Too Port Intensive?

[BluesCruise]

I am just starting to look at Greek Isles itineraries, and they all seem too port intensive, in my opinion. I actually enjoy sea days, and I prefer to have a sea day between port stops. I'd like a 10 to 14 day cruise, but I don't want to make daily stops. Mainly, I'm interested in Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, and maybe Dubrovnik.

 

Is there another way I should be looking at this?

 

Thanks in advance.

[eandj]

First, you obviously do NOT have to leave the ship. We have done several repeat similar cruises and often stay onboard and enjoy the pool area with a good book while 95% of the ship's passengers vanish. It is a great day! Or you can take a stroll off the ship for just an hour or two and get back for a day of rest. It's your vacation.

 

If you want more time at fewer islands, why not look to a land vacation and make use of the great ferry system that runs between all the islands. You might want to do some research into that.

[chipmaster]

I am just starting to look at Greek Isles itineraries, and they all seem too port intensive, in my opinion. I actually enjoy sea days, and I prefer to have a sea day between port stops. I'd like a 10 to 14 day cruise, but I don't want to make daily stops. Mainly, I'm interested in Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, and maybe Dubrovnik.

 

Is there another way I should be looking at this?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

thats the challenge of these European cruises where their very nature is a series of exciting ports btb. I don't think you'll find many cruises that sandwich a sea day between every port stop. The whole purpose of most of these cruises is to get as many ports as you can in the 7, 10 and 12 day cruises :D

 

As the other poster said, if you get tired then you can always pick and choose what you do the next day. The good thing about that, is likely you'll have almost the whole ship to yourself and there will certainly be good deals at the spa and for other things too.

[Hlitner]

If you have the time you might want to look at the spring 2010 Eurodam 26 day itinerary which combines a transatlantic with some Greek and Med ports. We did this cruise this past April (on the Noordam) and found that all the sea days before we got to Europe was really relaxing. A bonus was that they were darn near giving away this cruise this year ($2600 for a balcony on a 26 day cruise).

 

Hank

[texancruzer]

Or...... when visiting some of these ports you could go ashore for just a half day and then return to an empty ship :D

 

We found Mykonos to be just ok....and a half day was about all we did there even though we were docked all day. Santorini, while beautiful, we only had about 4-1/2 hrs onshore anyway. Took the donkeys up, then a taxi to Oia for a bit, back to Fira for dinner and back to the ship. Plenty for us. Dubrovnik - ditto. We took the shuttle into the old town, walked the wall, had lunch and shopped and walked a bit more and then went back to the ship..... Athens - ditto. I had a bad head cold for this port ( me and half the ship just last month !) so only spent about 4-1/2 hrs here too. Took the metro in to Acropolis, went up and explored, came back to the Plaka, had lunch and shopped a tiny bit then a taxi back to the ship. Feeling lousy by that time but it was enough time to see the "big" site and see quite a bit of Athens (which we did not care for).

 

My point is....... do less in each port.

[Beachbum1944]

I think OP wants more dayime sailing, not just being able to sit on-board at port. I think I would enjoy that myself. A little break in between a couple ports woul be nice.

[hcat]

Another way is to enjoy the ports but limit yourself to half day tours...then enjoy the ship or have lunch in the port....

[jpthomas27]

I'm on a 12 night Med cruise in July/August, including embarkation and debarkation ports there are 11 cities and only 2 sea days. I agree that this is a very intense itinerary and has the potential to be very tiring.

 

Obviously I haven't actually done this yet, but here is my strategy going into it. We have picked one port to skip and stay on board, essentially creating a third sea day for ourselves, with the bonus of having most of the ship to ourselves becasue most people will be in the port. In addition to that we picked a few cities to keep very low key. Going to rent a car and drive to the farthest beach from the port to get away from most of the crowds and just enjoy the sun, relax and have a few drinks. That left us with about half the ports that we will do some heavy duty sight seeing in. I'm hoping that will make the overall experience much more enjoyable rather than getting back from vacation and feeling like I need a vacation just to recover from it.

 

There is so much history and culture to see in the Med my first inclination was to try and see and experience everything. I quickly realized there is no way it's possible and if I tried I would be very exhausted by the end of my trip. You'll have to decide what is most important to, rank them in order and then decide what to sacrifice.

[gxchan]

I'm booked for my first Med cruise and agree, more seas would be welcome. Failing that, and as other posters have noted, I'm "making a sea day" while in port. The problem is, which port?:)

[BluesCruise]

OP here. Let me clarify...I enjoy sea days because I like the activities, like trivia, boardgames, lectures, etc., which require other passengers. I don't want to stay aboard an empty ship while in a port. I would feel that I was wasting an opportunity to see that port. I've only done that one time, in Nassau, and only because I've been there numerous times.

 

I just cruised Alaska last week, and the cost of excursions in ports was more than my cruise fare (even w/ 200% single supplement). I was afraid the cost of excursions for a med cruise, for so many ports, would be prohibitive. After reading more, it seems like I could do many of the ports on my own, even as a solo, without purchasing ship tours. I think Alaska was different, in many ways, and I just need to adjust my mindset for Europe.

 

As for cruise lines, I prefer Celebrity and Princess. Although HAL and Carnival give good deals on single supplements sometimes, I didn't find those lines to be that great. I haven't tried RCCL, and I'm unfamiliar with some of the other lines, like Oceania and Costa. If anyone has comments on those lines, do tell.

 

I want to do this trip to celebrate my 50th birthday, so it will be a treat, but I don't want go broke doing it, LOL. So, I'll keep reading these boards for more info.

[lanceholt]

We were originally going to book a 7 day western Med cruise on NCL and changed to 14 days to make it less intensive as we were concerned about the death march aspect of such a port intensive cruise (we are in our early 60's). We will have 4 sea days on the 14 day cruise plus one day we don't dock in Barcelona till 6pm and it is an overnight port. Making an extra sea day yourself is a good idea.

[mare s.]

We are booked for the 12 day Azamara cruise with just one sea day. There's a lot to see and do in the Eastern Med but our plan is to focus intensive sight seeing in three or four places and then, in the others, do it ourselves and mostly just wander around, sit in a cafe and watch the world go by and generally take it easy. It's much easier to do this on a small ship which can dock or tender near town rather than on a huge ship which must dock in container ports often far from the center of things (we've been there done that on our last cruise in Asia on the Diamond Princess) Most times, the wandering around town has proved more enjoyable than organized tours, whether they be ship's or private. And, yes, August is going to be very hot, but we're used to heat here in SoCal.

[eandj]

OP here. Let me clarify...I enjoy sea days because I like the activities, like trivia, boardgames, lectures, etc., which require other passengers. I don't want to stay aboard an empty ship while in a port. I would feel that I was wasting an opportunity to see that port. I've only done that one time, in Nassau, and only because I've been there numerous times. Because of the cost and time to get to Europe, not sure you will find an itinerary that has "extra" sea days. As said before, most passengers want to see as much as possible on the Med cruises.

 

I just cruised Alaska last week, and the cost of excursions in ports was more than my cruise fare (even w/ 200% single supplement). I was afraid the cost of excursions for a med cruise, for so many ports, would be prohibitive. After reading more, it seems like I could do many of the ports on my own, even as a solo, without purchasing ship tours. I think Alaska was different, in many ways, and I just need to adjust my mindset for Europe. Depending on the ports, yes for sure you can save a lot by using the train system and doing walking tours on your own. There are many excellent books by Rick Steves with wonderful tour ideas. I'd invest on those for more ideas. There will be many people I'm sure that will welcome you to "foolow their lead".

 

As for cruise lines, I prefer Celebrity and Princess. Although HAL and Carnival give good deals on single supplements sometimes, I didn't find those lines to be that great. I haven't tried RCCL, and I'm unfamiliar with some of the other lines, like Oceania and Costa. If anyone has comments on those lines, do tell. Oceania in particular has VERY port intensive itineraries. I'm not familiar with Costa's. You won't find as many activites on port days on any line, but there will be some.

 

I want to do this trip to celebrate my 50th birthday, so it will be a treat, but I don't want go broke doing it, LOL. So, I'll keep reading these boards for more info.

 

Yes, keep reading here as well as get yourself some good travel guides. There are a few that are for cruisers in particular too.

[agabbymama]

Just another perspective. NO SUCH THING AS TOO PORT INTENSIVE!

 

That's what my friend and I cruise for, are all the different ports. She likes sea days, but I soon become bored. I'm not interested in playing trivia, laying by the pool, going to art auctions, etc. Bingo is fun, but too expensive to play more than once. I do a lot of reading, but books are heavy to tote around for long. I usually end up donating the two or three I brought to the ship's library.

 

For our New England/Canada 11 day cruise, we stopped in Boston, Portland, Bar Harbor, Saint John, Halifax and Quebec City. The original itinerary had us doing two port days, an at sea day, two port days, etc. When we boarded the ship we were handed little cards with an itinerary change. We ended up having a port day every day Northbound. Upon leaving Quebec City, we had 4 at sea days. I was climbing the walls by the time we finally reached NYC. You can only read, nap or walk around the ship so much.

 

And for our 12 day Med cruise, I specifically chose Grand Princess because it was so port intensive, with only 1 at sea day. That changed when we couldn't enter Mykonos due to high winds, that gave us a 2nd at sea day. The more ports the better for us. The ship is our mode of transportation and our hotel, the value can't be beat compared to trying to see all these ports on a land vacation.

 

I think eandj has it right when stating the cost/time to get to Europe, folks want to see and do as much as possible in a short time span.

[texancruzer]

We just returned from 11 night on Celebrity Solstice. 11 nights but 3 sea days.

 

Rome

Sea day

Santorini

Mykonos

Istanbul (overnight)

Istanbul

Kusadasi

Sea day

Athens

Sea day

Naples

Rome

 

Good mix. Santorini we were there 2 pm to 10 pm so we slept in ;) Istanbul we arrived at 1 pm and left the next day at 2 pm so 1/2 days there too. We felt this was a perfect blend for go-go-go and relax time.

 

Our 9 nighter on Brilliance only had 2 sea days. I was pretty pooped when we got to Barcelona !

 

We too cruise for the ports.....and Europe has so much to see and do !

[AmoMondo]

Most med only cruises ar port intensive as there are such short sailing times between cities/countries. the only way I've manged to have sea days (which I love) has been whenthe med bt has been part of a repositioning voyage, either from the baltics/N europe to the med or Transatlantic

[fmax]

A couple of years ago I did two 7 day cruises back-to-back that covered Greek Isles and Turkey. One of the main reasons for this choice was it started from Venice. It was on Splendour of the Seas which I had sailed before. I spent less on excursions for these two weeks than for my 7 day Med Cruise several years before. I had no real interest in seeing Greece, but as I said wanted to do Venice. Some friends were doing Greece so I thought if I was going to Europe to do this i was as well doing the 2nd week and seeing some of Turkey.

 

Day 1 - At Sea

Day 2 - Dubrovnik - shuttle to town and did on our own

Day 3 - Kusadasi - an organized excursion to Ephesus

Day 4 - Santorini - bus to Oia

Day 5 - Corfu - got a taxi at port for a tour

Day 6 - At Sea

Day 7 - Venice

 

Day 1 - At Sea

Day 2 - Mykonos - high winds - went straight to Athens

Day 3 - Athens - subway into town and around on our own

Day 4 - Katakolon - stayed in port but there's a train to Olympia

Day 5 - Corfu - Shuttle into the main town

Day 6 - Split - port town - walked around on our own

Day 7 - Venice

 

Because in most cases the attractions are right near the port, or relatively near, it definitely isn't as exhausting as some of the other itineraries.

 

I've travelled mostly with RCCL but did HAL for a new year's cruise last year. Of the two, I much prefer RCCL. I think I've heard that one of the drawbacks of Costs might be that the announcements tend to be in multiple languages. Also, I'm not sure if it's Costa or MSC that I've seen offering "children for free" so you could find those exceptionally busy. Oceania I believe is a different class of ship - much smaller than Carnival, Celebrity, HAL , Royal etc. I've seen Oceania with some really good deals for 2 for 1 or air inclusive. They're more mid-size, and dress is country casual - no formal nights. Not sure how the activities would compare to what you're used to.

 

I'm sure you'll find something that works well for you.

[chipmaster]

Just another perspective. NO SUCH THING AS TOO PORT INTENSIVE!

 

 

I agree, I orginally viewed the Naples, Civtavecchia and Livorno triple series with some worry. It was the most special and enjoyable 72 hours of our vacation for all of us from age 7 to 80+'s. It was great to come back to a ship have a nice relaxing shower then off to a nice leisure sit down dinner and MUTs then off to get ready for another exicting day :D

 

It really helped for these 3 in doing private ;)

[abouna]

One thing to consider is that, while all the Med. cruises are port intensive, the ones that do more of the Greek Islands would be a little more relaxing. Go to a beach, stroll around the town on your own, etc. The others are basically for touring. Compare Princess' Grand Med. vs. Greek Islands and you will see what I mean. Both are 12 days, but on the Grand Med. the only island is Mykonos, the rest of the ports all deserved toured and seen, but it has a couple of sea days. The Greek Island cruise skips Istanbul and Barcelona and a sea day and replaces them with three Greek islands where you can relax.