Mediterranean cruise

Most people on this forum are independent land travelers but you may find a cruiser to help you. I have only been on Lindblad expeditionary ships and Hurtigruten so can’t help you.

Look at the site Cruise Critic for all things cruises including forums and reviews. Not much a cruise crowd here, but once you do settle on one and know all the ports I know I have seen threads on here discussing what to do in each port.

I've never done a Mediterranean cruise but I've done several Caribbean cruises, on both Princess and Celebrity. They were both excellent cruise lines but I did prefer the Celebrity cruise because it was on the smaller ship. Do you know where you want to cruise from/to? Eastern Med, Western Med? I know when I was planning our Caribbean cruises I always looked first at where I wanted to go and then checked all cruise lines to see which had an itinerary that most closely matched my wants/needs.

You could do a search on here for Mediterranean Cruise and check out some other posts, both questions and answers, and I think there are some with trip reports on their cruises.

Rick sailed on a Celebrity ship, it's a subsidiary of Royal Carib but quite different ships.

RS also has two books on cruising - one for southern Europe and one for northern Europe. If you don't want to buy, your local library may have copies.

We did an Azamara Med cruise this fall. Followed by a RS Sicily tour. Most important to us is the ports the ship visits. And the smaller the ship, the better the cruise. It's easier to disembark for excursions. We stay away from the ones with casinos.

I'd also recommend getting familiar with CruiseCritic.

I recommend Celebrity Cruise Line. I’ve done 4 Med Cruises with them and love there ships and all else that they have to offer. Nice line for an older crowd compared to Royal Carribean. The prices are reasonable and they usually included a drinks pkg gratuities and internet or an onboard credit to spend. Check out the itinerary that looks best to you.

Have always been an independent traveler but right before Covid I got talked into cruising by a family member who worked on a reality TV show that was all about the cruise, and she highly recommended Holland America and I was certainly surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and would definitely go again for certain destinations.

We've sailed on all the popular priced cruises--Celebrity, RCCL, Norwegian and Holland America. We've also sailed on two repositioning cruises from the U.S. to Europe. There are many other cruise lines that are slanted toward people of other nationalities that I wouldn't suggest for Americans.

We research cruises on VacationsToGo.com. Virtually every cruise in the world is listed there.

Our favorite cruises are out of either Italy or out of Athens--to the Eastern Mediterranean. We recently went out of Athens on RCCL and hit Crete and two more Greek islands before stopping at Montenegro and Croatia--ending in Italy. On a previous trip we hit Malta and Turkey, 3 Greek islands and Athens--on Norwegian.

Many cruises take you to the Western Mediterranean along the Spanish Riviera, however we don't care for those destinations.

We have done 21 ocean cruises since 2010, including five that included some ports in the Med. We have cruises on Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Also, we have friends that have done cruises on Princess, HAL and Carnival.

All these cruise lines are good, but each has their own strengths and some weaknesses.

First of all, we pick a cruise by checking several cruise lines. Since we have loyalty benefits with the three that we have cruises, if another other than those three comes out similar in best value (considering price and quality), we go with one of those three.

We have NEVER done a Viking cruise, since those cruises ALWAYS are SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than other main steam cruise lines.

Our two favorite lines are Celebrity and Royal Caribbean. Celebrity is great, but their cruises usually cost more than Royal Caribbean's.

Celebrity is great for seniors and doesn't have the water slides and play areas that kids love (If you want that, Carnival is big). Celebrity's dining quality is the best, however, Royal Caribbean is not far behind. Also, Royal Caribbean excels in entertainment. NCL is also great for entertainment, but its dining is not as good (still not bad).

We book based on price and the ports of call. Yes, the cruise line matters, but it is not a deciding factor.

Do some research and determine what ports you wish to see. Med cruises are pretty much divided into Western Med cruises or Easter Med/Aegean Sea Cruises.

If you want to see ports in Spain, France and Italy, such as Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Marseilles, Monaco, Florence, Rome and Naples, do a Western Med.
If you want to go to Venice, Dubrovnik, Split, Istanbul, Athens; The Greek Islands like Corfu, Mykonos, Santorini or Crete then do then Easter Med.

We have done a cruise, Rome to Barcelona and we LOVED being able to sample cities and places without moving our things. I also recommend cruise critic for more in depth reviews and insight as well.

It’s a wonderful place to cruise, and I hope you have a wonderful time!

My 3 gerational family is doing a Celebrity Cruise to Mediterranean this summer. Barcelona to Rome. We choose a cruise mainly for the itinerary and shore excursions. We don’t need all the water slide, rock climbing features some larger ships offer. Celebrity has a wider range of ages on board Mid range pricing. Great food. This will be our third Celebrity cruise.

I’d first figure out where you want to go. It seems there are 2-3 main itineratries - western (west side of Italy to Spain ), eastern Italy and what use to be Yugoslavia, and Greece.

Lots of good Youtube videos. I think that you probably should avoid MSC and Carnival. I like Norwegian ( haven’t cruised the Med. although I stopped several places in Spain on a transatlantic/repositioning cruise ). From what I’ve seen of Celebrity on Youtube, I would give it a good look.

This is an area where a decent travel advisor should be able to both give personalized advice and add value to your vacation. (Travel advisors are often able to get extra perks for their clients—nowhere more so than on the cruise lines.)

No response from a 3 poster.

We book based on price and the ports of call. Yes, the cruise line
matters, but it is not a deciding factor.

That's what I was going to say. We've been on 5 cruises; 2 on Princess and 3 on NCL and based our decision on the ports not the cruise line. Our favourite cruise was 10 days Rome to Rome through the Western Mediterranean on one of NCL's mega ships. We loved the large ship even though we spent very little time on it, but there were plenty of choices for shows in the evening and lots of space to walk without feeling crowded. One cautionary thing, we do find with NCL that the service and food can be a real roller coaster ride. The best cruise line meal we've ever had was on NCL, but the worst was also NCL. Same goes for quality of service. We found Princess to be more consistent, but also more traditional with formal wear at some meals. I have no desire to pack and jacket and tie.

By the way, I'm not a fan of Cruise Critic, I find it clunky and difficult to navigate. There are enough experienced cruisers on this site to help with your questions.