Rome to Naples to Venice -which order??

[xcomet]

Thanks again to all my fellow cc, for all the help, I come here again for opinions and advice.

 

We are on the NOS, and will have a couple of days pre cruise.

We have our must see list, which includes Venice and Pompeii.

Our ship leaves out Citevecchia.

 

So do we start in Venice, fly to Naples, then on to rome?

Do we stay in Rome and do day trips?(13 hrs to pompeii on one tour)we can leave our luggage et all, at hotel in rome.

Or overnight in each city? I know we can do Venice in a day, and still have time for a day in Pompeii, and maybe 2 in rome.

WE are a family of 6 with 4 teenagers. YIKES! help!!

Anyone done this?

[cruisemom42]

Just to be sure I understand what you are proposing -- you have 4 days precruise and you want to spend 1 in Venice, 1 in Naples (Pompeii) and 2 in Rome?

 

IMO, this is overambitious. You will be exhausted from all the travel (including getting to Italy in the first place) before you ever get to your cruise. Is your cruise not stopping at any of these places?

 

I would suggest you spend 4 days in Rome. If you really must do one other thing, you can manage Pompeii in a (long) day there and back. If you want to include Venice, you really would have to build in more time -- e.g., a couple more days. Even then it sounds like a whirl with kids, cruise luggage, et al in tow.

 

From Rome to Pompeii you could do it on your own and take the train. Many guidebooks, including Rick Steves' Rome, give easy directions. Hire a guide at the gate or do it on your own. (With a group of teens, you may want the guide -- if yours are like mine, they listen better to someone else!)

[euro cruiser]

A little more information is needed to help you. Do you have a specific number of days, or are you looking to see how many it would take to accomplish this? Is cost a factor (I'm thinking not so much, because moving six people several times in a few days is going to be costly, no matter what you do)? Are you arriving from North America, and counting your arrival day as a touring day?

[deadzone1003]

If this is your first trip to Italy, your itninerary is just too ambitious. I would spend 2 nights in Venice (easier to get over jetlag if you are staying a few nights in the city where your plane lands) and 2 nights in Rome. Also, very difficult to go at full speed on your first day, remember you have 4 teens who may not have your constitution. There is too much to see and experience in Venice to allot one day there. Even Rome requires about 3 days to see all of the major sites without feeling too rushed.

[xcomet]

A little more information is needed to help you. Do you have a specific number of days, or are you looking to see how many it would take to accomplish this? Is cost a factor (I'm thinking not so much, because moving six people several times in a few days is going to be costly, no matter what you do)? Are you arriving from North America, and counting your arrival day as a touring day?

 

yes we are arriving from N America, and hopefully doing something that day even something small.

I realize this is so,so ambitious,but I have 6 people,and three specific requests. I am looking to see how many days needed,yup!

Our cruise ship unfortunately doesnt do any Italy, except departure and arrival. We had a longer cruise( 14 days) with more Italy booked, but we had to change to a 7day and a different date, due to work schedule. So we had the money allotted ,but no longer have the time. I have two graduating seniors , which the trip is acting as their present,so I am trying to now accomodate their "please can we see" requests,or as much as possible!

And as they said, "we can sleep when we get home",spoken like true diehard cruisers.

[euro cruiser]

And as they said, "we can sleep when we get home",spoken like true diehard cruisers.

Or, as Warren Zevon so famously said, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

 

First, I'd suggest open-jaw tickets, flying into one city (either Venice or Naples) and home from another (Rome). I've generally found that if there is an upcharge for open-jaw flights, it wasn't all that much and it made the trip so much easier.

 

Second, would it be possible to stay a few days at the end of the cruise, in addition to a few days before? That might make it feel less like a forced march. If, for example, you covered one or two cities before your cruise, then one after, you might enjoy them all more than three in a row.

 

Let's assume the best case scenario; you all sleep fairly well on the flight over and are raring to go when you hit the ground in Italy. I think the hardest of the three places you've named to get to is Venice, so I guess I'd head there first and get the travel hassles out of the way while I'm only semi-conscious. Therefore, I'd have my transatlantic flight end in Venice. Odds are that will require at least one change en route, possibly two, depending on where you start from.

 

If you get to Venice by noon on your first day in country and dump your stuff off at your hotel, you'll have about a half day there. You'll need that plus another full day just to get an overview and flavor of Venice. So that takes care of Day 2 and 3 (assuming Day 1 is the day you leave North America).

 

You could fly from Venice to Naples late in day 3, or take the train from Venice to Rome. My preference would be to fly to Naples. If Pompei is all you're interested in, and not Naples itself, I'd stay in Pompei that night and see the ruins first thing the next morning, Day 4. That would allow you to head to Rome late on Day 4 to spend however many days you want seeing Rome. Or, you could spend the night of Day 4 in Pompei or Sorrento and head directly to Civitavecchia on the morning of Day 5, leaving Rome for after your cruise.