Surviving a Port Intensive Med Cruise

My sister and I will be cruising the Mediterranean this October with 10 or so ports and all day excursions planned for each. We do have one sea day towards the end and that's it:eek:

For those of you who have cruised a similar itinerary, how do you keep your energy up? We are excited and are looking forward to our trip but have concerns we just might collapse!

Thanks for any tips you may have.

We have done 3 Mediterranean cruises and it would be my suggestion you reconsider doing full day tours at all your ports. You will be so exhausted that you probably won't fully enjoy it all. Aren't there 1 or 2 ports you could limit a tour to a partial day?

We did a 12 nighter on Equinox last November and had already trecked through London, Paris & Barcelona before we reached the ship :D Needless to say it was a long haul at times! That said, I think you feed off the energy of being on vacation and the excitement of seeing new and interesting ports. We did skip the shows most nights in order to get to bed at a more reasonable hour, as the wake up call comes early ;) We also didn't hesitate to nap when we could on sea days. We really only got tired at our last port (Rome) and mostly because it rained and I was coming down with a bad cold! I think any tiredness we felt was a small price to pay for a truly exhilarating vacation. I'm sure you will have a fabulous time! :)

Oh one other tip. We stumbled across a foot cream in Paris that has black currant in it. I put it on my feet every night and woke up feeling brand new. I think I would have died from all the working otherwise :D

I agree with vmarq. Is there any way you could have a couple of easier days? Depending where you are going in Europe, there may be some opportunity for that, but I realise that a number of the ports are some way away from the nearest city so a full day trip is required.

European itineraries can be tough and you don't want to come home from your vacation worn out. I'd be compromising in a couple of ports to let your body rest a bit.

We have gone on 3 Mediterranean port intensive cruises. You are right it is hard to fit in everything. So we choose the full day excursions because we wanted to see as much as possible & airfare to Europe was expensive. We choose to forgo the nightly shows on the ship instead. That worked for us. Don't worry you will find your balance. Also some tours can begin at 9:00 am instead of earlier. Pick some of those to get a few slower paced starts to the day. On this last cruise we actually did one half day in tairomina italy and the other half day on the beach. It was one of my favorite days on the cruise.

Ironically we chose not to book a celebrity cruise and picked the NCL jade for 2015 because all if the celebrity itineraries seemed over packed. So curious to see what others suggest.

My sister and I will be cruising the Mediterranean this October with 10 or so ports and all day excursions planned for each. We do have one sea day towards the end and that's it:eek:

For those of you who have cruised a similar itinerary, how do you keep your energy up? We are excited and are looking forward to our trip but have concerns we just might collapse!

Thanks for any tips you may have.

We did similar last year B2B cruises, 28 nights 3 sea days I think! It will depend on your stops.

We investigated ports that we could do on our own and we found that for us we did quite a few on our own and still saw lots.

Have a great cruise.

We pace ourselves.

In other words we do not do full day tours in all ports.

In fact we try to limit full day tours.

If we do a full day tour the day before and the day after we do shorter tours.

Don't plan every minute of your day in port. Just allow time to enjoy it without feeling to rush around.

Have a great time.

Keith

We keep our "energy up" by not taking excursions. By doing our own thing, we are able to do what we want, when we want (and with who we want) which allows us to pace ourselves to our own liking. While tour groups are running to and fro, we might be relaxing with a long lunch in a well-located outdoor café (watching the exhausted tour groups running to an fro). The few times we have done all day organized tours we found ourselves totally worn out!

Hank

We keep our "energy up" by not taking excursions. By doing our own thing, we are able to do what we want, when we want (and with who we want) which allows us to pace ourselves to our own liking. While tour groups are running to and fro, we might be relaxing with a long lunch in a well-located outdoor café (watching the exhausted tour groups running to an fro). The few times we have done all day organized tours we found ourselves totally worn out!

 

Hank

Totally agree. How many naked statues of David do we have to see? How many ancient ruins?

Our fondest memories are not of the vatican, the collesium or Herculeum. They are the perfect pizza and red wine lunch in Naples. The marvelous conversation we enjoyed with an 88 year old italian man in Sicily. The street market we stumbled upon in Mallorca.

We have done this as well but starting with a TA which had several ports at the end just before the Med. cruise ! One thing that helped was to focus on healthy eating including drinking lots of water. Some of the tours had a lot of driving time so we had a nice mix of these with the ports we did on our own which had miles of walking.

Of course we crashed early each night!!

We just returned from a 13 night Med cruise on the Equinox. The first four days were loaded with all excursions. By the time that we reached our first sea day we were exhausted. On the second week of the cruise we took it slower as we had visited some off the ports previously and made one day a "ship" day as did many others. We also did some ports on our own which made it very nice.

Hi there, I agree with the others. Maybe you could post your ports for us?

When we did 12 nights on the Solstice we had 2-3 ports that were DIY. We also allowed 2 ports to just stroll around and walk the town (half-day outing).

I don't know where you are going but some ports you can just slowly walk around, shop, eat, and take it all in :) Not all places will be like Rome and Pompeii with intensive sight seeing :)

We have a port every day. No sea days. On our last cruise in the Med we didn't bother at all with nighttime shows. Just enjoyed a nice dinner, stroll afterwards then sleep.

We have a port every day. No sea days. On our last cruise in the Med we didn't bother at all with nighttime shows. Just enjoyed a nice dinner, stroll afterwards then sleep.

Agree. We only attended three shows in 13 nights.

We sailed Reflection in May on a 10 night Med cruise, and no way could we have enjoyed full day tours every day. Some of this depends on the itinerary ---- our ports were already pretty hot the end of May, and some like Athens are particularly strenuous with a lot of hills and walking under the hot sun. I'm not saying we couldn't have done it, just that I think our enjoyment factor would have decreased as the cruise went on . We did full day tours in Athens and Sicily, a half day tour at Herculaneum in Naples, a day pass at a resort on Mykonos, and DIY tours in Rhodes and Santorini. I should also mention that we had 2 very busy days sightseeing in Rome before our cruise started. We stayed on the ship in Kusadasi because we had seen Ephesus before, gave us a restful day before we hit the Greek islands. Some of this may vary, of course, depending on your age, your stamina level, your physical condition. But even with skipping the shows on the ship, just be careful that you don't over schedule and end up exhausted and overwrought.

We did it and did full day private tours at every port!! You live once!! Unless you plan on going back, take advantage of being half way round the world!!! It's a beautiful cruise and you will enjoy it!!

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I agree with the others. Alternate easy hard days unless it's a must do. WE did DIY on easy days and formal excursions on hard days. Worked great for our recent Adriatic cruise.

I think a lot depends on your age and health/fitness. We are in our mid 70's with very mild health issues. We have done several port-intensive med cruises. We survived by planning private tours so we got closer to the sites we wanted to see. Our plan is to take all-day tours (this means anything over 6 hrs) starting in the morning. When we get back on board, we head to the cabin and take a nap. That means really getting into bed and sleeping for an hour. Then we get ready for the evening. We always have late dining and do not go to the normal evening entertainment unless it is something special. The only mistake we've made is a week in Rome before the start of a cruise. I booked a full day tour AND then a walking and dining tour the same night! We were exhausted by the time we got on board.

Ironically we chose not to book a celebrity cruise and picked the NCL jade for 2015 because all if the celebrity itineraries seemed over packed. So curious to see what others suggest.

We did this one in April. Fabulous itinerary and price, but yes, very tiring.

Here are a couple of suggestions: In Valencia, take the shuttle to the city center rather than an all day tour. You can come back whenever you choose. We got a map at the visitors' center and went from there. Unfortunately we went early, before the bus attendant arrived and our bus driver spoke no English. However, a wonderful Australian lady had printed a map and led us to the visitors' center...think there was free wifi there, too. We went to the cathedral that has a relic believed to be the Holy Grail (Yes, I know more than one of these exists.) Wonderful inexpensive tour there. Then we headed back to the ship. Kept that one to a half day.

Since we'd been to Barcelona before, we chose to return to La Sagrada. Be sure to buy tickets online before going to save magnitudes of time. I wanted to go up in one of the towers so buying ahead of time is essential. We used the metro near the port to get there very cheaply, got off at a different spot coming back and strolled Las Ramblas on the way back. Another shortened but great day for little money.

At Mallorca, we took a half day tour.

Those are some suggestions which may help. Agree with everyone who suggested half day tours in some of the ports. I still got very tired and we chose to spend short times in the lounges instead of some of the shows. Some we'd seen before and don't care for the magicians and acrobats, even though they were good according to others.

We took all day tours to Monaco with Nice and Eze and Florence which included climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Both were exhausting but worth it. Had to pick and choose which days to spend the energy on.

Enjoy your cruise!

As others have responded, a port intensive cruise is tiring, but you want to see as much as possible. One suggestion is to make sure you get yourself in good shape for lots of walking before your cruise. If you are not used to walking, day after day of stepping on cobblestones, hard surfaces, lots of steps and going uphill and down can fatigue you pretty easily. Some days you might not feel that you've had to walk a great distance, but being on your feet for hours each day, especially if you're not used to it can be a problem. Take advantage of any times you can sit to give your legs a rest. Enjoy all the interesting sights you'll see and have a great cruise!

As others have responded, a port intensive cruise is tiring, but you want to see as much as possible. One suggestion is to make sure you get yourself in good shape for lots of walking before your cruise. If you are not used to walking, day after day of stepping on cobblestones, hard surfaces, lots of steps and going uphill and down can fatigue you pretty easily. Some days you might not feel that you've had to walk a great distance, but being on your feet for hours each day, especially if you're not used to it can be a problem. Take advantage of any times you can sit to give your legs a rest. Enjoy all the interesting sights you'll see and have a great cruise!

We did this starting a couple of months before our cruise . Most of the ports have a lot of steep hills, so we walked the hills at home almost daily. It paid off in a major way

We are planning nothing!!! We will enjoy the sailing into the many beautiful ports and breakfasts from our balcony admiring the scenery. Then meander into the ports wandering round,taking in the sights but most of all feeling blessed to be on such a beautiful ship in a stunning part of the Med. It will be too hot to do too much but we can't wait. Enjoy yourselves whatever you do and feel lucky

:)

You are smart to go in October. First, the weather will not be so hot and therefore less tiring. Second, the crowds will be somewhat lighter so getting around is less stressful.

If you take bus tours, which are usual because lots of important sites are not near the port,

you can nap on the returning bus. Not the best way to sleep, but returning usually has a quiet ride with all the people napping!