Best Med Itinerary??

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ocean.queen

Guest
We are getting ready to book a Mediteranian cruise and would like to know which ship offers the best itinerary. We prefer cruises that are 10 days or longer. Has anyone already researched this??
Thanks
 
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BruinSteve

Guest
"Best itinerary" is in the eye of the beholder...A lot depends on what YOU want to see and what YOU want to do...and the choices change year to year, even cruise to cruise...

Some ships do a localized itinerary where they stay to the East (Greece and Turkey, mainly) or the West (Spain, France, West coast of Italy)...while others do a "Grand" route of East and West...

Some ships do a "round trip" of, say, Rome to Rome or Barcelona to Barcelona...others do a "one-way" starting in one port and ending in another...Some folks prefer the round trip because they think they do better on cost of airfare, other like the one-way because there's no back-tracking and because you can do two very different stays pre-and post-cruise...

For us (and your preferences may differ), we liked the idea of the one-way...and we also liked the idea of the longer route and more and more varied ports...

We ended up choosing the Celebrity Millennium on a rare 13-night route (the standard is similar, but 12) starting in Venice and ending in Barcelona: Venice--Dubrovnik--Corfu--Santorini--Athens--Naples--Rome--Livorno (Florence)--Villefranche (Nice)--Barcelona...It gave us a nice variety with four ports in Italy, three in Greece and one each in Croatia, France and Spain as well as the opportunity to stay two nights pre-cruise in Venice and two post-cruise in Barcelona...It also had a nice variety of big cities--like Rome and Athens--and small towns--like Dubrovnik and the towns we saw in Tuscany with the Livorno stop (San Gimignano and Volterra)--and islands--like Corfu and Santorini...

And, the major bonus was that it was on Celebrity--which does, in my book, the absolute best job of any of the mass-marketed cruise lines...and it was on one of their newer, larger ships...with an incredibly passenger friendly layout and great food, service and amenities...

Of course, your tastes and desires may differ...But I wholeheartedly recommend Celebrity and the Millennium...

Good luck...



Post Edited (10-02-03 19:40)
 
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ocean.queen

Guest
BruinSteve...thanks so much for taking the time to post so much info. I was looking very closely at the exact cruise you describe on the Millenium. We have sailed on Celebrity before and your right...it is the best. Princess runs a close second...we have taken our last 6 cruises with them only because of the cost. But this time, itinterary is our first priority. I agree with the round trip...we just took the Baltic cruise on the Regal which was a round trip from Copenhagen and it was GREAT!
Thanks again,
Kathy
Simi, California
Tahitian Princess March 8 '04
 
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