the most time in pre or post cruise and depart from there. If you're going to pay to fly to Europe, you might as well add a few days to your 8 or 9 day cruise itinerary.

My husband & I (retired) booked our 1st med cruise -12 nt Vision out of Barcelona Sept 2015. We narrowed our choices by picking ports we really wanted to see. My #1 was Venice and his Rome. Would have loved to visit Greece, but many of those itineraries do not include Venice. I was surprised to find the ship almost filled when we booked! Planning to spend a few days in Barcelona pre cruise. Cruise embarks Sept 26th - haven't seen a roll call for that date. Anyone else here?

Hi,

My advice isn't about which cruise to take as I am sure that you will have an excellent time cruising in Europe.

As you will be flying from West to East you will encounter jet lag, so I would suggest that you travel at least the day before you sail and stay overnight in your port of choice because you won't have any long journeys to make on departure day, also you won't be worried about missing the boat because you are stuck in a traffic jam or the train has been delayed etc.

If you do have long journeys from your landing airport to departure port research the methods or getting there, some have mentioned Harwich. In my experience getting to Harwich is quite difficult depending on how much luggage you have, sometimes local travel in a foreign country is quite daunting.

Hope this helps

Pete

I think you need to decide where you REALLY want to visit in the Med, not where to sail from as your coming along way over to Europe.

Once you know where you want to visit then decide on the port , Barcelona is the easiest to get too but its only an hours drive from the airport to the port in Civitavecchia, perfect for the Eastern Med . The only port we haven't sailed from is Venice so I cant comment on that but we have sailed into it, it was breath taking

As Brits we now sail from Southampton, we find this the easiest for us and we don't mind the extra days at sea to get down to the Med, you can also sail to the Baltics and Norway from there.

I don't envy you, there's so much to see but whatever you choose you'll have a wonderful time.

If you are in the US, it does not make sense to go all the way to Europe for a short cruise. Most of ours have been 12 to 14 days.

In fact, since we are on the west coast, we have been putting 2 cruises together. As an example we did a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam, then flew to Copenhagen to pick up a Baltic cruise.

If you go to our website http://www.stevekathytravels.com, you can see the stories and pictures from our cruises. This might help making your mind up.

We are always happy to answer questions.

We have cruised from Barcelona, Rome, Istanbul, and Venice.

Rome is not a favorite because of the port location. The others are all about equal for us.

I think it really depends on the flights from your home airport plus any pre or post cruise plans that you have. We typically do open jaw flights, ie fligh into one city and fly home from another.

Whatever you decide, start or end in Rome with a few extra days (too far from the port to get the most out of a mid cruise port stop there).

Sicily is a must. But, it is better as a land based week or more vacation to see all that it offers.

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