Do Amalfi Coast land-based or on SeaDream?

Hi:

Husband and I had a great time on our Caribbean cruise, and that's saying a lot because we're not usually cruise people. Rick likes to be biking/hiking/swimming/touring most of each day. We're considering doing the Civ-Civ starting June 1, visiting Corsica, Sardinia, Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento and Capri. I've visited the area and want to take Rick, knowing he'd love it, but I'm not sure if SeaDream is the way to go. Is there enough time to hike a good portion of Capri, how was the excursion to Pompeii, does the ship tender right to the main square in Amalfi where we can pick up buses? Anyone who's done a similar cruise, can you give us any advice? The alternative is Greece in Sept. Thanks!

We did some of this in Sept 2010 -- Capri, Sorrento and Amalfi. We spent most of the day in Capri and did the "around the island" tour, which was great. We sailed around Capri and saw the wonderful water colors without having to do the Grotto thing -- went to the town near the top (name escapes me at present) and took the tram up the mountain. Views were spectacular! When we got back into the main town, it was absolutely jammed so we beat feet back to Sea Dream. In Sorrento, we took the tour to Pompeii -- bus ride was fine (although the roads will scare you to death) and the tour was excellent. Had a little time in Sorrento to wander about. Amalfi -- we took the tour to Ravello and had some time in Amafi at the end. As far as I can remember, the tenders brought us pretty much to the center of town.

We also did part of Greece on this cruise -- let me just say I was way more impressed with Italy :)

Hope this helps!

Vandrefalk

I've been looking at your post for a couple of days and thinking about answering it but did not know exactly what to say. Since Vandrefalk responded about her experience I decided to add a couple of things. I've been to Capri on a land tour, on Sea Dream (did the boat ride around the island as Vandrefalk did), and on another cruise line. Land would give you much more flexibility timing wise if your spouse wanted to do a major hike than on a cruise. Capri can be so crowded and it depends on how many cruise ships are in Naples and Capri and what day of the week it is. We were there once on a Sunday and all the locals from Naples took the ferry over for the day. That made taking the funicular down the mountain to the port area very difficult. There was quite a wait just to get down to the port. We did Pompeii and Amalfi on land or on another cruise line. Also did Sorrento on land and liked it alot. But I LOVE Sea Dream and I am sure their shore excursions to Pompeii would be very good. We have sailed with them Rome to Venice, Barcelona to Lisbon, and the Baltic as well as 4 times in the Caribbean. Most of the shore excursions have been quite good. Hope this helps!

Thank you to posters, I do appreciate your thoughts. There is certainly no problem getting around on buses (leaves Amalfi at mid-day for Positano) if we chose to do a major hike, and Capri is on a Friday so hopefully wouldn't be the mob scene you both experienced - but no sweat if it is. I think we're going for it!

Glad you think you'll go for it. I think it will be a good decision!