Advice for Salerno Port

[Celinedeon]

My husband, myself and brother and sister-in-law will be cruising in May 2018.  We will be in port in Salerno from 7:00am until 6:30pm.  We are thinking to doing this port DYI style as we are on a very busy organized private tour in Rome the day before.  We are thinking about taking a train from the port to the ruins in Pompeii, then going to Ravello, taking a bus down to Amalfi and taking a ferry back to Salerno in time for our cruise to depart.

I have the following questions that I could use some help with

1.  Does this itinerary seem doable in the time frame that we have? or am I trying to pack too many things into a day?

2,  Can we purchase a guided tour of Pompeii at the entrance?

3.  There doesn't seem to be an easy way to get from Pompeii to Ravello via public transport.  Can anyone recommend a taxi service to contact and arrange ahead of time?

4.  How much time should we schedule for Ravello?

5.  Can anyone recommend a nice restaurant in Amalfi with great views to book a lunch?

 

Thanks so much,

Cecilia

[euro cruiser]

It's probably doable if you only spend about three hours at Pompei.  You can join a small guided tour at the entrance, it will last about 90 minutes and usually cost about 10 euros per person.

 

A car service between Pompei and Ravello will be pretty expensive as you'd pay for the round trip but it's worth getting a few estimates to find out.

[4cats4me]

we had a great experience with a private tour for eight when we were there in 2015. However, we didn’t go to Pompeii on that trip, just to 

Positano, Ravello and Amalfi. 

 

A couple weeks ago, we took a private 8 person van from Naples to Positano, Sorento and Pompeii.  It was just a bit too much to try to squeeze in due to the distance.   Ultimately, we only ended up in Pompeii at the end of the day for only one hour.  The traffic trying to get into Positano took awhile and we sat in one spot for 30 mins, and it was only 11:00 am. 

 

The last trip from Salerno was much easier to get to Positano, Ravello and Amalfi.   

 

I have no idea about catching a train from Salerno to Pompeii, but Ravello is a ways up there, and it sounds like your  plan is a bit ambitious.  I liked the fact that our driver knew where to go, and we never wasted much time.  

It can be challenging to navigate the Amalfi Coast.  

Pompeii is far from Salerno but much closer to the port of Naples.  Ravello is a place that you can see a lot in just 2 hours.  Amalfi is a place that is at sea level, so views for lunch? We didn’t really see that, unless you mean dining near the water. I do recall a couple places vaguely.  

The place with the great views is Positano. 

 

 

Three years ago we booked Sorrento First Choice to take our group of eight around from Salerno.  

 

A couple weeks ago others organized a tour which we shared, but that company got us back to port kind of late, in my opinion, even though they have a “good” reputation.  I can’t recommend them since they changed the order of everything on us and we were shorted out of Pompeii, only getting one hour vs the two or more that was promised.  

Also, with a 6:30 departure, they got us back to port at 5:36, way too late to our liking. 

 

Another company, Romeinlimo, got us back with two hours to spare. They are very good about adhering to a schedule. 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2018 by 4cats4me

[euro cruiser]

1 hour ago, 4cats4me said:

Pompeii is far from Salerno but much closer to the port of Naples.

 

I guess it depends on how you define "far".  Pompei is 20 miles from Molo Manfredi, the port at Salerno, and about 15 miles from Molo Angioino, the cruise port of Naples.

[Ski Mom 2]

We've just returned from our Wind Surf cruise where our port in Sorrento was changed due to rough seas to Salerno. We had originally booked a tour from Sorrento to drive us to Ravello and Positano. When I contacted them to arrange the pickup to be in Salerno they said they couldn't do it due to fires above Positano and the drive would just be too difficult in the amount of time we had in port (a full day).

 

So, we found a taxi to take 6 of us from Salerno to Ravello where we spent 4 hours in Ravello. I believe it cost us 75 euros each. We had lunch in Ravello with just enough time for shopping. When we returned to Salerno we had time to walk the streets and had dinner (all aboard was at 11:30 p.m.). You need to find the old part of Salerno to walk around. There weren't many tourist late in the afternoon and walking down the streets in the evening was fun.

 

The following day our stop was Amalfi where we took the ferry to Positano (arrived ahead of most of the tourist traffic) with just enough time to walk around before heading back to Amalfi (all aboard was too early at 1:30 p.m.).

 

The ferry was easy and if we hadn't wanted to go to Ravello, we might have considered ferry to Amalfi and Positano from our one day in Salerno.

 

Traffic is just terrible in that area. We have been to Pompeii and thought it was amazing. I think you have too much on your plate for one day and should pick and choose what's most important. 

[euro cruiser]

It actually would have been faster and cheaper to take the ferry from Salerno to Amalfi and get a taxi from there to Ravello.

 

It's hard when changes are made at the last minute, you don't have time to research the alternatives and their individual pros and cons.  And we all know you can't rely on the ship's staff to be any help at all with DIY questions, unfortunately.

Edited October 30, 2018 by euro cruiser