Northern Europe or Mediterranean…what cruise lines have you preferred?

[Travel60]

We actually haven't yet, but are not convinced that cruising is for us. We may do a land trip instead.

Consider a river cruise. We did our first last year from Budapest to near Munich and fell in love with it. We sailed Tauck but I've heard Viking is nice, too.

 

[hmsTigger]

Consider a river cruise. We did our first last year from Budapest to near Munich and fell in love with it. We sailed Tauck but I've heard Viking is nice, too.

We've looked at that cruise as well Nice ports to visit? For us it's all about the ports and filling our day as much as we can and see all we can.

 

[Travel60]

We've looked at that cruise as well Nice ports to visit? For us it's all about the ports and filling our day as much as we can and see all we can.

We went in a couple of days early and absolutely loved Budapest. Several of the stops are at smaller villages with lots of churches and history. We had a private lunch and wine tasting in one town. We spent two days in Vienna with tours to several castles as well as walking tours. I went to Salzburg one day while DH went to Checya. At the end we went to Oberramagau, Germany overnight then two nights in Munich. Tauck planned everything and their guides accompanied us. Will definitely do another

 

[pjacobi]

For us it's all about the ports and filling our day as much as we can and see all we can.

A Northern Europe or Mediterranean cruise will only give you a sample of Europe. Most of the European sites are located an hour or more by bus away from the cruise port. How do you cruise to the Alps? I'd rather eat at a family-owned restaurant in Europe, owned by the same family for hundreds of years, than cruise food.

For an in-depth tour of Europe, you need a land-based tour, guided or self-guided. Ideally, you need to make many trips to Europe over several years.

It all depends on if you want a sample or an in-depth tour.


-Paul

 

[brentm77]

Most of the European sites are located an hour or more by bus away from the cruise port. How do you cruise to the Alps?

I see this misconception a lot. This simply isn't true in the Mediterranean, with the exception of a few cities, like Rome or Florence. But if you start or end your cruise in Rome, that isn't an issue. Nearly every place we ported in the Med was a short walk or drive from the port. Even in Athens, it's 20 minutes from the port to the Parthenon. Many of the stops are islands anyway - so you are getting on a boat or plane just to move between them.

Sure, the Alps aren't going to be a good option from a cruise, but it was a fantastic way to see the Med. While other people are catching ferries, packing and unpacking from hotel to hotel, we were sleeping or relaxing, waking up each morning in a fantastic new place It remains the best vacation we have taken to date, with the perfect mix of relaxation, art, history, and even plenty of time to try local food.

I hear cruising Norway is fantastic too.

Traveling Europe by land has it's place and benefits for sure, particularly because you are right that you only get a taste of each location cruising. But even there, how many days are people spending in most cities? When we did Europe by land, it was two days max, so still only a taste. Sure, I would love to spend more time in one location in Europe in the future, but not until I have done enough of it to know where I want to vacation for an extended period (Rome and the Amalfi coast are at the top of the list right now).

With a few days in a great city before a cruise, you can get a little bit of both. We spent four full days in Rome first and had fantastic dinners and late-evening strolls. It was absolutely amazing, but so was boarding the cruise, knowing it was easy sailing from there on. I highly recommend it.

Edit: We liked it so much, that we booked a cruise from Barcelona for next summer so we can see the other side of the Med and even hit up Sicily and the Amalfi coast a second time. We can't wait. We have several days in Barcelona prior to departure too.

 

[tidefan]

I see this misconception a lot. This simply isn't true in the Mediterranean, with the exception of a few cities, like Rome or Florence. But if you start or end your cruise in Rome, that isn't an issue. Nearly every place we ported in the Med was a short walk or drive from the port. Even in Athens, it's 20 minutes from the port to the Parthenon. Many of the stops are islands anyway - so you are getting on a boat or plane just to move between them.

Sure, the Alps aren't going to be a good option from a cruise, but it was a fantastic way to see the Med. While other people are catching ferries, packing and unpacking from hotel to hotel, we were sleeping or relaxing, waking up each morning in a fantastic new place It remains the best vacation we have taken to date, with the perfect mix of relaxation, art, history, and even plenty of time to try local food.

I hear cruising Norway is fantastic too.

Traveling Europe by land has it's place and benefits for sure, particularly because you are right that you only get a taste of each location cruising. But even there, how many days are people spending in most cities? When we did Europe by land, it was two days max, so still only a taste. Sure, I would love to spend more time in one location in Europe in the future, but not until I have done enough of it to know where I want to vacation for an extended period (Rome and the Amalfi coast are at the top of the list right now).

With a few days in a great city before a cruise, you can get a little bit of both. We spent four full days in Rome first and had fantastic dinners and late-evening strolls. It was absolutely amazing, but so was boarding the cruise, knowing it was easy sailing from there on. I highly recommend it.

Edit: We liked it so much, that we booked a cruise from Barcelona for next summer so we can see the other side of the Med and even hit up Sicily and the Amalfi coast a second time. We can't wait. We have several days in Barcelona prior to departure too.

@brentm77 , I think that you are spot on. We did the Med the summer before last and we didn't have to travel far to anything. It was even easier this past summer doing a British Isles cruise

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We did Seabourn in July in the Med-started in Venice, Italy then went to Croatia then Montenegro and the rest of the ports in Greece. It was a 7-day cruise (which is not long for the cruise line) with no sea days.

You may be surprised that the price isn't all that far off from Disney especially when you look at the two sister ships of Encore (which is what we were on) and Ovation as they are all verandah rooms, price is more your location on the ship aside from the several upper rooms (which have pros and cons to them). I did start a trip report (which I need to get back to) and you can find the link in my signature if you want to.

Seabourn doesn't do tips (neither required nor expected although you can still tip), alcohol is included (we found to be perfectly adequate for us), and the food very good (and doesn't have an added cost) in our opinion overall. It was way too easy to get used to luxury lol. And since our cruise they've done even more stuff (mostly bringing back pre-covid stuff that they haven't already and revamping in-suite dining to be even better).

And with 1 cruise we are already just about to the second Club level in Seabourn's sailing program. We're looking to see if we can do a 2025 cruise. We wanted to do a northern Europe cruise but couldn't make it work in the end with the choices.

This coming up May we are going back to Europe to do a train trip so I understand the update to considering a land trip (we're using the Eurail pass) starting in London, then going to Ghent, Belgium onto Luxembourg City, Luxembourg then to Kronberg, Germany (just outside of Frankfurt and going there because of this castle/chateau we wanted to stay in) then to Hamburg, Germany and onto Malmo, Sweden where we will use that as a base to Copenhagen, Denmark and Gothenburg, Sweden. While we aren't getting up into the fjords we're still getting into some stuff.

October of next year we plan to go to Japan as a train trip we just haven't booked stuff yet like we have done with the May Europe trip

 

[o&smom]

I see this misconception a lot. This simply isn't true in the Mediterranean, with the exception of a few cities, like Rome or Florence. But if you start or end your cruise in Rome, that isn't an issue. Nearly every place we ported in the Med was a short walk or drive from the port. Even in Athens, it's 20 minutes from the port to the Parthenon. Many of the stops are islands anyway - so you are getting on a boat or plane just to move between them.

Sure, the Alps aren't going to be a good option from a cruise, but it was a fantastic way to see the Med. While other people are catching ferries, packing and unpacking from hotel to hotel, we were sleeping or relaxing, waking up each morning in a fantastic new place It remains the best vacation we have taken to date, with the perfect mix of relaxation, art, history, and even plenty of time to try local food.

I hear cruising Norway is fantastic too.

Traveling Europe by land has it's place and benefits for sure, particularly because you are right that you only get a taste of each location cruising. But even there, how many days are people spending in most cities? When we did Europe by land, it was two days max, so still only a taste. Sure, I would love to spend more time in one location in Europe in the future, but not until I have done enough of it to know where I want to vacation for an extended period (Rome and the Amalfi coast are at the top of the list right now).

With a few days in a great city before a cruise, you can get a little bit of both. We spent four full days in Rome first and had fantastic dinners and late-evening strolls. It was absolutely amazing, but so was boarding the cruise, knowing it was easy sailing from there on. I highly recommend it.

Edit: We liked it so much, that we booked a cruise from Barcelona for next summer so we can see the other side of the Med and even hit up Sicily and the Amalfi coast a second time. We can't wait. We have several days in Barcelona prior to departure too.

We absolutely love Barcelona! We spent six days there after the 11 night Med cruise. Could not believe how much has been done on La Sagrada Familia since we were there in 2019. We have been there three times and always buy tickets to enter the church, even though nothing has changed inside. Tibidabo amusement park was a fun day just outside of Barcelona. We have made multiple visits to Cosmo Caixa. It is an interactive science museum that has a rainforest in it. Our kids love it. They also have an amazing LEGO store there. Mont Serrat is an amazing day trip. The biggest surprise of our last visit was Sant Pau Hospital. The architecture and design with tile blew us away. Don’t forget churros and chocolate. Enjoy your time there!

 

[pjacobi]

I see this misconception a lot....

Did you ever look on a map? London, Paris, Florence, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Brussels, Luxembourg, Zurich, Vienna and many others are not ocean ports.

Sure, you can see some of Europe from a cruise, but you are going to miss a whole lot!


-Paul

 

[brentm77]

Did you ever look on a map? London, Paris, Florence, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Brussels, Luxembourg, Zurich, Vienna and many others are not ocean ports.

Sure, you can see some of Europe from a cruise, but you are going to miss a whole lot!


-Paul

Paul, I recommend you read my post and not the first few words you quoted. To recap, I specifically excluded Rome and other parts of Europe, and focused on the Mediterranean. So, you responded to a strawman. I stand by my position that your blanket statement that "most European cities" are far from the ports is a misconception. That simply isn't true for most of the Mediterranean (which is a substantial portion of Europe). Have you cruised in the Mediterranean or looked where the ports are in Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Naples, Sicily, Barcelona, Sardinia, Valletta, etc.? Cruising is a fantastic and easy way to see those places.

OP- We have only done Disney in the Mediterranean. We had no regrets about spending the extra money, because it was exceptional. But we are trying Celebrity's new edge class ship next year, the Ascent. For a great price for a verandah room on a brand new ship, the itineraries are pretty fantastic and packed with lots of interesting ports. From what I hear, Celebrity is a good option for those looking for great service and food, but who don't care about rock climbing walls, go-karts, and other more adventurous stuff on the ship. It seems like it will be a good fit for what we are looking for - A nice clean ship, good service, good food, and a relaxing way to travel.

 

[tidefan]

Paul, I recommend you read my post and not the first few words you quoted. To recap, I specifically excluded Rome and other parts of Europe, and focused on the Mediterranean. So, you responded to a strawman. I stand by my position that your blanket statement that "most European cities" are far from the ports is a misconception. That simply isn't true for most of the Mediterranean (which is a substantial portion of Europe). Have you cruised in the Mediterranean or looked where the ports are in Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Naples, Sicily, Barcelona, Sardinia, Valletta, etc.? Cruising is a fantastic and easy way to see those places.

OP- We have only done Disney in the Mediterranean. We had no regrets about spending the extra money, because it was exceptional. But we are trying Celebrity's new edge class ship next year, the Ascent. For a great price for a verandah room on a brand new ship, the itineraries are pretty fantastic and packed with lots of interesting ports. From what I here, Celebrity is a good option for those looking for great service and food, but who don't care about rock climbing walls, go-karts, and other more adventurous stuff on the ship. It seems like it will be a good fit for what we are looking for - A nice clean ship, good service, good food, and a relaxing way to travel.

@brentm77 again is right on. We did the Med on the Magic a couple summers ago. Our stops were Katakalon, Heraklion, Santorini, Athens, Mykonos, and Napoli. We didn't have to go far inland for any of those stops.

This past summer, we did a British Isles cruise on Regal Princess (awesome trip, BTW, loved the Regal Princess - it is similar to Celebrity as mentioned above). Our ports were Weymouth, Guernsey, Cobh/Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Greenock/Glasgow, Invergordon, Edinburgh, and Le Havre. The only port we really had a commute on any of those was in Le Havre, where it took maybe an hour or so to get to the D-Day beaches. Other than that, we were either right in the city/town, or it was a short commuter (< 30 minutes) bus/train (Cobh/Dublin/Greenock/Edinburgh) to get into the city center. Add to this, since the departure port was Southampton, you could bookend the cruise with stays in Paris and London (which is what we did). Southampton was an easy 1 hour train ride from Waterloo station.

I'd do either cruise again in a heartbeat..

 

[Pens Fan]

We've sailed a lot on NCL to Alaska, Canada/New England and in Europe. We'll be on the Pride of America in Hawaii in few weeks as well. We quite enjoy their product for port intensive cruises and they have some fantastic itineraries. We've found the service to be comparable to DCL and the food is better - though I always add in that food is subjective. We like the laid back, eat where you want approach vs DCL's set dining time and place approach.

One area where DCL excels obviously is in family entertainment and the kid's clubs, but our son is grown so that isn't an issue for us. NCL does a pretty good job with evening entertainment but the things they offer during the day mostly don't interest us. It's why we stick with itineraries with few sea days. We've always wanted to try a transatlantic cruise but we chose to go back to DCL for that next May strictly because of all the sea days. Overall I think NCL is great cruise line and we've had a wonderful time on all of our sailings. The one area I'd stay clear of is their BOGO air program. I've heard way too many horror stories over on Cruise Critic about their air program. We always decline it and just book our own flights. But then I'm pretty picky about my flights and prefer to be in charge of that.

 

[pjacobi]

Have you cruised in the Mediterranean or looked where the ports are in Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Naples, Sicily, Barcelona, Sardinia, Valletta, etc.?

Islands in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean are perfect for a cruise.

Europe is a continent, so you would miss a lot by seeing only the port cities with a cruise ship. In the same way, you could not see much of the US from a cruise ship.


-Paul

 

[brentm77]

Islands in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean are perfect for a cruise.

Europe is a continent...

I am kind of surprised you gave me advice to check a map and then said the above. Europe also has five countries that are either made up entirely of islands or are part of islands (Cyprus, Iceland, Malta, The Republic of Ireland, The United Kingdom). Furthermore, many European countries, such as Greece, include small islands. When people say "Europe" they aren't excluding all of the islands and island countries. Again, the OP specifically asked about the Mediterranean. Nobody has ever said that there weren't parts of Europe that were best seen by land. You keep arguing against a strawman. Let's try to stay on point.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Islands in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean are perfect for a cruise.

Europe is a continent, so you would miss a lot by seeing only the port cities with a cruise ship. In the same way, you could not see much of the US from a cruise ship.


-Paul

I'd go back to your original comment that sorta started the back/forth "A Northern Europe or Mediterranean cruise will only give you a sample of Europe."

In terms of a cruise those two regions are the best for exploring Europe by cruise in comparison to a land although one is going to start running into issues with Amsterdam and the fjords in Norway due to changing laws and attitudes (Venice too just to a different degree) although Madrid is now thinking about their tourism tax (which is a destination one would likely only go to via plane or train not a cruise).

But I don't think anyone was making a case that you could see the interior of Europe via an ocean cruise. You can hit some more interior destinations via a river cruise though.

IMO I think you're sorta making a strange argument here. With our train Europe trip coming up we're not hitting many coastal regions...on purpose. On the other hand if we did a cruise we'd be hitting the coastal regions..on purpose. We really wanted to see Greece and debated doing island hopping or a cruise and settled on a cruise and I'm so happy we did. Some of the destinations (including outside of Greece) we went to are ones you'd really only get to see by boat considering their location. Geographical limitations can play a large role when exploring a country or continent.

It's really all what sites are someone more interested in seeing. You're more thinking either/or and I think most understand it's about what someone's interests are and really a "both" kind of situation.

Plus your earlier comment of "in-depth tour of Europe" isn't factual. You can't get an in-depth tour of Europe even doing a land-based tour, no matter what as you commented "so you would miss a lot". That's just how it is.

 

[Pens Fan]

I'm going to add one more suggestion. There are a couple of Youtube channels that I think do a good job of reviewing multiple cruise lines. They aren't loyal to any one brand and I feel both are pretty objective without trying to criticize every little thing.

One is Emma Cruises and the other is EECC Travels. Emma, in particular, has a ton of experience in Europe as she's from the UK. But both do a great job.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm going to add one more suggestion. There are a couple of Youtube channels that I think do a good job of reviewing multiple cruise lines. They aren't loyal to any one brand and I feel both are pretty objective without trying to criticize every little thing.

One is Emma Cruises and the other is EECC Travels. Emma, in particular, has a ton of experience in Europe as she's from the UK. But both do a great job.

We like Gary Bambridge as well as he has done a good variety of them. I'm okay with Emma Cruises but I feel like she doesn't really cruise the way we would cruise so most of the time I'm just watching her stuff in passing. She does a lot of "cheapest cabin" sort of stuff and I personally am not sure that's even good for beginners in terms of the budget conscious ones, like she'll do a good amount of interior cabin stuff and even as a beginner cruiser I knew that wouldn't work for me.

 

[Chrissy-Mickey]

Besides DCL, we very much enjoy sailing with Holland America. Great itineraries, and we feel that service and food are up to par with DCL.