Some humbling tours on our own
Norwegian Spirit Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean
12 Night Grand Mediterranean (Venice To Barcelona)
Sail date: September 30, 2015
Ship: Norwegian Spirit
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 9658
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 9 years ago
Review summary
My wife and I had some difficult times touring Venice, Rome and Florence on our own. Norwegian Cruise gave us little help in Venice just recommending the monorail "people mover" that put you still hours away from St. Mark's square. The ship's guided tours in Rome and Florence were over priced in my opinion. One of the Ship's Shore Excursion workers gave us wrong information on where we would land in Mykinous, Greece. That was annoying along with not giving us more information about the Florence and Pisa tours that allowed Internet access. Onboard ship Internet access was priced by the minute. There was hardly any news information except for the BBC that concentrated on England and Ireland. Everywhere onboard our ship seems there are too many extra charges. No free water but the contractors providing the tour gave out free water while our ship charged for bottles before leaving for the tour. Why? I had my wallet stolen in Rome- standing up in a crowded subway we took so that we could quickly catch the next train to Civitavecchia and not miss the ship. We were surprised that we had to take two buses in Civitavecchia. One to reach port entrance because of where the ship had docked and another, out of pocket expense, bus from the port to the train station. A change in location from our last trip to this port.Information from the Ship's shore excursions always seemed to be at the wrong time- while eating breakfast. We were really tired by the time we reached the last port. We felt like we had walked across half of Europe. The Shore Excursion people were negligent, in my opinion , of providing more information on where the ship docked and how to reach points of interest usually some distance away from where we docked. Again it was all about money. Let's squeeze some more tours from our passengers!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
Our cabin location aboard the Spirit was fortunate. The aft location was near both the main Dining Room and the ship's theatre that provided nightly entertainment that was very good.
Ports of call
Livorno (Florence & Pisa), Italy