Amalfi Coast

You can spend an entire day in the Pompeii "scavi" and not run out of things to see, but you can also get the general idea in, say, an hour. The Villa of Mysteries is a bit of a walk, so if you are especially keen to include it in your Pompeii visit you should allow an extra hour.

We visited the Amalifi coast in December and were based in Sorrento, not Positano, so I can't give you specific recommendations. We drove a rental car, but during the busy time in August, having someone else do the driving makes sense ... and for 40 euros/hr for a small group, that might be a great deal!

Access to the Blue Grotto is dependent on the tides and waves, and while things might be different in August than they were in December, the water was too rough the day we visited, and the Grotto was unaccessible.

As noted, Pompeii can take a long time for anyone wanting to explore it thoroughly, but it's not exactly smooth surfaces everywhere. Are you taking your 3 year old with a stroller? Carrying? Covering lots of uneven ground might affect how long you'll want to spend there.

We were in Positano for a week last September and used a private transfer to and from Naples and used the ferries between towns. Our least favorite day trip was the day we went to Capri. If you decide to go I would skip the Blue Grotto which may or may not be open depending on conditions and immediately head to Anacapri which was much less touristy and congested. Your three year old will enjoy the tram I would think. The only downside is to be sure to allow enough time to get back down to Capri to catch your ferry and plan maybe on using a taxi rather than the crammed busses.

Link to an RS review I had here originally must have been deemed too commercial by the webmaster.

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There are several nice restaurants right at ground level in Positano. Chez Black overlooks the beach and sea, and is very popular for both lunch and dinner. There are several on the way walking up, I can't recall the names, but you can't miss them. What hotel are you staying at? For drinks before dinner, you can stop at Francos, it's about half way up just down the street from Le Sirenuse. They allow children. It has the iconic Positano view, and people often get their photo taken there.

As far as transportation, I would just take the ferry between all your stops instead of the bus. I also think you should just go to anacapri. Decide if you want to go to the blue Grotto when you get there.

The road along the AC from Positano to Salerno is a two-lane winding road, at times quite narrow. The only opportunity for a vehicle to pass is when there is no on-coming traffic. So when it's crowded, effectively no vehicle can go faster than the one ahead of it. When a bus stops to let people on and off, all the vehicles behind it stop and wait. And when two buses meet on a narrow turn, it can take quite a few minutes before all the vehicles behind one of the buses backs up so the buses can pass each other. It seems that summer is high season so expect crowds and lots of traffic. With a private driver, you'll sit in comfort in traffic, and you won't have to stand in line to board a bus or ferry.

Pompeii with a small child . . . some of the more interesting parts of the sight are difficult for walking, impossible for strollers. And there's no shade except when you go inside one of rooms.

A few random comments.
You are traveling with a 3 year old ; I have done and know for a fact it slows you down big time!

Day 2: Private driver would cost you a fortune, since you basically need to hire them all day and they would sit and wait for you for hours while you toured a few towns.
You are going in August though so traveling on public transit which works well in other times of the year could be over run with crowds so your call how much you want to spend to avoid that.
Not sure there is a reason for you to go past Amalfi. Take the SITA bus to Amalfi, you can make a couple of stops before you get there ; Praiano for example is a good quick stop. After visiting Amalfi you would take a different SITA bus to Ravello where again you would spend a few hours in that town touring.
Have a lite lunch in Amalfi and nice dinner in Ravello ideally then catch the bus back to Amalfi and ferry from there back to Positano.

Day 3: Capri takes all day, don't plan on anything that day/night ideally. I would not do the Blue Grotto with a 3 year old and think there are better things to do on Capri than any of the grottos. The 3 year old though is probably not safe on the chair lift up the mountain, which is too bad because I consider that the #1 thing to do on Capri, not the grottos.
Anacapri and Capri town both are gorgeous though so definitely still go, just skip the touristy grotto boat trips.
Take the ferry back to Positano, no need for a private driver on this day.

Assuming you leave morning of Day 4 via private driver to the airport, which makes sense you need to make the call day 1:
Pompeii or spend the half day plus in Positano. Your current plan you have left very little time for Positano itself so personally with your plan and with a 3 year old I would get to Positano as quickly as possible and enjoy/explore that day in town without other plans and skip Pompeii on this trip. That logic is not even factoring in the fact that Pompeii in August may not be an enjoyable place for a 3 year old. The steps of Positano probably won't be either ; expect to be carrying them often since your stroller will be fairly useless in these stepped towns.

I think having your 3-year old with you might really dictate a lot of this. Pompeii, just because you can do it doesn't mean you have to. If you want to then definitely, but it sounds more like an opportunity than a must see to you. In August, with a child, I would certainly go with a private car if it's in your means. Although, I felt the ferries give you the best views and were very enjoyable. They are easy to figure out too. you actually don't have much time to sightsee here, so I would think about what you want to take on. A half-day excursion via private car to Priano & Amalfi sounds more reasonable than a full day going all the way to Salerno and back. I thought Positano and Ravello were the real gems here though. Traffic can be an absolute nightmare at either end of the day, as hordes of people day-trip throughout the region. You don't want to be trying to head back through Amalfi at the end of the day. Capri is an easy day if you get an early start. The other grottos aren't anything like the Blue Grotto, they are not really destinations unto themselves. There's a 1 hour boat tour around the island that visits these however, and I would recommend it. I'd also suggest going up to Anacapri as quickly as you can. I liked it much more than Capri town, and before noon it was very quiet.

Do not waste your time and money on the Emerald Grotto. It's the worst tourist trap I've encountered in 35 years of traveling to Europe. You first take a boat from Positano to the mouth of the grotto. There, surprise! You have to pay again if you want to actually go in. The light inside is faintly, and I do mean faintly, green. The boatman points to various rock formations and tells what they are supposed to look like. You have to have a really good imagination to see what he sees. The final one is what I can only label an insult to the unwitting tourist. The boatman calls it a nativity scene. The lumps of rock are designated as Mary and Joseph. Someone has added a plastic doll to be the baby Jesus. The boatman cries, "Miraculo, miraculo!" This experience put us off colored grottoes. We didn't try the blue one.
There's plenty to do on Capri, especially Anacapri with its church of San Michele.
Your day 2 is overfilled. 2 towns, maybe, not 4. However, there is so little to actually see in Positano that your time on day 1 should be adequate. Amalfi and Ravello would be my choice, since they are quite close to each other.
I would choose the morning return to Naples, just because I have grown to dislike rushing around when I'm on a trip. The Amalfi Coast is supposed to be relaxing, right?

I concur that it is not worth going to Capri for a short visit/or a single day. Too many crowds and rude tourists. Spend your time elsewhere.

We just did Pompeii with our 5 and 7 year old two days ago, and capri today. So, here are my thoughts. Its HOT, I mean Hot. The busses and trains are totally overcrowded, and what seems like just a short little train ride to Pompeii, actually can take up the majority of your day. Pompeii was amazing. We stopped off there on our way from Naples to Sorrento. It took us an hour to get to Pompeii, then of course an hour to eat because we wanted a place to sit in the shade and we had hungry kids. Then we spent 2 hours in Pompeii but wish we could have had more time. It was just too hot and too long of a day for the kids. We felt rushed with 2 hours and probably only has 1/6 of the city. With that said, I'm glad we went.
As for Capri, we went today and left from Sorrento. I was thinking it would be a nice relaxing day trip, and it was anything but that.
We opted not to do any boat tours because my kids both felt seasick from the ferry ride, so the last thing they wanted to do was get on another boat. We headed into Capri town, got the kids Gelato (because it was HOT), and then we couldn't wait to get out of there. It was a very pretentious, touristy town that felt like a big shopping mall to us. We opted to take a taxi to Anacapri, which was much more our scene. Then we took a bus to Faro, and went swimming with the locals (my son even jumped off the rocks).
It was a lot of taxis, buses and ferries. My kids were exhausted and we left feeling very unimpressed with Capri overall.
Was planning on a day trip to Positano tomorrow, but after today I'm going to have to save that for next time. WIth young kiddos, you just gotta let them set the pace.
Good luck!

You are trying to do too much. My husband and I who traveled without children last year could have never done what you are proposing.

Pompeii is wonderful. We spent most of a day there and took a tour. But you are traveling with a 3 year old so I think it is probably a bit much.

Positano has steps everyone. Our hotel had a beautiful view but you had to climb steps down to get to it and could not go anywhere without climbing steps. It was steps down (lots) to the beach. There was an elevator but apparently it had not been operational for five years or more (but still on web page of hotel!) I hope you are staying in a different area because what we did was not child friendly.

We spent one day on the beach (rocky) but rented chairs. The town is very pretty but mostly shops.

I think it would be hard to go to all the towns you mention in one day even with a private driver. Roads are very slow. I would consider taking ferry to Amalfi and explore it and then a bus to Ravello. We took the public bus which is crowded but I think there are some tourist ones which are more expensive but less so. Or take a taxi. You can get information from shops right by the beach. We spent an afternoon at Ravello going from Amalfi. We had planned on more time but rain interfered so had a very long lunch in Amalfi.

Capri is ridiculously crowded in summer but you could go back to Naples through Capri so that would have some advantages. That is what we did. We went there on a very pleasant ferry from Positano. We took our luggage with us and there is a place near where the ferry landed where you can pay a pretty modest amount to check it. We then bought a ferry ticket to Naples for early that evening. It was a fast ferry so couldn't go on deck--more like being on an airplane but efficient for transportation. That worked out very well for us. We stayed overnight in Naples (returning to the hotel we had stayed in earlier in our trip) and took a Taxi to airport the next day.

We waited a long time for the bus to Anticapri. Line though was shorter than to Capri. A taxi would be much faster but everything is expensive there. We enjoyed Anticapri. Had lunch there, saw a few sights, did some shopping, and took a hike. We did not even attempt the Blue Grotta--lines were way too long. I would not take a young child on it--my understanding is you have to lean back going into the caves.

Beth

Beth

I don't quarrel with Rosalyn's description of the Emerald Grotto, but I want to note that we visited it by car, not by boat from Positano. We did have a professional driver for the day, which may have affected that opportunity. We skipped the Blue Grotto in Capri because we'd already seen a bigger (and less crowded) one in Croatia. Other guests at our luxury Sorrento hotel said that the time and fuss spent in getting to the Blue Grotto was not worth it.

In both cases, I think you would miss a lot in trying to keep your child from crawling towards the sides of a four to six person rowboat. You should read enough about the Capri grotto to determine if you wish to spend that amount of time out of a daytrip. I will add that we found Capri to be best seen on foot, with very limited bus and taxi access - you have to judge how that fits into your current family mobility. We walked several miles on our Capri daytrip, much of it, seemingly, "uphill both ways."

Although they are both attractive places, I have to say that the international boutique shopping-opportunities in both Positano and Capri were a bit oppressive. Lonely Planet guidebook described Capri tourists as "Seeking the glitterati, but finding only their prices." That's harsh, but has an element of truth. Capri has more to "see" than Positano, IMHO. Seeing Positano from the sea, or otherwise NOT while at the wheel of an automobile, is worth something, however.

You might want to research exactly what "coastal town" means on the A.C. I don't much care for small, pebble beaches where you pay for a chair. This is a primarily rock and cliff coast. There is only ONE, two-lane road, through Positano. That is a big choke point in the high season, which lasts several months. August in Europe is the highest part of the high-season, everywhere.

Highly recommend Ristorante Bruno in Positano! I had lunch there last April and it was wonderful. It's located in the uptown area so the views are breathtaking.

From your other posts it seems that you are both experienced travelers -- in years before the 3-year-old was born. Have you been on a trip with this child ?? Only you will know how your child responds to new places, new food, heat, long days. My own memories of travelling with a preschooler include trips to Grandma's, Disneyland, zoos and parks, family camp with organized age-group activities, and condo stays in Hawai'i -- lots of relaxation time and as little stress as possible. But you should do what works for you and your child.