Do-it-yourself-ROME

[titicaa8396]

Hi Guys....

 

I agree this is a GREAT THREAD it's so helpful. DH and I will be in Rome next 10/07 and we'll have a 2 day stay in Rome. I'm thinking of staying in Rome for a night instead of going back to the ship, just to go back into Rome. I feel we'll waiste alot of time on going back and forth.

 

Ehogan.. I was looking at the Through Eternity website and I might try to book my walking tours with them and still have alot of time on our own. Can you tell me if you liked your tours? What was your favorite? Did you receive the service you expected? As for cost, the tours themselves are cheaper than if I were to do a ship tour. The only extra $ is the 1 night hotel stay.

 

Has anyone done this before on a 2 day visit to a port? I feel that by doing Rome with a 1 night stay I'll get to see more.

 

I will probably have to let the guest relations desk know that we won't be returning to the ship until the next day. If anyone has any information please let me know.

 

Thanks,

Liz

[candelle]

Hi Guys....

 

I agree this is a GREAT THREAD it's so helpful. DH and I will be in Rome next 10/07 and we'll have a 2 day stay in Rome. I'm thinking of staying in Rome for a night instead of going back to the ship, just to go back into Rome. I feel we'll waiste alot of time on going back and forth.

 

Ehogan.. I was looking at the Through Eternity website and I might try to book my walking tours with them and still have alot of time on our own. Can you tell me if you liked your tours? What was your favorite? Did you receive the service you expected? As for cost, the tours themselves are cheaper than if I were to do a ship tour. The only extra $ is the 1 night hotel stay.

 

Has anyone done this before on a 2 day visit to a port? I feel that by doing Rome with a 1 night stay I'll get to see more.

 

I will probably have to let the guest relations desk know that we won't be returning to the ship until the next day. If anyone has any information please let me know.

 

Thanks,

Liz

 

Instead of taking the ship's much more expensive ride in into Rome, may I suggest the train. It is a ten/fifteen minute walk from the ship (the station is so easy to find, it's right on the sea front) to the station and an hour or so into Rome. The cost is minimal, c 8/9 Euros return. There are around two trains an hour and they are very well run.

[ehogan]

titicaa8396:

 

Of the two tours we did with Through Eternity, I prefered the Vatican one. Mostly this was due to the guide, we had Danny on this tour and he was beyond fantastic, young, enthusiastic, well educated (Art History major from somewhere in New England) and crazy about Rome. The little side stories he told about some of the Popes and other Vatican related stories were amazing.

 

This is a very intense tour, five hours in total with a short half hour break in the middle: there is so much to see you will be overwhelmed. You could probably take a week to see everything in the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's, but he did an excellent job of the highlights.

 

The other tour, Roman Fora was also excellent with a very good guide. This tour is shorter and more relaxed.

 

If you could do both, that would be the way to go. I believe that the guide you get is pretty much luck of the draw.

 

If you are limited to one tour, though you should do the Vatican. Doing this on your own is almost impossible. We saw many with tour books, including Rick Steves' guidebook who were trying to listen in on guided tours. Looking into a guide book, then trying to match items to the book is just too time consuming and confusing.

 

We are already booked for the Rome at Twilight tour for our trip in March.

[tofubeast]

Just posting a few links:

 

Hotel:

Daphne Inn -- we cannot recommend this inn enough to people. We stayed there post cruise after reading tons of great reviews on tripadvisor. It is in a great location and the staff were so helpful with tips about our stay. Here is the link:

http://www.daphne-rome.com/

 

Gelato:

The staff at the Inn recommended San Crispino to us. It is located near the Trevi fountain. Hands down, most amazing gelato there is in well...perhaps the world. If you do not go there, well you probably shouldn't bother going to Rome!

http://www.ilgelatodisancrispino.com/indexita.htm

 

 

Pizza:

Forno. It is located near the Daphne Inn. Locals go there. Very casual environment. The pizza was incredible.

[cod]

We spent two days in Rome prior to our November Liberty cruise back. We spent one day on a day tour to NAPLES/POMPEII which we booked from home and enjoyed very much. We were picked up at our hotel at 7:00am and dropped back off about 8:30pm. The buses they used were big, new and comfortable. We just drove thru Naples after picking up a guide who pointed the sites out to us and stopped by the bay for some photo taking. At Pompeii we stopped at restaurant for an included lunch and then walked thru the ruins for 2 hours or so with our guide. We enjoyed the day very much since I'd never been to either place before.

 

For our other day we went to the colosseum on the subway and wasted a lot of time 'wandering'. I wish we'd gotten the day pass for a double decker bus that goes all around Rome with, I think, 9 stops where you can get off and then back on after you explore on your own. We'd have covered more ground and seen more than we got to the way we did it. One person wrote on these boards that they stayed on the bus for the entire loop and listened to the earphone description and then stayed on for another go-round, getting off and on occasionally. Several different companies have these bus tours, including the one we used for Pompeii.

They stop at Termini which makes it convenient.

 

If anyone wants further info, I can tell you who we used.

[grabbit97]

We spent two days in Rome prior to our November Liberty cruise back. We spent one day on a day tour to NAPLES/POMPEII which we booked from home and enjoyed very much. We were picked up at our hotel at 7:00am and dropped back off about 8:30pm. The buses they used were big, new and comfortable. We just drove thru Naples after picking up a guide who pointed the sites out to us and stopped by the bay for some photo taking. At Pompeii we stopped at restaurant for an included lunch and then walked thru the ruins for 2 hours or so with our guide. We enjoyed the day very much since I'd never been to either place before.

 

For our other day we went to the colosseum on the subway and wasted a lot of time 'wandering'. I wish we'd gotten the day pass for a double decker bus that goes all around Rome with, I think, 9 stops where you can get off and then back on after you explore on your own. We'd have covered more ground and seen more than we got to the way we did it. One person wrote on these boards that they stayed on the bus for the entire loop and listened to the earphone description and then stayed on for another go-round, getting off and on occasionally. Several different companies have these bus tours, including the one we used for Pompeii.

They stop at Termini which makes it convenient.

 

If anyone wants further info, I can tell you who we used.

 

Yes, who did you use please... it would help us alot.. thanks

grabbit97

:)

[cod]

We booked ours with viator.com. We were picked up at our hotel in a greenlinetours.com vehicle and taken to the greenline office where we boarded the big bus for the actual trip. They are either one-and-the-same or very closely knit. I checked the greenline website when we got home out of curiosity and both sites describe the excursion exactly the same. If I were doing it again, I would go by the price because I think there was a slight difference.

 

HOWEVER, when we booked with viator in October for November, it was a little cheaper than the prices either is listing now...due to the season I guess.

 

Both viator and greenlinetours show info on the Rome bus tours, too.

 

Good luck!

[Cruisin Oma]

What great information! This has really been helpful!

[MedwardBound]

We are also thinking of staying off the ship in Rome, although we would then need to take the train to Florence to get back on the ship. This would give us more time in both Rome and Florence (the day after Rome is a sea day).

 

I have started researching this and the trains seem to run often between Rome and Florence. What I am having a harder time figuring out, though, is if the main train station in Rome is near any good (clean and safe, not necessarily fancy) hotels. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

[Cruisin Oma]

We are also thinking of staying off the ship in Rome, although we would then need to take the train to Florence to get back on the ship. This would give us more time in both Rome and Florence (the day after Rome is a sea day).

 

I have started researching this and the trains seem to run often between Rome and Florence. What I am having a harder time figuring out, though, is if the main train station in Rome is near any good (clean and safe, not necessarily fancy) hotels. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

 

Be sure to let the ship know. When we were on one of our cruises, they paged a girl that normally sat at our table for dinner starting about 15 minutes before the cruise was supposed to leave and then for every 5 minutes for about 45 minutes before departing 30 minutes late. You always hear horror stories about people missing the ship, but I do know that they check you in with you sail cards, and they are aware when passengers are missing. Not nice to keep a ship full of 2-3000 people waiting when you aren't palnning on showing up!

[MedwardBound]

Oh definitely we would let them know. In fact I called the cruise line to ask if we were able to do this, and was given a sort of equivocal answer. They are supposed to be getting back to me. I'm a little irked because I can't imagine what the problem would be, but I will wait and hear what they have to say.

[eacruise]

This thread is incredible. I have learned so much just reading through. I can't wait till I have time to click on all the links.

 

Thank you everyone for adding information.

[Denn33]

I will second the recommendation for Hotel Daphne in Rome. It isn't going to work out for me to stay there this time, but I stayed there four years ago for four nights, and had a fantastic experience.

[cruise24/7]

Our family did a Med. Cruise in May, 2005, and arranged all of our own tours in each port vs. ship excursions. We also used Through Eternity for Rome, and they were excellent to deal with. The young lady I corresponded with, Angela, was so very helpful in giving us "how to get from Civitavecchia" information, amongst other wonderful information. Our guide was knowlegeable about everything, including the local transportation in Rome (subway, bus), which we used to get around the city. We didn't have to look up routes, or schedules, nothing. He did it all. He met us upon arrival, got us all around the various sites, stood in ticket lines (while we went to restrooms), etc. His knowledge was vast, his English great, and he spoke Italian. The cost was about E400 for our family of 8 (in 2005). He also personally took us back to the train station, and waited until we boarded...just to make sure there were no problems.

 

One additional note in case no one has mentioned: Sometime around May, Italy celebrates a cultural week, or cultural month. Many of the museums have free entrance fees; ie, Colosseum, Pompeii, etc. If you are traveling in May, you might want to do a Google search to find out what that date is. The ship excursions did not make any adjustment to their prices. But, of course, we didn't have to pay the many E5 and E10 entrace fees to lots of places since we did this on our own. Just FYI.

[happytotravel]

Great sites but does anyone have any info on getting to & from the port by train?

 

Hi Cathi, :)

 

Check this site out. http://www.europeportreviews.com/Rome2.htm

 

It is really great and will answer all your questions about getting into Rome by train. It helped us decide to go that route. We are on the 4/22 NCL transatlantic crossing.

 

Enjoy your cruise, :)

happytotravel

[eacruise]

happtotravel,

Thanks for that link it was very helpful. We are planning on taking the train to Rome on our trip. That helps alot!!!

[cotts]

Great, but where do I find your website?

[slinder315]

Spending 2 days in Rome after a cruise. Trying to prioritize what to see without running ourselves ragged. This thread will help

 

 

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[wheezedr]

Spending 2 days in Rome after a cruise. Trying to prioritize what to see without running ourselves ragged. This thread will help

 

 

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Except that this thread is 11 years old. You may get some info but you would do much better looking at the Italy sub forum. Also after a search it is wise to look at the age of any threads you find.

[Grandma Cruising]

You will find some useful information in the threads in the Italy Ports forum https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=595

 

 

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