Spree75

This is an excellent possibility. . . . are there any other suggestions out there?

If you are doing a private transfer then depending on what time you want to leave Rome and what time you want to get to the ship then there are a lot of things available to you that aren't technically on the way...

We also left on a Monday from around the Pantheon around 9 AM. We went northwards for about an hour and arrived at Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo (Monsters Park) which is a very unique sculpture garden. We spent about 2 hours in the garden after which we drove to Tarquinia (about an hour drive) for a light lunch. As Marazul noted, the town is dead on Mondays but they are happy to see tourists! After that it's a 30 minute drive down to the port. I think we arrived around 2:30 pm at the ship.

Other things that our travel agent suggested and I declined because I thought they would be too far away but now I know they would be doable:

- Civita di Bagnoregio

- Orvieto

- If it wasn't a Monday, Villa Lante near Viterbo or Villa Farnese are possibilities (or both!)

If you're worried about time Lake Bracciano is definitely more in a direct route towards Civitavecchia but almost the whole of northern Lazio is available to you if you have a private transfer. The Sacro Bosco for me was one of the surprise highlights of our last cruise and I'm glad I listened to the travel agent and took the detour. After we had already gone I started seeing the Garden mentioned in all sorts of other places including the Dali museum in Figueres, Spain and the Atlas Obscura that a friend gave to me as a present. If you love the off beat, this garden has to be high up on the list. The crooked house had the three of us smiling and laughing the whole time we explored it... One thing I would suggest is getting a guide that is familiar with the history because there are a couple of "stories" that run through the entire garden that probably made our experience that much more special and connects all of the statues together.

We did many of these ports this year but we tended to book our own guides/drivers so that we could maximize our time.

Monte Carlo - We ended up going to St. Paul de Vence. Lovely village and the Maeght Foundation is nearby if you are interesting in art. Eze is a popular destination too but we didn't have time to stop.

Elba - Can't help you there

Amalfi - I think my favorite in the area was Ravello. Beautiful villas on top of the cliffs.

Taormina - Do visit the theater and wander the main street. Go up to Castelmola. Tour the area through the Alcantara Valley. Stop at a winery on the slopes of Mt. Etna. Godfather tour is very popular as is heading up Mt. Etna

Malta - On Gozo the two main attractions is the main city of Victoria and the fort/cathedral and Ggantija for prehistoric monolithic temple. The area around the former Azure Window still has beautiful scenery even if the arch has fallen into the ocean. As for the main island, Mdina is fascinating and popular. Walking around the old city of Valletta is also common. We also visited the Catacombs in Rabat that were well worth a look, the three cities (Birgu, Senglea, and Cospicua) where a lot of the Templar history is located, and the Tarxian prehistoric temple. We didn't get to the Hypogeum but I hear that is something well worth the time to see.

Corsica - We got diverted to Ajaccio but I would say that the whole island is quite beautiful. We traveled into the mountains which reminded me of the Rockies of Western Canada. Local food is plentiful and delicious (try the boar). Can't go wrong just wandering around and looking at the scenery.

Bandol - We went really far afield for this port and visited Les Baux and Saint Remy. That kind of shows how far you can roam in one day and still make it back to the ship in time. Cassis (we stopped in for a very short time) and Le Castellet are also very popular destinations near by.

Palamos - We didn't stop here but did travel in the area for a day from Barcelona. Girona is nearby and has a wonderful old city. Figueres is a little further away but has the Dali Museum which includes his jewel collection.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

As long as you go the easy route it shouldn't take you longer than 15-20 minutes to walk to the Co-cathedral. When you get out of the cruise terminal you'll want to turn right and walk towards the Barakka Lift. It costs a Euro but well worth it since the bulk of the old city is on the cliff top and quite the hike up. The lift will let you out at the Upper Barakka Gardens which is lovely vantage point over the harbor. Start walking down Castille Street and turn right on either Merchant Street (two blocks) or Republic Street (three blocks). Walk down 2.5 blocks. You can't miss the the Co-Cathedral. We entered from the Republic Street entrance but I think the main entrance is on Triq San Gwann.

You could get a private guide. I can recommend Scott Ricketts from Your Sydney Guide. When we were with Scott, he had a large turquoise van that would have easily sat 4 people with a ton of luggage comfortably. Although the private guide route isn't cheap, you have the advantage of having your luggage with you at all times and knowledgeable guide that can pack in as many sites as possible before dropping you off at the airport.

For me the TA isn't really there for the actual cruise booking but all the peripherals.

For the cruise this is what I expect from my TA:

- Honest appraisal of the itinerary. For instance I was considering the 2018 Ft. Lauderdale to Lima. With her connections and her research she was able to give me a feel of what would be available at each port. From that information I could see that the cruise would scratch the Panama Canal off my bucket list but that's about it and we made the decision to pass on that cruise.

- Book the best available cabin. We're familiar with the layout of the ship and really wouldn't need this but it's nice double check.

- Keep abreast of deals and price reductions and advocate with the cruise line on our behalf, especially after final payment has been made

The non-Cruise parts are where the TA shines for us:

- Use their extensive networks to set up private excursions at the various ports, help in booking hard to get in restaurants (ours snagged a reservation at Tickets in Barcelona for us), getting great hotel rooms which almost always have surprise gifts/upgrades involved

- Get opinions from their local networks on things like hotels, restaurants, and airlines. For instance, for a trip to South America I've found some great prices on various South American airlines but wanted to know how they rate vs. the big North American/European/Asian airlines before I book them.

- Suggestions for hidden gems that you would never have thought to do in the first place. Carriere des Lumiere in Les Baux comes to mind from our last cruise. It's a long drive from Bandol where we docked but such a unique site that it was definitely worth it. The longer you work with a TA the more in tune they are with your interests and will work to find things for you to do. Another example is our love of art pieces of glass. From Monaco we ended up in Biot where there is a fantastic glass workshop and exhibition museum that we wouldn't have found ourselves.

- Be on top of any problems that may occur. An example from our last cruise was the last minute change from Bonaffacio to Ajaccio. We left a message with our TA and within a couple of hours we had a call from the local guide with plans to reroute the private excursion. This ended up being a fantastic day in the mountains and beaches of Corsica.

What you want from your TA is different from person to person and it can take a long time to find the right one but if you are synch they can make a good vacation great and a great vacation to once in a lifetime experience.

Hope that adds something to the discussion.

If you want to stay local, Ajaccio is where Napoleon is from and there are numerous landmarks detailing his history. There seemed to be plenty of cafes and restaurants and shopping within walking distance of the port entrance. There are plenty of nice sandy beaches that are within a cab ride away. If you want to range further afield, you can go up in to the mountains for some beautiful scenery and hiking/walking. There's also a nice honey farm nearby that may be of interest.

If you get a good guide then having the same one over the entire trip is great. Good guides will get to know you and make modifications once they understand what you're interests are. In our 5 days in Barcelona we had one guide spread over three days. First day was Colonia Guell and Montserrat. This was probably our shakiest day as our guide was getting to know us and we had just gotten off the cruise ship. Next was a really long day doing a morning Gaudi trek and an afternoon of walking the old city. Finally the last day was a tour around the museums on Montjuic. Day 2 and 3 were fantastic as our guide understood that we loved both food and architecture and would divert here and there to look at some interesting feature on an out of the way alley or a tapas place for lunch that only locals really know.

However, the guide we had was a generalist for Barcelona. You mentioned a tapas tour and a trip outside the city. Those I might try and book with another guide that has a specialty in those areas.

Air Canada and United have not merged. They are on Star Alliance together so they have many code share flights. The flights that you see should say either Air Canada operated by United or United operated by Air Canada. I'm guessing the latter. Where are you flying out of? I find it odd Star Alliance is your only option. I've personally never had a problem with Air Canada other than my last trip which was cancelled due to severe thunderstorms (not their fault).

This may be the only direct flight but if you are willing to transfer then as 138east mentioned all the major airlines fly into Toronto. If you like Southwest then you should try Westjet which uses a similar model in Canada. Westjet has codeshare agreements with both American and Delta.

I've only been to Sydney twice but some of things that you might enjoy:

- Walking around the Rocks area

- The Royal Botanical Gardens are lovely (and huge). Maybe a walk all the way Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

- See something at the Sydney Opera House.

- Take a tour of the Sydney Opera House.

- Take a harbor cruise

- Take a tour out to the Blue Mountains

- Featherdale Wildlife Park is a popular animal stop on the way to the Blue Mountains

- Take a ferry out to Manley. Walk around North Head

- Get a guide/driver to take you to some of the suburbs outside of the central business district (Surrey Hills, Chippendale, Ultimo, Paddington) for some of the more bohemian and gentrifying areas

- Take a walk in Gap Park. Opposite side of the Bay from North Head.

- Take a guided architectural walk

- Travel up to West Head in Kuh-ring-gai Chase National Park for a nature walk. If you have a good guide or are adventurous, find the Elvina Track and look for the overgrown path to an amazing Aboriginal Engravings site.

- Something we have not done yet but plan to is a wine trip to either the Hunter Valley (north) or Southern Highlands (south)

We found that the Central Business District/Darling Harbor is really easy to do on your own but once you start ranging farther afield it's easier to have a guide/driver who can connect a bunch of things together. Our second trip was two long half days where we did North of the Bay all the way up to West Head one day and a huge South of the Bay loop on the second day from Gap Park down through the beaches and then crossing back through all the southern and western suburbs.

Hope this helps.

Our guide had told us that it was fairly common for people on the main island to make day trips to Gozo so it's definitely possible.

It should take ~1 hour by taxi to get to Cirkewwa from Valletta. Ferries are every 45 minutes and the ferry takes 30 minutes. Depends on what you want to do on Gozo but that's about 4 hours of your time travelling to and from the ship...

It was for us but we were on a smaller ship (Seabourn Odyssey). The pier is quite long though and I'd imagine even large cruise ships should be able to dock

138east is correct about the ways of getting to your appointment. You will be on 18 st between 6th and 7th Ave. Both routes should take you ~1-1.5 hours to get there.

Option 1) Drive to Secaucus Junction (15X on the turnpike), take NJ transit to NY Penn Station (final stop), hop on the 1 subway line (this is the red line on Seventh Ave) and get off at 18 st. Walk towards 6th Ave and your destination.

Option 2) Grab the Hudson Bergen Light Rail (34th or 45 St Station, not sure which one is right outside the Port), either get off at the Newport Light Rail Station or Hoboken Terminal and transfer over the PATH train heading to 33rd St. Get off at 14th St and walk north on 6th Ave for four blocks and turn left on 18th St and walk to your destination.

Option 1 is simpler in my mind and has less walking involved.

We were in Bandol earlier this year. We did a long inland trip to Les Baux de Provence and St. Remy de Provence. Almost anything in Provence should be accessible for a day trip as long as you don't mind the 1-2 hour drive... Cassis looked to be a very nice town and our guide mentioned that the Calanque National Parc is gorgeous. We picked up multiple bottles of wine to drink on board. The Bandol area is known for their reds while Cassis is known for white and rose.

4. One day for all of that is very ambitious depending on what you are going to do. Sagrada Familia could be a 2+ hour visit depending on how fascinated you are by the amazing details on the building. I suppose you could do the rest as long as all you want to do is walk, walk, and more walking. However if you are going to stop at the Picasso Museum in the El Born or La Boqueria near Las Ramblas or Santa Maria Basilica in the Gothic Quarter you are going to run out of time really quickly. We spent three full days exploring the Gothic Quarter, El Born, the area around Las Ramblas, Placa de Catalunya, and Passieg de Gracia and still felt really rushed...

5. We spent one really long day travelling up to Figueres to see the Dali Museum (well worth it and see the jewelry collection too) and then back down to Girona to wander around the old city center for a few hours. Girona is beautiful and definitely less crowded than Barcelona. The Jewish museum is very interesting and there are many well preserved buildings all the way back to the middle ages to explore. Plus Girona has one of the most picturesque spots on a pedestrian bridge looking back to the old town at sunset. Excluding lunch and dinner the whole excursion took around 8 hours.

We were just in the area last month and docked at Bandol. We had a private guide and stopped at Les Baux and Cassis (really short) but didn't stop in Aix. We also stopped at St. Remy. Les Baux had the one attraction that was the highlight of our Rome to Barcelona cruise, Les Carrieres de Lumieres. It's housed in an abandoned quarry and has a ~20 minute show of projected art work (with animation) set to music. The projections can be 2-3 stories tall and you can wander around in the semi dark to get various views of the artwork. We only stayed for 1.5 cycles of the show but could have stayed for 3 or 4 cycles. It was how I imagined Musorgski's Pictures at an Exhibition would be in real life. It's hard to explain and give a good description of the space...

Cassis was a nice tourist town. Beautiful harbor, plenty of people watching, and charming cafes. It's also got great white and rose wines. But I found it similar to any number of other tourist towns around the Western Med.

Les Baux itself is very touristy (one of the top three visited villages along with St.Michel and St.Paul de Vence). It's tiny and charming. We visited St. Paul earlier and where there was gallery after art gallery in St. Paul, Les Baux had more local food store after food store (honey, olive oil, wine, etc).

St. Remy was the nicest of the three towns. It is a good size so plenty to look at and it is where Van Gough spent his final days so his art permeates the area. We really enjoyed walking around the town.

I can't comment on Aix but I would vote for Les Baux as long as I could get to Les Carrieres de Lumieres (which is just outside of town at the base of the hill that Les Baux is on).

In Valletta don't miss the Upper Barrakka Gardens. The elevator should be very close to where the ship docks. The co-Cathedral is a lesson in how to decorate every conceivable surface. If possible try and see the two Caravaggio paintings. Also near where the ship should dock is the three-city ferry which is a very cheap way of getting a harbor tour and can drop you off in Birgu which has a lot of the history/architecture from the period of the Knights.

Other things on the island that we did were

- Mdina

- St. Paul's Catacombs in Rabat

- Tarxian Temples

- Ta Qali Craft Village (and Mdina glass factory)

- San Anton Gardens

- Dingli Cliffs

- Mosta Church

Wonderful country with a lot to see. You could also have dinner off the ship. We had a great meal at DeMondion in Mdina with views of distant Valletta.

Also, don't forget about Sicily. Plenty of ancient history in Palermo, Syracuse, and there's always the fantastic Greek Theater in Taormina.

We ran into the Monday problem on our trip this year. Ostia Antica is closed. Tarquinia was completely dead when we stopped for lunch. Villa d'Este is also closed although Villa Adriana is open. Most of the museums in Rome are also closed on Mondays. I like Cruisermom's suggestion of Orvieto and you could stop at Bagnaregio on the way but it will take a long time to get there...

We went outside of the city of Rome this year. Tivoli with Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este is an attractive alternative. Adriana has some wonderful Roman ruins while d'Este has amazing fountains that I thought were as impressive as any I've seen other than the Peterhof in St. Petersburg. We also visited Bomarzo and the Sacro Bosco (also known as The Monster's Garden) which was surprisingly fantastic.

Other things on my bucket list for Rome area are Ostia Antica, Tarquinia (Etruscan culture), and Bagnoregio.

Tarquinia is just north of Civitavecchia. Bomarzo and Bagnoregio are NE of Civitavecchia and 1-2 hours north of Rome. Tivoli is just east of Rome. Ostia Antica is near the airport.

I'll defer to others about the balcony. We've had three cruises in the Med (Aegean, Adriatic, and Western Med) and I don't think I used our balcony once...

As for how to do Venice and Rome on the same trip, this is what we did for our Adriatic cruise a couple of years ago. We were flying from NYC so direct flights into Rome were easier than getting to Venice so that's what we did. We spent 2 nights in Rome and took the high speed train up to Venice on cruise day. The train only takes 3-4 hours and is pretty easy to navigate as long as you don't have A LOT of luggage. We took a round trip Venice cruise which will hit wonderful cities around the Adriatic (Corfu, Olympus/Katakolon, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Split). End up back in Venice where you can spend a few extra days. You can fly out of Venice or take the train back to Rome for a couple of more days or maybe just stay at the Hilton at the airport for a night (which we did). Now if the cruises in the Adriatic don't appeal to you then this wouldn't work.

We did a private tour where we stopped in Taormina (walked the main street and Greek Theater), Castelmola, drove through and stopped in the Alcantara Valley (and looked at the town that was Corleone in the movie), stopped at Castiglione di Sicilia, before ending at the Gambino Winery on the side of Mt. Etna. We had a great time at the vineyard tasting all sorts of Sicilian wines. It all depends on how much time you want to spend in a place. We spent about 1.5 hours in Taormina which was enough for us but we only window shopped. Shops did look interesting...

You can do both, but the wineries are all on the slopes of Etna so a bit of trek from Taormina.

I would second renting a car over the train. The main reason for this is that you can make stops on your way from and to Sete. One interesting spot we stopped at was Beziers to look at the Canal du Midi (from Toulouse to Sete). You can see the canal anywhere in the area including Sete and Carcassone but it's extra interesting in Beziers due to a set of 7 locks and also the interesting sight of boats sailing the canal on a bridge over the River Orb.

If cost isn't a factor and you really want to stay near the Pantheon then there is the Grand Minerva which is less than a block away. Our room had a responsive thermostat and I imagine they would do anything in their power to keep their guests happy...

There is no set time for dinner on Seabourn ships. You just show up and are shown to your table. This is one of the best things about Seabourn that your dining time and table size are completely up to you. The only place that would have a specific time is the specialty restaurant called The Grill which requires a reservation. I don't remember the formal dining hours of the MDR, Patio Grill, or Colonnade but we've never had a problem getting a table anywhere between 6-8 pm. We've even been to the MDR just after 9 pm and they were happy to seat and serve us dinner.

As for internet, there is purchasable wifi that is available across the ship. Signal strength may vary with the strongest being around Seabourn Square at the rear of the ship. Also, do not expect very fast internet service no matter where you are on the ship.

We almost exclusively use a private guide for excursion. Nothing is as infuriating as waiting for that one last person to get back to the bus... With a private guide everyone on the tour should be on the same page and you have control of the itinerary. Want to see something extra? Not a problem!

However, if you do want a Seabourn tour and there are several reasons to do so (ease, worry free, and generally decent tours) I would second what others have said and wait till you are onboard. If you are concerned with things booking up then I'd get to Seabourn Square as soon as possible. You can cover a couple of things immediately - excursions, computer access, and Grill reservations.