Med cruise with 9,10,12 y/o - Suggestions?

[CactusGirly]

We will be doing an RC cruise in early June to the following ports:

Palma De Mallorca

Marsaeilles

La Spezia

Citavecchia

Naples

 

Our kids ages are in the subject line. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We would like to avoid the crush of large tours and do something more private, while still seeing some great sites.

Thank you!:)

[Kerry's Girls]

I had great success using the ports of call boards here to find kid-friendly ideas for each port. We then booked a private guide (either on our own or shared with another family from our roll call) for most ports so we could dictate what we wanted to do and go at our own pace. We've never been failed by a private guide found on CruiseCritic - they're all very much wanting to keep people on these sites happy.

 

For Rome, you can do that on your own. You'll find easy instructions for getting the train to/from if you don't want to hire a guide, then you can do the hop on/hop off bus. My only suggestion would be to stay away from the Vatican unless you happen to be there on a Friday night and have tickets ahead of time (they sell out way ahead of time). Our first visit there was miserable, but when we returned on a Friday night, it was amazingly empty (also in early June).

 

My girls loved Cinque Terre, loved the train, loved the beaches, loved the ferry - perfect town for kids. The hike we did was way too hard and it was hot, but everything else was wonderful.

 

Have a great time!

 

Best,

Mia

[kitkat343]

My son is too little for this, but when he's bigger he will love:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/attending-gladiator-school-in-rome/2013/11/07/13cc39bc-4343-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html

 

If you can't access the story, google rome gladiator experience and you will see sites that can help you find this experience if you think your children would enjoy it.

 

We did a Baltic cruise last summer, and my 3 year old loved Europe. Most of the Baltic cities are small enough you can travel without a tour, but the private tour in St. Petersburg made all the difference since we set the pace to match our son's energy and enthusiasm and were surprisingly able to see all the major sights during our two day stay.

 

What are your children's interests? At their ages, you can show them Rick Steves Europe or give them guidebooks and either let them pick part of your itinerary or get them excited about the trip by preparing them for what they will see.

[robint]

We did a med cruise this past summer when my daughters were 13 and 9.

 

They both love the Percy Jackson books, which gave them a great basis in Greek and Roman mythology, so we could relate a whole bunch of what we saw to that.

 

For our Italy ports (Florence, Naples, and Rome), we went with tours by Rome In Limo. This was fantastic because we could adapt it to anything we wanted, and find stuff that specifically interested my kids. It also meant that our driver could find us food that my sometimes-picky family could eat for lunch.

 

In Rome, we did the Underground/3rd Level tour of the Coliseum. Then we did a whole bunch of other sites: Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, etc. Because they have small vans, our driver could get us very close to places so there wasn't a whole lot of walking to get to various places.

 

In Florence, we climbed the Tower of Pisa (highly recommended unless you have vertigo problems, but get tickets beforehand)--the staircase here was one of my 9-yo's favorite things. Then we went to the Da Vinci musuem, which I would NOT recommended.

 

In Naples we climbed up Mt. Vesuvius (which was absolutely amazing, but killer on the calves) and went to Pompeii. Through Rome in Limo, we hired a guide to take us through Pompeii, which was fabulous, because it was one guide for 8 people instead of the large groups of 20 or more that we saw from the cruise ship tours. My daughter found some teeth embedded in the ground--I emailed the guide later, who said that he talked to one of the Pompeii directors who analyzed them and said they were dog teeth. That's a memory we will NEVER forget.

 

My pictures (with commentary) are here: https://tutteuropeancruise2014.shutterfly.com/pictures

[Woody14]

Rome - is very easy to do on your own. there are great tips on the boards in getting there on the train, getting off on the best stops on the equivalent of the subway and getting tickets to the coliseum so you don't have to wait in the really big line. My kids who were 7 & 9 at the time love it. we went from the coliseum over to the trevi fountain found a little cafe for a pizza lunch. it was a great day. note the train ride is about an hour from the port so it makes a long day.

 

Naples - also did on our own took the local train to pompeii, it was a bit of a walk from the doc (20 minutes), but the train was cheap, got to pompeii and took a guided tour, the kids were free or half price but the guide did appreciate the tip on their behalf. try to get there early as there is almost no shade in pompeii. we then took the train to Sorrento and walked through town down to the pier and took the highspeed catamaran back to Naples. the kids only complaint on the day was we walked alot, but their reward of fresh lemonade, pizza and gelato made up for it.

 

the other ports I have not done with kids, but I am sure they would love the caves in Majorca.

[canadakath]

We did a Med Cruise in 2013 with our then 7 and 10 year old boys.

 

We stopped in Villefranche instead of Marseilles, and spent the day in Monaco at the Oceanographic Museum and riding around on the bus (best tour we had for only 1 euro! - missed our stop for the train station and just stayed on for the whole loop)

 

For La Spezia we walked to the train station (a solid 15 minute walk with cooperative kids) and took the train to Pisa. Ate the best lunch of our trip at a pizzeria near the market by the Tower, then ran for our pre-booked tickets to climb. Kids ran up the steps in less than two minutes - totally loved it. Train back to La Spezia and a stop for gelato (which we did in every port) and it was one of our best days of the whole trip.

 

Rome we did a ship excursion, saw Vatican Museum and St. Peter's basilica, spent too long at lunch, saw the Trevi fountain (more gelato) and almost ran through the streets of Rome "sightseeing" to get to the Coloseum. Kids loved it but were tired. They enjoyed the bus ride back to the ship to chill out. I highly recommend the "You Wouldn't Want to Be a ..." series of history books for kids. The Roman Gladiator one was great, and my 7 year old was rhyming off facts at the Coloseum that impressed all the adults in our tour group.

 

No other ports overlap with yours. Have a great trip!