Eye Opening

We were a little surprised at how often we were warned about thieves. We stayed a week before the trip and another day after the trip.

The motorways through Napoli are covered with litter and the area itself seemed very dirty with the homeless tents and trash. There didn't seem to be much to do at the port area. We purchased a "Pompeii on your own" excursion which was truly a disheartening experience. If you take this cruise, you MUST book a guided tour. At the entry to the Pompeii site, there were only 2 women working in the ticket booth, our bus (along with over 20 others I counted) arrived there shortly after they opened and the line for tickets grew rapidly. Our "guide" that was on our bus explained she was on the bus to answer a few questions for us but even though she was a guide, we didn't pay for one so she could not answer any questions about the site we were visiting. When we had been in line almost an hour, another guide that was walking around explained that all guides could go to the front of the line and cut in and buy tickets for their groups ahead of everyone else, which is why the line was not moving. Our "guide" did not explain this, and when she was asked how long we may have to stand in line, she shrugged one shoulder and said, "hard to say - you didn't pay for a guide so you get what you get". We only had a few hours at the stop and after an hour and a half in line (in the rain) we hadn't made it under the covered section yet. I witnessed someone from another group that had made it to the front of the line getting physically shoved in the chest by someone else. I wasn't close enough to hear the argument clearly, but voices were raised and physical assault took place. It was shocking. Quite a while later, when we finally made it to the front of the line, the people standing next to us said something to one of the Italian Tour Guides who started yelling at them, it was truly appalling the language and the volume and the aggression being shown by someone who should be acting as an ambassador to his country and its tourism industry. The man who was being yelled at didn't say anything, but the lady, who was very upset, asked the tour guide twice to stop shouting at them that they had apologized for the misunderstanding, it seemed to only infuriate him more and the tirade he launched into was unprofessional regardless of whatever indiscretion prompted it, his biggest concern seemed to be that he had rights and we as "non guided tourists" did not and we should read the signs, and if we were too stupid to read the signs he would translate for us. About that time someone not with our group walked forward and explained that you could use an app and buy a ticket and bypass the line or go to the right hand side window and pay in cash. It helped to diffuse the situation as those with cash moved to the other side and bought tickets and continued on. It was really unfortunate we didn't know that information an hour or two before. There were signs at the bottom of the windows sort of explaining this, but you couldn't see them as they were only about 5"x7" and not visible until you were right up to the window. At the end of the day when returning to the bus many people complained to our "guide" about the altercations that happened, her response was, we should have purchased a guided tour. The worst was, another gentleman and his wife standing beside me in line only spoke Spanish, very little English. He was one of the ones who asked our "guide" how long the line could take, he eventually found a Spanish speaking guide that allowed him to join her group, unfortunately, he and his wife were the two who did not make it back to the bus that day and we left without them. I have no idea if they made it back to the ship. The NCL excursion description said that tickets needed to be purchased for attractions upon arrival for these "on your own" tours, but no where do they explain that the lines could take multiple hours to get through and you risk not seeing the excursions at all because you had to stand in line to get a ticket. This is information that would likely sway people to take a guided tour where they didn’t have to stand in line if they knew the reality of the situation. I would definitely do it differently next time. In fact after this trip we went to the excursion desk to try and re-book our other excursions so this wouldn't happen again it was such a disturbing experience.

The same problems with ticket purchases happened here as in Pompeii, we knew what to expect, so we did only see one or two sites before returning to the meeting point, luckily we had more time. Our guide here had said our meeting point would be outside the arch, but when she disembarked the bus she said "follow me" and every one did, or tried to, we lost quite a few infirm and elderly along the way and she DID NOT slow down or check on anyone who couldn't keep up. When we go to her destination, she had guided us to a bathroom area and coffee stand, where it appeared she knew the owners. It was my fault not to have listened and found out specifically where she was going before we all took off at a trot, I was sure she had said the meeting point was back where we started, but others felt she was showing us the meeting point so we didn't want to lose track of her before confirming this. Yelling for her to slow down or stop did no good, she was too far away and moving too fast. I will note we passed quite a few restaurants and coffee bars that had bathrooms, so I'm not sure what the rush was to get to this one which was quite a ways a way from where we were let off the bus. After Pompeii, we tried to re-book this excursion to a guided excursion but were told there was nothing left open.

This was a nice stop, the trolley ride was overbooked unfortunately, so it was very uncomfortable to try and fit everyone in and it had rained and no one shut the windows so all the seats were wet, but once you got off the trolley at the grounds where the buildings are it is beautiful and so well maintained. The meeting point at the cafe was wonderful, you didn't have to stand and wait or sit on the ground, you could sit and have coffee and the wait staff was wonderful. So was the coffee. This was re-booked from the Pisa and Beach excursion due to weather.

We re-booked this from a "on your own" excursion to a more guided option due to previous issues on excursions. This was fine, the tour was okay, the city was beautiful. We did have a tender captain in the morning that was struggling a bit, seemed to have some issues trying to keep the boat from chugging but the waters were a little rough, several people were complaining of sea sickness. The captain on our return had problems with another captain as our tender was literally sideswiped by another tender. Our captain tried to get out of the way and probably lessened the impact, but it was still a collision. As we made the turn after the impact, another large boat pulled right out in front of us and the captain had to jerk the tender into reverse to avoid hitting the other boat, it was an eventful trip. Makes for great stories.

The stop was wonderful. We did not take an excursion at this port so it was very relaxing.