European shore excursions

[doolfan]

This will be our first cruise so I don’t have any frame of reference for asking this. We are booked on Viva in May 2024 and our stops are mostly Italy and Greece, with 2 in Turkey and 1 on France. I started reading through the shore excursions and they seem the same at every port. They are all basically tours of the cities. We  want to do those in some of the cities for sure, but I guess I was thinking there would be a bit of variety. Are most of the excursions in these areas just seeing the city?  I thought there would be horseback riding somewhere or some type of fast car tour in France? Maybe kayaking?  Am I totally way off base here??

[9tee2Sea]

49 minutes ago, doolfan said:

This will be our first cruise so I don’t have any frame of reference for asking this. We are booked on Viva in May 2024 and our stops are mostly Italy and Greece, with 2 in Turkey and 1 on France. I started reading through the shore excursions and they seem the same at every port. They are all basically tours of the cities. We  want to do those in some of the cities for sure, but I guess I was thinking there would be a bit of variety. Are most of the excursions in these areas just seeing the city?  I thought there would be horseback riding somewhere or some type of fast car tour in France? Maybe kayaking?  Am I totally way off base here??

do an internet search of" day tours for cruise ship passengers" in the ports you are interested in .  You will find many companies that will probably offer something you are interested in.  If not, at least you will see what's available.  sometimes you can book tours with companies once you get off the ship. good luck

[ColeThornton]

58 minutes ago, doolfan said:

This will be our first cruise so I don’t have any frame of reference for asking this. We are booked on Viva in May 2024 and our stops are mostly Italy and Greece, with 2 in Turkey and 1 on France. I started reading through the shore excursions and they seem the same at every port. They are all basically tours of the cities. We  want to do those in some of the cities for sure, but I guess I was thinking there would be a bit of variety. Are most of the excursions in these areas just seeing the city?  I thought there would be horseback riding somewhere or some type of fast car tour in France? Maybe kayaking?  Am I totally way off base here??

 

 

Look in the Ports of Call section of CC and you'll find forums for all of those places with lots of info on places to see, things to do, transportation, etc.  

 

(Click on "Forums" at the top left of this page)

[mapleleaves]

The Ports of Call forum will be very helpful, but I would also watch for trip reports this summer to read about the activities chosen by other pax. And don't limit yourself to NCL trip reports; other cruiselines will be visiting those ports too. 

Borrow some travel books from your library and learn about all the sights and activities at each port you'll be visiting.  There are even books specific to cruising, ie Rick Steves "mediterranean cruise ports" which provide info on tours and DIY options.

[sherrihall128]

1 hour ago, mapleleaves said:

The Ports of Call forum will be very helpful, but I would also watch for trip reports this summer to read about the activities chosen by other pax. And don't limit yourself to NCL trip reports; other cruiselines will be visiting those ports too. 

Borrow some travel books from your library and learn about all the sights and activities at each port you'll be visiting.  There are even books specific to cruising, ie Rick Steves "mediterranean cruise ports" which provide info on tours and DIY options.

 

I also recommend Rick Steves's book! He gave me enough confidence to do some ports on our own, and we didn't end up doing any of the cruise line excursions. He also has (free) walking audio tours of certain cities.

[ontheweb]

Another way of finding excursions, private ones, if to participate in your roll call and see if anyone has booked a private excursion and is looking for others to join them. 

[mypleasure]

Greece and Italy tend to be all about ancient monuments, churches, galleries, museums and sometimes food.

The advice already given is excellent. There are a couple of ports with beaches.

[eileeshb]

There are companies that do customised itineraries as well. The main selling point a lot of the organised tours have is their "skip the line" capability at popular sights like Pompeii or the colusseum. I used get your guide to book a same day tour of the Colusseum that included ground level access. There's also HOHO companies in some of the cities if you want to DIY, I think the one in Naples picks up at the port (unfortunately Italy still had covid restrictions in place when I was there).

[GLYNAGP]

On 2/5/2023 at 2:52 PM, doolfan said:

This will be our first cruise so I don’t have any frame of reference for asking this. We are booked on Viva in May 2024 and our stops are mostly Italy and Greece, with 2 in Turkey and 1 on France. I started reading through the shore excursions and they seem the same at every port. They are all basically tours of the cities. We  want to do those in some of the cities for sure, but I guess I was thinking there would be a bit of variety. Are most of the excursions in these areas just seeing the city?  I thought there would be horseback riding somewhere or some type of fast car tour in France? Maybe kayaking?  Am I totally way off base here??

The sort of adventure type activities aren't as prominent around the Mediterranean ports as say in the Caribbean. Most of the Mediterranean cities are stunning with history going back thousands of years which most excursions are aimed at.

From Naples for instance the historical sights at Pompeii and Herculaneum are stunning. Barcelona is famous for, amongst other things it Gaudi District and the Segrada Familia again which are stunning, Rome of course it a plethora of history and sights these sorts of attraction form a large percentage of excursions around the Med. However with a bit of googling you may find some more specialist tours to suit at some of the ports of call.

[sherrihall128]

On 2/5/2023 at 6:52 AM, doolfan said:

This will be our first cruise so I don’t have any frame of reference for asking this. We are booked on Viva in May 2024 and our stops are mostly Italy and Greece, with 2 in Turkey and 1 on France. I started reading through the shore excursions and they seem the same at every port. They are all basically tours of the cities. We  want to do those in some of the cities for sure, but I guess I was thinking there would be a bit of variety. Are most of the excursions in these areas just seeing the city?  I thought there would be horseback riding somewhere or some type of fast car tour in France? Maybe kayaking?  Am I totally way off base here??

When it gets closer to your cruise, more excursions will open up. When I was planning my first cruise, I was trying to get some outdoors stuff too. NCL did offer some of these tours, but I'm sure outside vendors offer them as well. For example, in Naples, there's a bike ride around the city. In Corfu, there was an ATV tour or mountain biking. In Santorini, you can swim around the caldera.

[KeithJenner]

Just as an indication, we are booked on the Viva in April 2024 and there are currently 8 shore excursions listed for our 10 day cruise.

 

Our September 2023 cruise has 117 excursions listed (also 19 days).