Islandattorney

Has anyone taken this 7 or 9 night round trip itinerary from Rome or Barcelona on Divina with an overnight stop in La Spezia ( for Cinque Terre)? I'm wondering if a ship that size, with thousands of passengers, just turns the little towns into shoulder to shoulder crowds. Anyone who has done that. Please share your experience. We want to try an itinerary with that stop, & MSC has the most options, but the issue of crowd size does concern us.

Oh my, thanks so much for taking me along on your visit!

So just to be clear, are they actually offering better prices while on board than the lowest we find now in their flood of brochures o sends us, with discounts (price, air included, etc), O website, on-line, or is the only benefit supposed to be a reduced deposit & small obc? I keep track of fares offered for cruises I'm interested in, so could readily see if a fare offered was a true savings, but like you, I don't want to spend an hour with a sales rep to find I won't really save anything by doing so. I have cruised many times with many lines, & never booked on board, but have sometimes wondered if they had a bag of goodies I should check out.

Folks: I was looking at a cruise on the Eurodam, and checking cabin options, comparing verandas & suites (not the Neptune suite...just regular "suite"). The HAL website describes the suite as approximately 273-456 sq ft including balcony. Since that's a huge spread, even with approximation, am I correct to assume it means the inside cabin is appx 273 and when balacony is added, the total size is appx 456? Hoping someone who has cruised often with HAL will know. Thanks.

Thanks to all for comments. I'm with Canuck.qc on the idea of a cruise here..no thought of it as an in depth experience. More like an appetizer-size bite. We had that with Positano & Amalfie coast years ago. First a cruise stop (.overnight) on one of the old Renaissance ships in Naples and because an Itslian friend had told us not to miss Ravello, we hired a car & driver, & drove like a race car thru Positano and on to Ravello, nearly ran to the grand mansion on the cliff, loved it but had to rush back....and then saw Positano from the sea as we sailed away. I vowed to go back, and several years later we did, staying in the gorgeous hotel in Positano we had admired from the sea, renting a car and driving back to Ravello along the heart-stopping Amalfie Coast (I loved that...DH who was driving, not so much) and had a lovely, leisurely day and lunch in a Postcard perfect restaurant on the path we ran by the first time.

So the idea of a stop in Portofino & cinque Terre is like that...to take a quick look & see if we want to order a full course visit later.

Thanks for recognizing my error -- I meant Portofino, not Positano.

I am thinking of a cruise with stop in Positano, and I see a good looking itinerary next May with O with stops in both Positano & Cinque Terre, which sounds great. Seems quite hard to find with anyone else. Has anyone done this on Riviera? Is she too big for that kind of small stop? We were on Marina in a South Pacific and I guess she did not overwhelm fairly small islands. Anyway, anyone with experience on this itinerary, please share your thoughts. Thanks...

We are thinking of a cruise next year & would like to choose a line with a stop in Portofino. Wondering if some of the experienced CC cruisers would share thoughts on a good cruise line for that, considering size of ship, length of stop, etc. we have cruised around Italy several times. Mostly smaller ships, but not wedded to that. Advice appreciated.

We have been to Antigua a number of times & thought we would try to get over to Barbuda, but I only see two boat trips, and it seems both go only on Fridays. We will be in port on a Tuesday. Does anyone know if there is another option to do this as a day trip that would fit an 8-5 cruise stop? Advice very welcome.

we had a stop for 2 days on our cruise in April, & a fellow passenger found a very interesting guy doing private tours -- Paul Pownall. He is an archaeologist who worked on one of the great Moai sites as a teenager. He did have trouble fitting the 4 of us in his truck on day 1 as his van was being repaired, but on day 2 with 3 people we comfortably fit in his jeep. I will look for his email if you wish, but phone number is 307-460-4242 or 011-56-98-134-5757. We spent 2 full days with him and we was knowledgeable & pleasant. A nice alternative to a group tour & very reasonable price.

I am using this Co.in November. Mr.Bob Bennet

Toll free 1-877-413-9743

www.Costa ricaexecutive transportation.com

Cost $130

$170.20 better car and drinks

Do you have any references on this company? I contacted them after seeing your post, and they definitely responded promptly, but it occurred to me that you are also using them for the first time and just wondered if you had heard anything about their reliability, since they want a credit card in advance. Anyway, we'll look for you all in Puerto Caldera...