blan2

We have been to Kudadasi before and did the whole Ephesus thing. This time our whole goal of the port is to find some turkish delight.

Enjoy your time and have fun shopping! I won't get to buy my Turkish delight, as NCL is no longer stopping in Turkey this year........it stays on the bucket list, hope to make it there one day.

Looking at the Spirit on NCL and not seeing Moderno's listed. Is Moderno's on the Spirit? I'm hoping so.

 

Thanks

Unfortunately no Modernos on the Spirit.

I must be the only one who loves to muster. Not that I like standing on a hot deck, jammed together. I much prefer it over the farewell shows. It means the cruise is just starting, so I am quite happy at muster drill.

Agreed.......I love knowing when it is over we will soon be on our way! Although I do prefer the ships with musters in an area inside rather than cramming together on the deck.

We used Rome-in-limo for a tour to Mt. Vesuvius, Sorrento and Pompeii. They were great. I will say that if I had it to do over again, I would opt out of Mt. Vesuvius. I found it to be disappointing. I would rather have had the extra time in Pompeii.

hawkshoe - why did you feel Mt. Vesuvius was disappointing? Not a great day weather wise? Just not all that exciting? Not enough time there? Any feedback would be appreciated. This is one of the tours that we are considering, so your information may help us in making our final decision. Also, did you have a shared tour, or private tour? Thanks.

Just returned last week from a Viking Grand Mediterranean Cruise. It was terrific! However, the free shore excursions were not great. So I was thrilled that one of my traveling companions had arranged private tours in Florence, Pisa and Rome with RomeinLimo.

 

Vinny drove us and toured with us in Florence and Pisa. He could not have been more knowledgeable or helpful--and funny too. He gave us ample time for pictures and helped us find a lovely little place for lunch--then joined us. Since none of us were big on shopping, we did very little of that, although he was willing. A lovely man.

 

The highlight, though, was Rome. Enrico and Giovanni drove us there from our ship in a deluxe Mercedes van--wonderfully comfortable and easy to look out windows. The gave us an excellent, knowledgeable introduction to Rome and what we were going to see. Both very intelligent and kind. At the Vatican they introduced us to Massimo, who was the best guide we could have hoped for! He gave us a tutorial on the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica and used an iPad to show us how to view Michelangelo's ceiling at the Sistine Chapel. Honestly, I have studied art history, but his lectures gave me a whole new way to look and study. I got so much out of this tour, and I will never forget it.

 

Then it was on to the Roman Coliseum and the Forum with Sarah. She was a brilliant young women, a historian, who in an interesting, easy to follow fashion, gave us dates, times and events to look for. She also helped us get through the horrible lines quickly. (We had advance tickets, of course) I was so impressed with her specific knowledge of what we saw. There were no questions, however irrelevant, she would not answer.

 

Looking back on our Florence/Rome adventure, I am so grateful we had the wonderful guides from RomeinLimo! And, best of all, they did not "break the bank!"

 

Anyone who is lucky enough to have a tour with RomeinLimo will not be disappointed!

Thank you for the feed back....RomeinLimo does have great reviews. Glad to hear you enjoyed your days in Florence and Rome.

It's not clear to me if you are looking for transportation, or for a "tour". The distinction I'm making here is basically whether you want a guide to take you through the ruins and another to walk up to the edge of the crater with you along with transportation, vs. simply an efficient way to get from Naples to Pompei to Vesuvio and back.

 

The car service companies that cater to the cruise business are, I think, overkill for the day you are outlining. If you arrange basic transport rather than a RIL-type "tour" you can save a lot of money but you give up the entertainment aspects (jovial, talkative, English speaking drivers) of this type of tour.

 

By the way, just a quick couple of comments on the response above (#9). By bus it's an hour from Pompei to the parking lot at the base of the crater (the Grand Cone) walk, by car maybe 40 - 45 minutes. The fee to walk up to the Grand Cone is 10 Euro and most people can do it in less than 90 minutes. The total distance is one mile; granted it is steep and the walking surface is loose pebbles making it slow going, but unless you spend an inordinate amount of time at the top photographing I don't think you need more than an hour.

We are looking for a guided tour of Pompeii and then transport to Mt. Vesuvius. My DH is determined to go up Mt. Vesuvius......he loves to hike and loves his camera.

Looking forward to reading your review. Enjoy your cruise....wishing you smooth seas!

I'm also on the grand Mediterranean in September and noticed our itinerary had been changed when i logged on today. Don't think the cost changed though. We are now stopping in dubrovnik croatia and kotor montenegro with athens being a different day than previously scheduled. Whilst i am disappointed to miss out on turkey i completely understand and am grateful that we still see other places as this is our first europe trip.

The same with our Barcelona to Venice (Sept 30 departure) .......moved our Athens day, added Dubrovnik and Kotor which is great......the main negative, other than missing Turkey is instead of arriving in Venice at 2pm we now won't be arriving until 9:30pm.

yes, we knew that info,,,,some cruise lines will only allow you to collect photos of those registered in your cabin and some, any photo you are in...I will call them tomorrow to clarify,,,and post what I hear...thanks for your help,,,

Looking forward to hearing what you find out when you call NCL. I hope things haven't changed with the photo packages.

...I have a question,,

are the photo packages of only the people in the cabin or do they include any photo you are in? including people in other cabins

ex. we are in 1 cabin ,,but, if we have a group photo with our family in the other 2 cabins, can we still get that photo?

 

thank ahead for any help.

we are sailing The Gem in October

I am pretty sure you can purchase any of the photos! I have bought group photos before.

Enjoy your cruise.

I did post half of Venice but still need to wrap it up. There was Gelato, gondola races and a trip to the palace.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your time in Venice! We are starting to really start planning for the same cruise later on this year (in September) and I love all the great tips and suggestions you have given.........thanks!

Another suggestion would be to book a tour with Barcelona Day Tours. They will pick you up at the airport, and keep your luggage in their van while you tour the city with them (or do another tour, like to Montserrat). If you do a search in this forum for Barcelona Day Tours, you'll see that they are very highly regarded. (We used them a little over a year ago during a port call, and thought they were terrific.)

 

https://www.barcelonadaytours.com/

 

https://www.barcelonadaytours.com/tour-from-airport/

 

 

Have a great trip!

Thank you Turtles06 - We have been to Barcelona previously, so do not know if we really need to take a tour of the city. We will also be there for 5 full days before our cruise so have a lot of time to sight seeing.......but maybe a tour to an area out of the city like Montserrat would be an idea. Thanks!

Has anyone had experience with Locker Barcelona? (http://www.lockerbarcelona.com)

We have booked an apartment and will likely not be able to check-in until 3pm. The filght we are considering arrives close to 9am and we are looking for options for securing our luggage for a few hours during the day. I came upon the website for Locker Barcelona, but would love to here some feedback....or other suggestions.

Thanks!

Olympic Torch?:D

Lol. I am going to say it was a swan possibly that tipped forward and took a nose dive;)

No free lobster because they're too shellfish.

Thanks for the laugh;)

There are several companies to consider.

 

Look down the boards and you will find writeup on many of them such as Rome in Limo and Joe Banana Limousine.

 

Go to their web sites. Read about their tours and pricing and then correspond with them.

 

Also read trip advisor.

 

This is what we did and continue to do when looking for new tours and evaluating any tour companies we have not previously used and find it works out well for us.

 

Keith

Thank you for your suggestions. I think at this point I have done so much reading and research that I am looking for a few reviews of more recently taken excursions to the same places. I have 11 months to go so I still have lots of time to plan it all out. ;) I will take a look at Trip Advisor and read up on a few of the companies I am considering.

I have looked at Rome in Limo and a few other companies, but am really hoping to find someones suggestions for this particular combo of Pompeii including Mt. Vesuvius. I am on here a few times a week and have done a lot of research, but am just hoping for something I have missed, or that just suites what we are looking for.

We are many, many months away from our cruise, so our roll call is.... very slow.....I am waiting for it to pick up;)

I am sure I will be given some great info over the next few months.

Thanks again.

We (DH and I) have narrowed down our options for our day in Naples and are leaning toward going to Pompeii and walking up Mt. Vesuvius. We would like some suggestions on private tour companies that others have used and can recommend. At this time we are opting to not book with the cruise line (NCL) as their tour will likely include a stop at a cameo factory, and we would prefer to spend our time sight seeing.

Thank you for your suggestions.

It is wonderful to hear you had such an amazing trip. Looking forward to you sharing it with us.

Thank you for taking the time to write a review.

I can say that I used The Tendency Group (they are online and have a facebook page) and they did an excellent job, were very responsive to email and did not have any "hidden fees".

 

We very much enjoyed our rental from them and highly recommend them.

BaseballMomof4, I had looked into your suggestion for Tendency Group, but there just wasn't the 3-bedroom/3-bathroom option we needed. I will keep that name for reference if I return in a smaller group, their facebook page and rentals looked really great.

Madflyer you are always so informative.

I have an additional question regarding renting an apartment in Barcelona.

Do you know if there are hidden or additonal fees once you book an apt?

I have read about a lot of unhappy people once they got to Barcelona. I am hoping that this is just a few people trying to make a large profit.

Do you know of reputable companies that rent apts? Or blan2 are you willing to share who you used to rent this apt?

Thanks All

pat

Shopinpat, I did the majority of my research through VRBO and contacted the rentals that we were interested in. We then sat and chatted as a group and came up with a price range and location that everyone was comfortable with and this is basically how we reached our decision. There are many three bedroom-two bath rentals but we wanted a three bedroom with three bathrooms, so we had a much more limited selection. The final rental was linked through VRBO, but the actual agency was Friendly Rentals. I did a lot of research and read quite a few reviews before finally settling on the rental.

Up to now they have been very easy to communicate and deal with. The pricing is very well explained. We know that we are going to have to pay the balance of the nightly accommodation, a cleaning fee, taxes and a damage deposit and then another overnight accommodation tax once we arrive. It is clearly explained about a surcharge for using credit cards vs euros, so at this time it looks like there should not be any hidden fees. I will be sure to post once we return to state how the whole experience turned out.

I use vacation rental agencies often when traveling, but this will be the first for an international rental. It is a nice experience if you are travelling as a group. It allows us to have a social area to sit and relax and chat about the events of the day and then we all still have our own bedrooms and bathrooms for our our own private areas. We do not often make meals, but may buy some beverages and snacks to have on hand, or may make a small breakfast or have some fruit in the morning before heading out exploring for the day.

Madflyer, hopefully we will not run into any issues with the plans of the new mayor.

Part 11

 

The bathroom was divided into three areas:

Toilet in small “closet” with a frosted glass door

Sink area in the middle

Walk in shower with a clear door

 

You had to step up into the bathroom which is always fun to remember to do in the middle of the night. I had nightmares worrying about the tiny bathroom. It proved to not be awful. The shower was more spacious than I was expecting, my biggest gripe was the wall mounted dispensers and the tile on the floor and the grout in the shower was pretty grimey. There was also several broken tiles that were loose on the floor in front of the sink. This I thought was a hazard and housekeeping never reported the broken tiles to maintenance for repair. We ended up just throwing the terrycloth bathmat over the broken pieces to protect our feet.

 

Note the Asian style wall mounted hair dryer. It was pretty bad and if I had known it was this type of dryer I would have brought my own.

 

The little fishy tile was very reminiscent of the 1980s Golden Girls house, that along with the blue wavy carpet in the bedroom cheapened the “feel” of the room. If you look at the renderings on the NCL website the rooms have a much more stylish look than what is actually delivered.

 

There was no light in the shower part of the bathroom

 

Note the condition of the wall tile. On the plus side the shower had awesome shower pressure, just be sure to press the button on the left knob to turn the water pressure up to full strength

 

 

I feel that I will have to bring a scrub brush and some cleaner to try to get the tiles and grout clean before using the shower. Everything else looks fine, but the shower actually looks pretty bad.

While you can arrange a transfer for 6 passengers as you might find a more economical option, I would think a taxi would be the best option if you do not have 'excessive' baggage.

 

A 6 passenger taxi will only be an additional 2.70 supplement on top of what a taxi would cost for 4. 29 euro is the estimated fare to the center, but you need to add 1 euro for each bag as well along with your supplements.

 

I would say to the 'Example Derecha' this would cost around 38 on a weekday or up to 42 on a Sunday.

 

When you get in the normal taxi line it may 'look' very long to you but taxi lines in Spain move incredibly quickly. When you get to the front of the line you will tell or show them you are 6 passengers and if there is a large taxi there at the moment they will take you in a separate line to the side. You can end up waiting 5 to 30 extra minutes to get a large taxi is all and it should provide a savings over the transfer option.

 

The Aeropbus A1 or A2 would cost 5.90 per person and could get you fairly close to your apartment depending on where it is located in the Eixample.

Thank you once again for all the information. My preference would be a taxi and the cost seems very reasonable. Are the rates fixed or metered? Do we need to negotiate the rate when arranging the trip?

Congratulation on your find. That sounds like a great accommodation for 3 couples.

Thank you for your previous information. It helped in choosing our apartment rental.

What do you think the average price would be for a taxi from BCN? Or would you suggest a shuttle service? We are not sure if we will be arriving as a group of 6 or as couples. So transportation information for 2-6 people would be appreciated.

Thank you so much for sharing your review. I look forward to your next posts!