Med Cruise Questions

CynBeth

DIS Veteran
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
We are doing a 7 day cruise out of Rome next summer and have some questions.

On the last day is Florence and Pisa out of La Spezia. We want a tour that combines both cities but one where we can walk up the Leaning Tower not just view it and I am not sure if the one offered by the cruise will let us do that. I have looked at independent tours but not sure which is the most reliable and best. Any advice is highly appreciated.

After the cruise we are taking the train to Venice. If we self disembark when do they let us start going off and how long does the process take? What time should we make the train to Venice for? Should we take the train from the port to Rome or should we book a private car from the port to the Rome train station?

Thanks!
 
We want a tour that combines both cities but one where we can walk up the Leaning Tower not just view it and I am not sure if the one offered by the cruise will let us do that.
I'd be surprised if any tour of Pisa wouldn't let you walk up to the Leaning Tower. When we visited there were no tour buses nearby. You had to park in a parking lot and walk through an area of street vendors in order to get to the tower.
 
After the cruise we are taking the train to Venice. If we self disembark when do they let us start going off and how long does the process take? What time should we make the train to Venice for? Should we take the train from the port to Rome or should we book a private car from the port to the Rome train station?
Can't answer the debark time question, but be aware that the port of Civitavecchia is quite a distance from Rome, about 50 miles. I'd book a private car so that you'll have some help wrangling the luggage rather than having to handle it yourself on/off the local train. Actually I don't know anything about the local trains at the port either so I don't know how close that might be to the ship.
 
We are doing a 7 day cruise out of Rome next summer and have some questions.

On the last day is Florence and Pisa out of La Spezia. We want a tour that combines both cities but one where we can walk up the Leaning Tower not just view it and I am not sure if the one offered by the cruise will let us do that. I have looked at independent tours but not sure which is the most reliable and best. Any advice is highly appreciated.

After the cruise we are taking the train to Venice. If we self disembark when do they let us start going off and how long does the process take? What time should we make the train to Venice for? Should we take the train from the port to Rome or should we book a private car from the port to the Rome train station?

Thanks!

Firstly, doing Florence and Pisa in one day and having time to climb the tower and see Florence is practically impossible. You would be in a coach for five hours and have very little time at either. I expect the ship tour will be a guided walk round the main sites and no time to climb the tower. You have to book a time slot to go up, or queue, so you may not know when you are going to be there or have time to queue or climb. The only way to do it, and it’s still a tall order, would be a private tour. Pick one of them and take time to enjoy it. The tower is very underwhelming and there is nothing else in Pisa. Florence is beautiful, but hot and crowded. Have you thought about Cinque Terre? You could easily do this on your own.

If your ship is in Civitavecchia it is a long way from Rome, the train is just under an hour. You could taxi, but the trains are efficient and cheap. You need to get to the local station from the ship - usually a shuttle bus or a 15 min walk, and go into Rome from there. It’s very easy with automated ticket machines and you can’t miss your stop. The train is a fast one from Rome direct the Venice. Allow time to change in Rome, it’s a huge station. It takes three hours or so to get to Venice. Venice is fabulous.

Usually the ships let you off ASAP. If you do it yourself I bet you could be off by 8 am and go straight to the Civitavecchia train station in a cab.
 


We did Florence and Pisa last March. We used shareashoreexcursion.com and shared a tour with some folks we met on Cruise Critic. I think there were 7 of us total. We thought we had plenty of time to see everything we wanted and we climbed the tower too. I think the tour we took was LS2 on their website. We did a few tours through them and enjoyed every one.
 

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