European Vacation

[cordenny]

Has anyone taken a European Vacation either cruise or package trip to (Italy, France, Greece, etc.). Who did you use to book it, how much was it, how many days, and what was your experience? I would appreciate any info you can give to me. Thank you so much!!

[Bavarian]

Have gone there often. Traveled on our own. Just rent a car, get a map und auf geh'ts.
Helps if you have a home base, either relatives or Wohnung.

[joldnol]

look into repositioning cruises next spring. They leave Ft Lauderdale and sail to the med.

[asianthree]

If you are not able to handle your own luggage then look for a company. If you belong to AAA they could be Abigail help

[hulahips]

We did a land/sea tour of Italy, Turkey and Greece with Royal Caribbean

[Cathy H]

travel agencies do this for you

[mtdjed]

It would seem that each person contemplating a European tour must set something of their own criteria. What is your age, do you want to drive, do you want to visit relatives, are you a hiker, do you want to river cruise, ocean cruise, what is your budget, how long do you want to be gone. I've been to Europe many times and each trip was great, but it was something I wanted.
My explaining how long , how much, and from who wouldn't give you any valuable info.

[tomwed]

Google Rick Steves.
Go to the library and take out his books.
Go cheapcruises.com. [repositioning]

That's what we did and it was inexpensive, a lot of fun and went by all too quickly.

I'll tell you more later.

[Lauren Sweeny]

YouTube your destination and see what pops up. If you are cruising go to cruisecritic..com to investigate your ship, room and read other people's reviews

[Rango]

Viking Cruises

[Buckeyephan]

We've taken trips with Trafalgar Tours to England, France, Italy and Eastern Europe. Each was a wonderful experience. We aren't adventurous so it was great to have things planned for us. All of the groups were from English speaking countries and it was a pleasure to meet lots of interesting people. We usually had the chance to go to local restaurants in the evenings if we wanted. It was also wonderful to bypass long lines at museums and walk right in through the tour group entrances.

[Bavarian]

Viking Cruises

Would not recommend them. They are scotch on food. Surf and turf was a small steak and a shrimp. Open Seating, cattle rush to find a seat, but there is waiter service. No entertainment just an attempt to indoctrinated you that the EU is great.

Ships are smaller then they appear on the ads.

[Nightengale212]

My husband and I recently booked a 10 day Western Med cruise on the NCL Epic for April 2016. NCL has some great promos going on right now which you may want to check out. Our cruise starts and ends in Barcelona and stops in Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Rome, and Florence. We like to unpack once during a vacation so cruises work for us. Cost varies depending on cabin choice and types of excursions you book, and of course your flights which right now is running around $1,000 round trip to Barcelona.

If a cruise is something that you may be interested in you can do mock booking on all the cruise line web sites (HAL, Princess, NCL, RCL, etc.) which will give you a good idea what a European cruise will cost.

[lbertoni]

Two years ago did the 12 day Mediterranean cruise on the Norwegian Epic. We sailed out of Barcelona and finished in Venice. It was a great trip. We didn't want yo deL with putting our luggage. Out at 6:30 each morning. It was wonderful coming back on the ship at huge end of the day. And not have to worry about dinner reservations. Do your homework

[lbertoni]

Before hand and know what excursions you want to do. For example in Toulon we took an excursion that took us by bus an hour and a half from the ship. We walked around the town , wat and got back on the bus. The town of Toulon had the same architecture and a beautiful seaport with a harbor filled with sailboats. We could have walked off the ship wandered around the town and then had lunch on the water. It would have been a perfect day.

[tomwed]

This was the deal we got:
18 Days Transatlantic - Discount Transatlantic Cruises - Carnival Cruise Lines - Carnival Destiny
Miami, Malaga, Barcelona, Livorno, Rome / Civitavecchia, Venice
1 departure date: February 4, 2013
Prices from:
Inside $499
Outside $649
Balcony $849
Suite $1749

From Venice we took a train to Florence, stayed for 3 days and then Rhome for 4 days before we flew home.

We upgraded to a balcony. Picked Rick Steve's recommended hotels and used frequent flier miles to fly home. All and all it was a pretty cheap trip. I had no complaints about the ship, food or service.

[Ecuadog]

My husband and I recently booked a 10 day Western Med cruise on the NCL Epic for April 2016. NCL has some great promos going on right now which you may want to check out. ...

Yes, some good promos. Later this year, my wife and I are sailing from Tampa on NCL. We are also looking at the Epic cruise that you booked. I'm just waiting to see if I can book some award flights to and from Barcelona.

[Bonny]

We did a wonderful Mediterranean cruise with Celebrity a few years ago.
12 night cruise that started in Barcelona (we stayed there the night before the cruise) then went to Monte Carlo, Rome, Florence, Naples, Athens, Santorini, Croatia & Venice. Added a land tour through Celebrity and overnighted in Venice (awesome), then Milan and finished with 2 nights on Lake Como.
We loved it !
We also did a 14 night Baltic cruise with Celebrity that was awesome !!

[PennBF]

We have been going to Europe for years at around a couple of times a year both by Transatlantic and going directly to place. The question is what did we like the best. I guess No.1 was the time we rented and spent time in a Villa in Tuscany. We rented a car in Paris and drove to Tuscany to a Villa we had rented. The driving is easy and it would be hard to beat the trip. No.2 would probably be spending time in Paris at Christmas. No.2.1 would be one of the many Transatlantic's to Med. For the ones that we were/are not high on: No.1 An 8 day bus tour through Ireland. (Mother/Father are from
Ireland). Boring time on bus, not a lot to see lots of sheep and grass. Again there are different tastes as to what is liked. No.2 Very hot days in Rome. No.3 A drive from Milan to Venice. Very crowded on road, in Venice. and
getting on ship for trip to US via Transatlantic. These are just some feedback. Can PM if you would like more details.:ho:

[Nightengale212]

Yes, some good promos. Later this year, my wife and I are sailing from Tampa on NCL. We are also looking at the Epic cruise that you booked. I'm just waiting to see if I can book some award flights to and from Barcelona.

Yes, great promos!! The NCL casino comped my Haven Spa Suite which rather shocked me as I am no high roller just a consistent slot player, and since I booked the cruise before April 5th I also got the unlimited drink and dining packages, $300 OBC, and paid gratuities. Keeping my eyes on Air Lingus fares out of Boston which makes a stop first in Dublin then onto Barcelona which seems to be our best bet. I have enjoyed each of my 6 NCL cruises and I am sure # 7 will be just as nice. Enjoy your next cruise :)

[Bavarian]

HAL's Grand Mediteran Voyage leave Ft. Lauderdale next Feb and returns to FLL 55 days later. Covers a lot of ports, and it is a Grand Voyage.

[Radioman41]

We used Grand Circle Travel for two European tours several years ago. They focus primarily on seniors. We took a riverboat cruise through Germany and a land tour of Italy. We were very satisfied. Their web site is GCT.com.

[BobandMary]

We leave on Tuesday for a Viking river cruise in So. France. Celebrating our 25th! We anticipate a wonderful time!

[howardandsheila]

We leave on Tuesday for a Viking river cruise in So. France. Celebrating our 25th! We anticipate a wonderful time!

How was your trip?

[goldenfields]

Went on two Rick Steves tours, the TV travel show host's company, a year ago. He has a website. Spent two weeks in Portugal on the first tour followed by the Basque country tour of southwest France and northwest Spain. His tours are small, no more than 25 people, so you stay in quaint, boutique hotels and eat at interesting small restaurants. You often stay two nights in one location and have half days off on your own regularly. They are physically active so you have to be able to walk. Went as a single and paid the very reasonable single subsidy to have my own room. Though I loved it all I thought Portugal was fabulous. It's still old-world Europe and is overlooked as a great destination.

[Waverunner]

We just returned from our second Mediterranean Oceania Cruise. This is a smaller cruise line and caters to adults, mostly couples, with interesting travel itineraries and "to die for" cuisine. Their pricing includes airfare, and there is no extra charge for soft drinks or dining in their private restaurants. Other than their private restaurants, there is no fixed dining time and it is your choice to dine with others or not. (Casinos, bars, on-board shopping, entertainment/shows and shipboard activities are not a big interest to us and not a huge focus of this ship line. They do have gourmet cooking classes aboard their two larger ships.) The rooms are very comfortable and in the very good to luxury level.

Our idea of a great trip is to spend a few days exploring the starting city and a couple at the finish city. We prefer cruising so that we don't have to haul our luggage from place to place. Our first cruise with Oceania, last year, was from Rome to Barcelona (with Portofino, Livorno (Florence/Pisa/Tuscany), Monte Carlo, Marseille (Provence), Majorca between). This year, we went from Istanbul to Lisbon (with Izmir (Ephesus), Santorini, Valletta Malta, Trapani Sicily, Majorca, Cartegena, Malaga between). We like that Oceania mixes up and doesn't repeat their itineraries over and over and will book with them again in the future, as we have a long bucket list of places to explore. You can also extend your cruise as the next set of ports is likely to be entirely different, so you can go for as little time as a week all the way up to half a year. In the future, we plan do some longer trips and to also explore river cruising, to get us to the inland spots on our list.

We used Cruisingexcursions.com to book excursion packages that follow the itinerary of the ship. (This was way less expensive than the offerings from the ship.) During the first cruise, this was wonderful and we felt like we were having private tours in each port city. We were never more than 6-7 people and were able to move quicker than the giant buses taking our fellow cruise ship passengers to the same places, plus, the smaller vehicles could get us closer to the venues in some of the small towns we visited. During the second cruise, Cruisingexcursions.com cancelled half of the package right before the trip as they hadn't gotten the number of tourist passengers needed in certain cities, as a minimum. We complained about this, (to no avail), but quickly found that most of the cities we visited had inexpensive hop-on, hop-off (HOHO) tours readily available and we took advantage of these to see the sights of the cities and determine, (time permitting), if we wanted to stop and explore a spot in more depth. This worked very well in our first and last cities (of the cruises) and we supplemented the HOHO bus with an explore of public transportation (buses, trams, streetcars, and metros (subways) systems. (We rarely ever had to take a taxi, but we like to use public transport.) Our observations are that you can stay on the HOHO bus for a leisurely tour, or, to do Europe well, you need to be able to walk great distances that aren't always flat and smooth. Most European cities do not have the same accessibility that you see in the US.

The free maps that are provided by the HOHO buses are really valuable identifying most all the sights that you might want to see in a particular city and you can also find these on-line before you travel. They help you get the layout of the city and better plan your activities and timing.

Pricing is on the cruise line and cruising excursion websites. We also saved a little money purchasing our HOHO bus tours in the first and last cities on Viator.com.

With the current exchange rate, there couldn't be a better time to travel. We found the biggest bang for our buck in Turkey, as they are not on the Euro, but Euro countries quite reasonable as well. Happy traveling!

[Skip]

We've booked our trans-Atlantic spring departures through various agents (whoever offers us the most perks) but even if you book with Royal Caribbean or Celebrity direct, you can always get the lowest cruise fare by monitoring the fares on Cruise Fish dot Net. When the fare for your already-booked cruise goes down, call the cruise line (or some travel agents will do it at no charge) and they will re-book the cruise at the new lower fare (same cabin). We've been across many times on Royal Carib. in a balcony cabin, 12-14 day crossing, 5 ports, for under $1,000 pp when it originally started out at $1,400 pp many months prior. About 60-80 days prior to departure the fares really drop for trans-Atlantics to Barcelona, Rome, Harwich, Southhampton, Amsterdam, etc. You can also request getting off the ship one stop early if the itinerary suits you. We would book to England and got off on the continent in Belgium (one stop early), then took the trains around northern Europe and flew home from Amsterdam. Icelandic Air is cheap and so is Aer Lingus. The trains are the best and cheapest way to get around the continent. They run on time (except Italy!), comfortable and convenient. eg.: Seniors can ride all day around the whole country of Belgium for only 5 Euros (not one way but as many stops as you can fit into one day's travel). That's $5.65 in US currency today.

We've known friends that bought package deals and were left high and dry with no valid air ticket to get home. They had to fight to get their high air ticket cost reimbursed from the local travel company because everyone kept pointing the finger to a "wholesaler" problem.

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