9-Night Mediterranean With Greek Isles Cruise From Barcelona Ending In Civitavecchia (Stateroom Question & Port Tour Ideas)

[Shelton2006]

Hello!

Our family will be cruising on the Dream next year for the 9 night Mediterranean Cruise and have opted for a Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah. Having cruised before, I know our family spends little time in the actual room but would love the opportunity to see Italy and Greece from our stateroom. While it is certainly not the end of the world if we can't, it would be lovely.

That being said, does anyone know which side of the boat would be best to achieve this?

Another question, does anyone have suggestions on tour companies or things to do in the following locations:

1. Barcelona, Spain - We have no restrictions on timing as we are arriving prior to the cruise.
2. Marseille, France - 8am-4pm
3. Livorno (Florence, Pisa), Italy - 7am-7pm and we do want to see Pisa

We have guides chosen in all other locations on the cruise, these were the ones we still have pending.

Thank you so much in advance!!

 

[lois00525]

Hello!

Our family will be cruising on the Dream next year for the 9 night Mediterranean Cruise and have opted for a Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah. Having cruised before, I know our family spends little time in the actual room but would love the opportunity to see Italy and Greece from our stateroom. While it is certainly not the end of the world if we can't, it would be lovely.

That being said, does anyone know which side of the boat would be best to achieve this?

Another question, does anyone have suggestions on tour companies or things to do in the following locations:

1. Barcelona, Spain - We have no restrictions on timing as we are arriving prior to the cruise.
2. Marseille, France - 8am-4pm
3. Livorno (Florence, Pisa), Italy - 7am-7pm and we do want to see Pisa

We have guides chosen in all other locations on the cruise, these were the ones we still have pending.

Thank you so much in advance!!

Hi,

We did this itinerary this past July and it was amazing. We stayed in an Oceanview stateroom on Deck 7 on the Starboard side, and we were happy with the views.

We have stayed in Barcelona several times before our cruises, and the hotel we enjoyed the most was the Royal Ramblas Barcelona. It is right on La Ramblas and conveniently located to Placa Catalunya where you can get the Hop on Hop off Bus.
Some ideas in Barcelona are a Flamenco Show, La Sagrada Familia, Montserrat, Park Guell. Our favorite restaurant in Barcelona is Rossini's and it is is Placa Reial a very short walk from the hotel we stayed in. We bought our tickets for Park Guell and Montserrat at Placa Catalunya when we visited these sites.

Pisa is beautiful. We did the tour Easy Pisa on our first Med cruise, but Disney also offers Florence and Pisa. Easy Pisa was a 4.5 hour tour, while Florence and Pisa was 10-10.5 hours.

In Marseille, we went on the Arles and Aix en Provence Small Group Departure and it was an 98.5-9 hour tour.

 

[o&smom]

We love Barcelona! Always stay in apartment through VRBO. La Sagrada Familia is a must! Buy tickets beforehand. Montserrat is beautiful. Two other options are Tibidabo which is an amusement park at the top of the mountain just outside Barcelona, and Cosmo Caixa which is an interactive museum. Great for kids, my husband I enjoyed it as well. We were last there for our son’s 16th birthday and he chose to spend his birthday at Cosmo Caixa. He’s not even really that into science. He had remembered it from 6 years prior. We have done all of these on our own by taxi or a train. We will be on the 11 night next summer, and are trying to decide what we want to do again when we get to Barcelona.

 

[msmama]

We were on the starboard side and I think our view was fine, but most of the ports, I think you'll have an interesting view on either side. It was an upgrade so anything was fine with me!

We did the hop on/hop off bus tour in Barcelona with mostly staying on and just looking at the scenery but it was also the end of our trip so we were pretty exhausted by them. But La Sagrada Familia is a must do (it can be pretty quick if you want it to be but I'm sure people spend hours looking at every nook and cranny - and there are a lot). The one thing I wanted to do but couldn't convince my son of, was to stick my toes in the Med.

We did Florence and Pisa and it was a long day, but no way was I skipping either of those places!! Florence was my favorite of all the places we went and I would've loved to see more. Our tour was just walking around the outside of buildings. After several long days of touring, the leaning tower was annoyingly far from the parking lot. On a normal day, it probably would've been fine, but, like I said, after climbing Mt. Vesuvius, roaming Rome, etc, we were just kind of cranky and tired. We took our silly photos and then sat at the meeting point with a drink.

For the whole day excursions, my comfort level is only via the Disney tours. We were round trip from Barcelona (after TA) and I feel like there were a lot more European's who stayed on the ship so it was mostly American's on the day long tours and several tour guides in Italy commented on how they liked the Disney cruises because they kept their groups small (maybe 20-40 people) while others would do groups of 60+. But we were there with still a fair amount of Covid restrictions.

 

[kalel29]

Subbing!!! We are also doing this cruise.

 

[auntlynne]

We opted for just Pisa that day. I would love to see Florence, but wasn’t prepared to do a 12-hour day with a lot of travel time. (We also had the long day of Rome on that cruise.)

We did Pisa on our own. Took the train and walked to the walled Tower area.

Barcelona - we did the Hop On bus. Stopped at Sagrada Familia, but didn’t do an interior tour. Mainly just got an overview of the city. (And I was on crutches that visit.)

 

[disneyfaninaz]

For Barcelona, I recommend you look into Barcelona Day Tours. We did the Monserrat day trip after the cruise. They kept our luggage in the van with us and dropped us off at the hotel later that day. We also did their tour around the city and saw all the touristy sites. We did La Sagrada Familia on our own after a half day tour.

I do not recommend the DCL trip to Florence. The tour company in 2018 was awful! We used Driver in Rome for tours for other ports in Italy. They do Florence, but we were doing a separate tour from our sailing mates and opted to stick with DCL. Worse decision ever!

In Marseille, we booked a tour with Provence Connections. It was great.

On more recent cruises, we have used Tours by Locals. They have a "No One Left Behind" policy to return to your ship in time for sail away,

Just a note for taking private tours in the Med. Based on my experience, the companies we used in France and Italy wanted to be paid in Euros. They may charge up to 12% for using a credit card. This is not the case with Tours by Locals, but you do pay them in advance through the website.

 

[DianaMB333]

Hello!

Our family will be cruising on the Dream next year for the 9 night Mediterranean Cruise and have opted for a Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah. Having cruised before, I know our family spends little time in the actual room but would love the opportunity to see Italy and Greece from our stateroom. While it is certainly not the end of the world if we can't, it would be lovely.

That being said, does anyone know which side of the boat would be best to achieve this?

Another question, does anyone have suggestions on tour companies or things to do in the following locations:

1. Barcelona, Spain - We have no restrictions on timing as we are arriving prior to the cruise.
2. Marseille, France - 8am-4pm
3. Livorno (Florence, Pisa), Italy - 7am-7pm and we do want to see Pisa

We have guides chosen in all other locations on the cruise, these were the ones we still have pending.

Thank you so much in advance!!

we are also doing this! so following along the recommendations.. thank you!

 

[twinsouvenirs]

Also following! I am so behind on planning—we’re doing the 9 night too. Cannot wait to meet you all—we’re traveling with three kids (10,10, and 8) so I am trying to keep the excursions fun for them too.

 

[DisneyConvert]

So jealous of, and happy for, you all.

We had booked, but soon-to-be post-college son (Classic's major!) is taking a job and going to Greece without us. With other travels planned, it is too much, so we have cancelled.