ABD or Med Cruise if the focus is Italy?

[polynor]

We’relooking at ABD Italy or one of the med cruises that starts or ends in Rome (Civ), as the goal is to see mostly Rome. But we’re interested in Florence and Pompeii. Anyone done both ABD and the cruise? is the ABD pacing where you get enough time to see the colosseum and Vatican fully? or would we be better off doing the cruise and adding a couple days in Rome and booking additional tours? I don’t want to do this completely ala carte on my own. ABD seems like it would be more expensive overall with less ports (I would like Greece but not much enthusiasm from the rest of the fam). But the cruise sounds exhausting and we’d have to spend more time before or after to complete what we want.

 

[TravelJunkieHubby]

We did the ABD Italy in 2018, haven’t done the cruise. I felt like we definitely spent adequate time in Rome - we went to the Vatican twice, once during the day and once for the after hours tour/private Sistine Chapel. For the Colosseum we went for roughly an hour (part of day-long walking tour), but it was through a private entrance and with a guide. We didn’t walk through the whole structure but we got great pictures and it was mid-July so I was happy with that.

If you do it on your own, the hotel ABD stays at next to the Vatican is a good choice.

 

[abdgeek]

I’ve done both the DCL Med Cruises and ABD Italy. The first time I did Italy, I did the ABD add on for the Med Cruise. I liked being the first group off the ship and the last to arrive. The country tour guides we had were great and gave a lot of information. My only mistake was in not realizing that I wouldn’t see everything on my list in one trip. That meant that I wound up taking another DCL Med Cruise— without the add on— to see other things on my list and some new ports like Venice that were added. Without the add on, I realized that the tour guides weren’t that good and really just took you to the site and told you where to meet up to return. I then did the ABD Italy Signature tour and loved it. The after hours visit to the Vatican and Sistine Chapel means you don’t do the cattle call that happens when you go with the cruises. The Vatican Museums you pass through on the way to the Sistine Chapel are really great but you don’t really get to see it with the cruises because you’re trying to keep up with your guide who is walking fast to get to the Chapel. There is some overlap with the cruise and the ABD, but you learn so much more with the ABD. Definitely tack on extra days to see anything that ABD won’t visit. If I had it to do over, I would have done the two ABDs(Italy and Amalfi Coast) first. That would have covered the major sites and then taken a cruise to fill in the gaps. Now I still need to do the Amalfi Coast ABD to see the final things on my list.

 

[Marthasor]

I've been to both Italy and Greece and would not want to do either on a large cruise ship. Especially if you think you would need to add days in Rome and book other tours, it doesn't sound like the cruise is going to check everything off your list. I would find a land-tour itinerary that gets pretty close to covering everything you'd like to see with, perhaps, a few pre- and/or post-days tacked on.