euro cruiser

Are you looking for a city stay or a countryside one? Is sea- or water-side important? One thought is Cinque Terre. It's kind of a mess as a day trip but lovely if you stay there, in the evenings when the day trippers leave it's quite different. In terms of train time, it's about the same five and a half hours to either MXP or FCO from there, so you could choose whatever flight is best for you. In any case you'd need to travel to the airport the night before.

Yes, I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, not the intent at all. The story about the management training was only to explain why I'm so conscious about (and maybe overreactive to) vague words.

I think we're both trying to find the balance here of making sure our fellow cruisers are well informed, without scaring them. Wildcat or last-minute strikes are almost unheard of in Italy and if you check the government strike web site a week or two before your trip you will have the information you need. As to the language, years ago I had a management training course on how to do performance reviews. Usually those workshops were boring and only marginally helpful but this one really stuck with me. They did an exercise with a number of words you find in performance reviews (like often, frequently, always, never, etc.) and had each of us quantify (0% to 100%) what amount of time or frequency the word meant to us. The range of interpretations was astounding, underscoring their point about not using them in a review because they are open to interpretation and therefore unclear.

Yes, I would not use the word "common", which to me would mean something more than 50% of the time. I'm not even sure I would say "frequent", as in any given area there might be three or four strikes in a year. Unfortunately, if it happens on the one day you want to travel, it might as well happen every day. We DIYers always need to have a backup plan in mind, just in case.

A "matrimonial" bed (a double in an Italian hotel) is basically two twin beds together, so it's about the size of a queen bed in the States. Hotel rooms in Italy are usually quite a bit smaller than those in the States, so a king wouldn't fit in most. I think you'd need to look at the really high-end hotels to find that.

The Nazionale is in a more central location for walking to key sites. The Forum is better located if ancient Rome (Forum, Colosseum, Palatine) are your primary focus. If you're flying in the day before your cruise you'll only have an afternoon and a few hours the next morning so I would figure out which one or two things you want to see, then pick the best location for accomplishing that.

As most restaurants don't even open for dinner until 7 PM or so, and the train ride back requires about 90 minutes, I doubt you'd be back by 9 PM. At any rate, your odds of getting a taxi are much higher at Pisa than Livorno. I would not count on taxi availability at Livorno, although you could get lucky. If you speak Italian well enough to make a phone call you can call the company posted at the station.

You'll have plenty of time to have dinner in Florence before heading back to the ship, if you want. The last train departs Florence around 11 PM. The only issue will be getting back to the ship from the train station, I think I might arrange that in advance. It might be easier to arrange round trip transfers from the port to Pisa Centrale (you would have to change trains there in any case) rather than to Livorno (it may be too small of a trip for a car service to bother with and/or the price would be the same as going to Pisa).

Naples is very easy on your own, unless you want to include the Amalfi Coast. The other "main" destinations are very easy to get to on your own, using your own two feet (the cruise port is right in the historic center of Naples), ferries, trains and/or buses. Florence and Pisa can also be easily reached using the trains from Livorno. It's not quite as simple as Naples since they are a distance inland, but lots of us do it DIY. Likewise, Messina has good transport links. If Taormina is your goal there are public buses or you can take the train and then a bus up the hill to the town.

Absolutely join the roll call for your sailing to find others to share a private van into the city, you will certainly not be the only ones heading into town after your cruise. As for the train, while it is cumbersome even with the new elevators at the Civitavecchia station and I don't recommend it in your situation, I don't agree with the characterization that it is very crowded and standing room only "most times". The regionales are during commuting hours, as public transportation is everywhere, but at other times of the day it's an easy and inexpensive way to travel. For a higher fare (10 euro vs. 5 for the regionales) you can have an assigned seat in a newer, nicer high speed train, eliminating the crowding and no seat concerns.

Also, the trains between Livorno and Florence are all regionales, so there is no financial benefit to purchasing in advance. You can, however, buy your ticket on your phone on the way to the station to avoid the lines at the ticket machines. Or if you have a previous port stop in Italy you can buy your ticket at any train station with a ticket machine or ticket office.

Actually no, it can't be interpreted different ways, at least not in this context. Italian regulations are very clear about what a tour guide is and is not, and it's different from what Americans are accustomed to. In the States you can simply memorize a script and be called a tour guide, in Italy one must pass difficult testing that is only offered once every few years and be accepted by the regional government in order to be a guide.

Just to be clear, a tour guide and a driver are two different jobs, two different licenses. If he was driving the car he was not a professional tour guide, just a knowledgeable resident. Legally he cannot accompany a client into a site, a licensed guide is needed for that.

Did they hire a guide, or was Piero their driver?

Yes, there will be plenty of taxis available as you leave the cruise port. There is a round trip, fixed fare to Herculaneum by taxi of 80 euro that includes a two-hour stop at the ruins. This should be plenty of time. To get the fixed fare you must tell the driver you want it before the trip begins/before he engages the meter. The fare chart is posted in every licensed cab and has the key points translated into English. You can also download the chart from the city's web site and take a copy with you, so you can point at what you want. The chart is in the pdf file below the cartoon of the taxi here: Comune di Napoli - Servizio Taxi There are often guides available at the entrance to the ruins but they are not guaranteed to be there, as they are at Pompei.

Guess we'll just disagree on this. Unless one is very slow, or very far from a main station, I don't think it's a wash but you make a good point that the time savings aren't as great as I implied. Moreover, you can eat during a train ride and use the bathroom without making a stop, saving some time. Finally, I think you'll get the best of a driver's input in an eight hour day, no need to stretch it into twelve or more hours.

My first trip to Rome was my first trip to Italy. I didn't speak a word of Italian at the time and I stayed for a month without scratching the surface of things to see and do. I would seriously consider spending the entire time in Rome, maybe doing a day trip from there (Florence or Naples/Pompei are easy to reach by high speed train for the day, without the need to pack up and change hotels).

No matter how good RIL is, they can't travel as fast as the high speed trains. It would be a MUCH better use of your time to take a fast train from Rome to Naples and Rome to Florence, then have your car service pick you up there and return you to the train station at the end of the day. That will significantly lessen the amount of time in the car. Rome to Sorrento is about a three and a half hour drive if traffic is normal (google maps consistently underestimates travel time in Italy). High speed train from Rome to Napoli Afragola takes one hour, plus about 90 minutes by car to Sorrento. Rome to San Gimignano by car is about three and a half to four hours. High speed train to Florence is an hour and forty minutes, plus a little over an hour by car to San Gimignano.

What entrance? There is now an elevator at the Civitavecchia station, eliminating the steps to get under the tracks and up the other side.

She had a sign up sheet with hours from 9 AM - 5 PM, with one hour off for lunch from 12 - 1, plus people like me showing up at five till nine trying to get her attention.

We would have paid the corkage fees if they had been assessed, we understood the risk but decided that being able to have the wine we preferred while enjoying our balcony was worth the extra $20 per bottle. I don't think it has anything to do with honor, it was in checked luggage that they have the full legal authority to search. No one ever asked me if I carried something on, if they had I would have been truthful. Life is too short to risk ruining a good time over $20 here or there, nor is it worth the guilt that accompanies lying (for me, anyway).

We just got off this cruise this morning. Yes, there were disappointments, especially missing Huatulco, but overall we had a great time. HAL in general has an older clientele, on longer cruises that's even more the case. Health issues happen, as one who has frequently cruised with an elderly parent and two other health-compromised family members I've always felt confident that emergencies would be handled. I was glad to see that this was still the case. Besides the two evacuations that happened during the cruise, this morning two ambulances met the ship at Port Everglades and took two passengers off. I did notice many differences from pre-Covid cruising but it was difficult to know if they were cost cutting measures or a result of inability to fully staff the ship. I wrote an extensive feedback survey about the things I noticed, none of them deal breakers but annoying nonetheless. As a side note, as much as unhappy folks tend to find one another, the fact that you could not get time with the future cruise consultant for the last week of the cruise tells me that not everyone was as disenchanted as the OP.

Well, reality is somewhat different than the website. I checked with our HAL cruise consultant a week before boarding our cruise three weeks ago and she told me that decisions about corking fees are made on the spot, by folks on the ship. She said that there was no hard and fast rule and that they seemed to target "egregious" behavior. My roommate and I each packed three bottles of wine in our checked luggage for a two-week cruise. No comment and no corkage fees. We consumed the wine on our verandah.

I just got off a HAL cruise, my first since Covid, and for the first time I selected a set dining time. In the past I always wanted the "freedom" of anytime dining, but fixed dining was a revelation for me. It was lovely to have a set table, for two, the same table each night with the same neighbors around us and the same servers. Looking around there were lots of two-tops in the third-floor dining room, where fixed diners eat. We never even waited to be seated, just walked in and right to "our" table. The new (how new is it?) Club Orange makes it even more difficult for anytime diners, the lines are longer since Club Orange members have a separate line and are seated before everyone else.

Just for fun, take a look at these two villas in the Sorrento area: Villa Glenna: Self catering villa in Sorrento, Italy (summerinitaly.com) Villa Dulcibella: Self catering villa in Sorrento, Italy (summerinitaly.com)