If You’re Planning A Mediterranean Vacation, Read This

My wife and I just returned from a 12 day vacation to Italy, Sicily, Greece, Crete, and Malta. We learned a lot on this vacation. I wanted to share with you, some of my takeaways.

We flew from Boston to Rome on a 4:00 PM flight, Rome is six hours ahead of us here so when we arrived, it was 6 AM. Because we were taking a nine day cruise around the Mediterranean, we had a lot of luggage. That meant we needed a sizable taxi, and in Italy, that is hard to come by. Fortunately, we met a very nice taxi driver named Luca, who was able to fit all of our luggage into his car and whisk us away to the hotel in Rome.

The first lesson we learned was not to overpack, we each had two large suitcases that were considered heavy by the airline standards. In addition, we had two carry-ons apiece. Looking back, we now know that we could have gone with a lot less which would’ve made traveling and rushing through airports and hotels much easier.

We got to the hotel around 7 AM, neither of us slept much on the flight and were already jetlagged. Unfortunately hotels in Italy are much like hotels in America, check-in is usually two or three in the afternoon which meant we had a long time to wait before we could get our room and take a nap.

Luckily, for us, the hotel was very understanding and got a room for us by 1130. After a two hour nap, we were met at the hotel by our golf cart tour guide. He whisk us around the narrow cobble streets of Rome for three hours showing us everything from Trevi fountain, the Coliseum and so many other ancient ruins of the Eternal City.

After two wonderful days in Rome, our taxi driver, Luca drove us to the port city of Civatecchia, where we would meet our ship the Norwegian, epic. The epic holds up to 5000 passengers, and two hours surprise, the ship was full to the brim with fellow travelers.

When you have this many people on a cruise all going to the same ports, you will quickly find out that everywhere you go will be crowded with people roaming the streets in search of places worthy of taking selfies.

As beautiful as all of our cruise destinations stops were each one was more crowded than the next. In order to get pictures of landmarks, you would have to wait patiently while people were also taking selfies. At one point in Santorini, we had to wait upwards of 30 minutes just to get a picture of the magnificent blue domed temples.

Our cruise took us to Naples, Sorrento, Pisa and Florence and everywhere we went we were among the thousands of tourists all in search of the best photos stop. Of course you can’t blame people for doing exactly what you wanted to do, but frankly at the end of the day, there’s too many people jammed together all trying to see and do as much as they possibly can in the short time you have there.

I would say that we had a wonderful time, the ship was fabulous, the onboard food was absolutely fantastic. We met people that we are now friends with us at least on social media, one couple that we met from Britain passed on to us some travel tips for the next time we take a cruise. They said don't work so hard. Find time to relax and enjoy all the amenities of the ship has to offer.

Looking back I wish we had fewer excursions and more relaxation time. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have gotten off the ship, but rather schedule more "down time" to chill out.

The last thing I would suggest is, if you are planning to take a vacation of this magnitude that you consider hiring a travel agent. They don’t cost you anything and a good one can get the most out of your vacation for you.
Bon voyage!