We're on the Barcelona to Rome sailing next June...there's only one sea day. I'm planning on us skipping one of the ports to sleep in/relax and give us an extra day to enjoy the ship...we will have our 8 year old son with us so just trying to take it easy as much as we can. Also planning on doing half day port adventures.
Our ports are:
Toulon, France
Villefranche, France
Genoa, Italy
Florence/Pisa, Italy
Naples, Italy
Which port would you skip? I'm thinking of skipping Genoa...nothing is really sticking out excursion wise to me there. Has anyone been to Genoa?
I did this trip with my 11 year old daughter last summer. We did half day excursions every day and she was fine. We mixed them up with some being in the morning and some in the afternoon. If we had done full day excursions every day, she would have hated it. We did have table mates that were a mom and her 8 year old daughter and they did full day excursions every day and the daughter was just fine. You definitely have to know what your kid can and can't handle.
We went to Marseille instead of Toulon and that was our only long excursion and my daughter chose it.
Villefranche, we took the train to Monaco on our own and went to the Oceanographic Museum. I would NOT go to Monaco again. Instead I would just stay in Villefranche and swim in the Mediterranean at the little beach there. My daughter really enjoyed doing
this even though we weren't prepared and she had to swim in her clothes.
Genoa we went to the Galata Museo del Mare, which was in easy walking distance of the port. It is a great maritime museum with a
lot of interactive exhibits for kids.
Florence/Pisa we went to the tower of Pisa and climbed it. My daughter really wanted to climb it. We bought our tickets about a
month before going and took Tuscany bus there. It was hundreds of dollars less than the DCL excursion.
Naples we went to Pompeii on our own, used Rick Steves' audio guide to tell us where to go and what to see while there, then had some pizza in Naples.
I don't think we were ever gone more than about 4ish hours for any of our excursions except Marseille.