Recommended Private Companies for Mediterranean Shore Excursions

[Mrush4h]

Hi-

We're taking the 9-night Mediterranean cruise in June 2022 (the Naples/Greece one). Does anyone have any recommendations for private companies offering shore excursions at any of the greek ports or naples? Would welcome hearing about any good experiences you've had.

Thanks in advance!

 

[bigAWL]

We've used RomeInLimo for Italian ports, and Viator for others. Loved both of them.

Editing to add... we pretty much stuck to small group tours with one or two other families (or just us a couple times). We haven't done a large bus tour with either company.

 

[Mommb]

My family of 4 did a private tour with Joe Banana when we docked near Naples that included stops at producers of Lemoncello and olive oil, lunch at a restaurant where we made our own pizzas, a stop in Sorrento, and a private guide in Pompeii. We highly enjoyed it. We also highly enjoyed the Joe Banana tour we took after we disembarked in Civitavecchia, which took us to Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este.

I second the recommendation of RomeInLimo, which we used on our first trip to Rome on a previous cruise.

Private tours are definitely the way to go at ports where the major attractions are spread out. We saw so much more than we could have if we tried to see Rome or the Amalfi coast on our own or on a ship-sponsored excursion with a large group.

 

[TestingH2O]

Another vote for RomeInLimo. They are amazing.

 

[bigAWL]

RomeInLimo was also very flexible for the small group/private tours. Just tell them what you want to do. They will set the itinerary and price. Want a personal tour guide at Pompeii? They will help set it up. You can even adjust things on the fly.

 

[Pens Fan]

Agree with the others about Rome in Limo. They definitely aren't the cheapest option, but they are a fantastic company to work with and their guides are wonderful. In addition to tours, we used them for several transfers:

Rome airport to hotel
Hotel to Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia to Montepulciano after the cruise (with a stop in Orvieto)
Montepulciano to Rome airport

Also - I'm cutting and pasting something I posted on a similar thread https://www.disboards.com/threads/f...sions-pas-please-share.3832593/#post-62867630 a couple of weeks ago.

Hopefully this helps:

We visited many of those ports in 2019. We did not use any cruise line excursions, preferring to go our own way. Not everyone is comfortable with that for many valid reasons, but in case you or anyone reading this is, here is what we did:

Santorini - We booked a private tour through https://santorini-private-guide.com/ . It included a great tour of the island, a nice long stop in Oia, a fabulous lunch at a beach front restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and we ended the night watching the famous Santorini sunset from a winery while doing a wine tasting.

Athens - We booked a private tour through https://www.taxigreece.com/tour/acropolis-athens-city-sites-plaka/ (recommended by Rick Steves). We saw all the highlights of Athens. Our guide was terrific. I highly recommend this company!

Mykonos - this was the one stop on our cruise where we didn't book anything. We were on a 14 day cruise with only one sea day (day one) and we felt this was a good "wing it" day. It was a great choice. We had a wonderful morning just wandering the old town which is lovely. We did some shopping and had a nice lunch overlooking the sea. It was a national holiday in Greece, so there was a huge festival going on. It began to get really crowded, so after taking a lot of it in, we headed back to the ship and napped on our balcony .

Naples - We booked a private tour with this company https://www.lovelyamalfitours.com/pompeii-amalfi-coast. We toured the Amalfi coast, Positano, Sorrento, and Pompeii. We did spring for the extra cost of an extra guide for Pompeii which I highly recommend. Italy and Greece have some very strict laws regarding guides vs drivers. While most every "driver" we had was really a great guide, they are not allowed to go into the sights with you. They did a great job preparing us and giving us good information, but sometimes you need someone with you. Pompeii is one of those places.

Livorno - most people head to Florence here and rightly so. For us, it was the last night of our cruise. We felt after 13 straight days of ports we needed a bit of a break from the culture overload. Someone in our Cruise Critic roll call group organized a wine tasting tour through Tuscany, with a short stop in Pisa to take the obligatory picture next to the tower. It was the perfect way to end our cruise and we still order wine from one of the places we toured. The company they used was https://www.guidos-tours.com/.

 

[Dug720]

Honestly I would not count on being able to do private excursions. As I understand it, most lines will be requiring ship-based excursions to control exposure outside of the ship as much as possible.

 

[remlap]

I can't speak about Greek stops, but did the Barcelona RT, purchased the Rick Steves guide to Med Cruising and did everything independent. Had a great time, paid a fraction of the people did on the ships excursions and saw more. That said, as others have said about, don't be surprised if you're not forced into official excursions.

 

[Wosmama6]

we are on this cruise too and are hoping to save a bit on excursions because we upgraded from another line that was less than half the price including air. Love all these suggestions.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We used RomeInLimo also. They were wonderful.

For our Med cruise, we used RIL for the Italian ports and used up some OBC for the Nice/Monaco tour through DCL. It wasn't a bad time at all but it's hard to herd 30 people on a bus with several stops. At the Monte Carlo stop, we lost 2 people in our group. After waiting over 30 minutes for them sitting in a hot bus with some whining small children, we finally left. I often wonder what happened to them, if they were sick, injured, or just lost track of time while gambling.
Anyway, it was good that this was our first port and the whole time we knew that the rest of the cruise we had private tours. A group can only move along as fast as the slowest one in the group. If that's not someone in your family, it can get annoying because he/she is slowing you down. If it's a member of your family, you're more likely to notice that he/she is constantly struggling to keep up with the group, arriving last at each new area sometimes short of breath, sometimes missing the beginning of the guides next topic, feeling so exhausted and just not having a fun time.
Having a private tour eliminates all of that stress .

Personally, I'd reschedule the cruise if we were forced to book excursions through DCL. We are a family of 4 and split the RIL cost (3 ports) with my parents. We got a discount for booking more than one port tour with them and also another 5% off for prepaying in cash (wired).
It came to around $1800 which we split so $900 per couple. DCL excursions were approx $500/pp/port. That would be around $2000 for my family for each Italian port, or $6000 total for Italy. NFW.
Hmmm... $6000 to be herded onto a bus vs. $900 for a private Mercedes with WIFI hotspot? This is a no brainer.

 

[SirDuff]

We used RomeInLimo also. They were wonderful.

For our Med cruise, we used RIL for the Italian ports and used up some OBC for the Nice/Monaco tour through DCL. It wasn't a bad time at all but it's hard to herd 30 people on a bus with several stops. At the Monte Carlo stop, we lost 2 people in our group. After waiting over 30 minutes for them sitting in a hot bus with some whining small children, we finally left. I often wonder what happened to them, if they were sick, injured, or just lost track of time while gambling.
Anyway, it was good that this was our first port and the whole time we knew that the rest of the cruise we had private tours. A group can only move along as fast as the slowest one in the group. If that's not someone in your family, it can get annoying because he/she is slowing you down. If it's a member of your family, you're more likely to notice that he/she is constantly struggling to keep up with the group, arriving last at each new area sometimes short of breath, sometimes missing the beginning of the guides next topic, feeling so exhausted and just not having a fun time.
Having a private tour eliminates all of that stress .

Personally, I'd reschedule the cruise if we were forced to book excursions through DCL. We are a family of 4 and split the RIL cost (3 ports) with my parents. We got a discount for booking more than one port tour with them and also another 5% off for prepaying in cash (wired).
It came to around $1800 which we split so $900 per couple. DCL excursions were approx $500/pp/port. That would be around $2000 for my family for each Italian port, or $6000 total for Italy. NFW.
Hmmm... $6000 to be herded onto a bus vs. $900 for a private Mercedes with WIFI hotspot? This is a no brainer.

Your point is still valid, but I don't think that your math is. Your $6,000 is for four people but your $900 is only for two. Or am I missing something (happens a lot).

But, yes, I agree that in a tour with a multiple stops, I'd much prefer private or, at least, small group.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Your point is still valid, but I don't think that your math is. Your $6,000 is for four people but your $900 is only for two. Or am I missing something (happens a lot).

But, yes, I agree that in a tour with a multiple stops, I'd much prefer private or, at least, small group.

RIL charges per group based on what size vehicle needed, not per person. I guess my parents could have been pickier and said they'd only chip in for 1/3 the cost since there was 6 of us. It still would be way cheaper.

 

[bigAWL]

We used RomeInLimo also. They were wonderful.

For our Med cruise, we used RIL for the Italian ports and used up some OBC for the Nice/Monaco tour through DCL. It wasn't a bad time at all but it's hard to herd 30 people on a bus with several stops. At the Monte Carlo stop, we lost 2 people in our group. After waiting over 30 minutes for them sitting in a hot bus with some whining small children, we finally left. I often wonder what happened to them, if they were sick, injured, or just lost track of time while gambling.
Anyway, it was good that this was our first port and the whole time we knew that the rest of the cruise we had private tours. A group can only move along as fast as the slowest one in the group. If that's not someone in your family, it can get annoying because he/she is slowing you down. If it's a member of your family, you're more likely to notice that he/she is constantly struggling to keep up with the group, arriving last at each new area sometimes short of breath, sometimes missing the beginning of the guides next topic, feeling so exhausted and just not having a fun time.
Having a private tour eliminates all of that stress .

Personally, I'd reschedule the cruise if we were forced to book excursions through DCL. We are a family of 4 and split the RIL cost (3 ports) with my parents. We got a discount for booking more than one port tour with them and also another 5% off for prepaying in cash (wired).
It came to around $1800 which we split so $900 per couple. DCL excursions were approx $500/pp/port. That would be around $2000 for my family for each Italian port, or $6000 total for Italy. NFW.
Hmmm... $6000 to be herded onto a bus vs. $900 for a private Mercedes with WIFI hotspot? This is a no brainer.

Which DCL bus tours were $500 per person? I think there are usually a lot in the $100-300 per person range. RIL can certainly save you money compared to DCL's private excursions, but I didn't find a lot of savings compared to large group tours. Of course, I completely agree with everything else you said, and will always prefer RIL to DCL tours.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Which DCL bus tours were $500 per person? I think there are usually a lot in the $100-300 per person range. RIL can certainly save you money compared to DCL's private excursions, but I didn't find a lot of savings compared to large group tours. Of course, I completely agree with everything else you said, and will always prefer RIL to DCL tours.

Full day tours of Rome and Florence/Pisa. It was like $490 or so IIRC. This was in 2013 so maybe lately DCL is pricing more competitively?
Maybe my memory is foggy? I’d love to see some DCL Port Adventures lists from them.

 

[SirDuff]

RIL charges per group based on what size vehicle needed, not per person. I guess my parents could have been pickier and said they'd only chip in for 1/3 the cost since there was 6 of us. It still would be way cheaper.

I did say I often missed things I thought it was just you and your husband (plus your parents). That is a massive savings.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

Full day tours of Rome and Florence/Pisa. It was like $490 or so IIRC. This was in 2013 so maybe lately DCL is pricing more competitively?

When we went in 2018 it was just my wife and I and we booked all our excursions through DCL. The only full day excursions we went on were Florence and Sorento, the rest were just half day for us. The cost for the full day in Florence was around $150 per person for the two of us. So for us, it was worth booking through DCL. Doing otherwise, would have been more expensive unless we could have found another group to split the cost of using a private company.

Psy

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I guess it depends what you want to do. There is so much to see that even 8-9 hours is not enough time. I was there before I was married for a 14-night land tour of Italy and 3 days in each city wasn’t enough. JMHO.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

I guess it depends what you want to do. There is so much to see that even 8-9 hours is not enough time. I was there before I was married for a 14-night land tour of Italy and 3 days in each city wasn’t enough. JMHO.

I completely agree and one of the reasons why we didn't try and see Rome. With us loosing between 3 and 4 hours of travel time both ways, we just felt that we would have been rushed and we didn't want that. Which was why we only made full day excursions at 2 of the stops. The rest were only half days.

Psy

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I completely agree and one of the reasons why we didn't try and see Rome. With us loosing between 3 and 4 hours of travel time both ways, we just felt that we would have been rushed and we didn't want that. Which was why we only made full day excursions at 2 of the stops. The rest were only half days.

Psy

For my elderly parents iit was a “now or never” situation. They wanted to see as much as they could tolerate. I had been pleading to my dad for 30+ years to visit. He is of Italian descent (his grandmother came to US) so I felt it’s a must-do for him to see his roots. He wasn’t so keen on the long flight but finally agreed to be medicated.

I’m glad we went when we did because my mom has passed and my dad’s health is worse now and he wouldn’t be able to do all of that.
I used to plead to my grandmother (dad’s mom) to come with me, but she had fear of flying.

Anyway, with private tours we could get a full day of sightseeing but at their own pace. It was a good balance.