Getting to Pompeii from Sorrento and best tour option other than Manfredo

You will be so crunched for time! If the ship leaves at 3PM, don't you have to be on board before that time? If the ship arrives at 8AM, how long will it take you to disembark? Perhaps this trip, just stick with Sorrento. It's an enjoyable little town, you can walk all over, do a little shopping, enjoy the views and have a nice relaxed lunch. IMO, trying to get to Pompei, view the sites and get back to Sorrento to board your ship would rush you too much. If the ship company offers a tour of Pomepi, that might be the best way to do it to save time. they know the time constraints and can work with those. We were in Sorrento a few years ago and took a bus tour to Pompei and then Vesuvio, we left Sorrento at 8AM and got back at 5PM, I'm judging the time you have on our experience. you are at the mercy of the trains, and walking and figuring everything out
Take time, slow down and have some gelato in Sorrento! Or even Lemoncello!

It takes 30 minutes to get from Sorrento to Pompeii. Only you know when your ship will get you to shore and when your ship requires you to be back on board. Take that time period, subtract an hour for roundtrip train travel and then you'll have your remaining available hours. Hopefully you'll get to visit again sometime when you're not on a cruise. Cruising is not the best way to really "see" and "experience" Europe.

Thank you. I appreciate the information. I had heard about the train. Yes, I hope to come back multiple times. It's my first cruise ever. I shunned them for years and never thought I'd be caught on one. I'm actually looking forward to it. We're planning 2 days in Rome before the cruise starts and 1 day at the end. I'd like to try the Top Bike rentals in Rome as we're both active and prefer biking/hiking to bus tours. I went to Italy back in 2008 and my fiance hasn't ever been. When you have little time, this seems to beat the bus tours because you can keep everything in your cabin and just get off and explore. We're very active so we're looking forward to hanging out on the islands. It's a smaller ship, only 300 people, so it gets to go to ports that the bigger ships (and most foot/bus travelers never get to visit).

The ship company has a tour but it takes all day and it's on a bus. It doesn't make sense to me. Disembarking shouldn't take long on a small ship (300 as opposed to 1,000s) I hope.

Eeeeek - You could do this, but I'm really leaning towards suggesting that you stay in Sorrento. There's great shopping/strolling, lots of good restaurants, different types of scenic viewpoints (Sorrento is on several different levels on the cliffside), and it's such an easy town to stroll through. Lots of places to just 'hang out', too. This way, you'll have to start planing your return trip - as independent travelers! - and take as much time as you'd like at Pompeii! If you are VERY motivated and decide to go for it anyway, make sure you have your ducks in a row (know how to get to the train station from the dock, copies of the train skeds, etc) and make a plan of attack. Always know how to get to the next dock/town if you don't make it back from a shore excursion! The entrance to the site is just across the train station, so at least that is a 'known', but in Sept we stood in line for the longest time for entry tickets :-( The clock kept ticking...

Has anyone been there end of April? We're starting our cruise on April 28th. I would think that is a touristy time of the year. L

Lisa, We went to Pompeii in 2008 and spent about 3 hours there hitting the recommended high spots. (Could have stayed longer, just would have been in overload) Really explored the high spots and just didn't try to see every little inch of Pompeii. This is how you could do it. Rick has a tour of Pompeii in his books and there are audio tours as well. Really familiarize yourself so you can hit the ground running.
One more comment on the ship's tour...if they run late, break down, miss the ship's departure then the ship will get you back on. IF MY MEMORY serves me, if you go independently and the train's delayed, you lose track of time, etc. the ship will leave without you and you must get back on (at the next port?) on your own. I believe this to be correct, but you need to confirm this and then factor the correct information into your plans. Enjoy!

We'll have just come from Capri prior to Sorrento, and will be visiting several islands after that, so the Pompeii tour seems to be the better choice. I found a guide who's got some great ratings on trip advisor. He'll meet us at the train which is only about 11 Euros pp. The tour is 60 Euros/hr. And, it does look doable. We're on a small sailing ship, not a big cruise ship. I googled the walk to the train station. It is 17 min for a typical walker. We are runners/hikers from the East Coast, so we'll probably do it in half the time others would take for the same distance, even with the elevation that appears on the map. If we give ourselves 1 hour from when the ship gets into port at 8am, we should easily be able to get one of the two trains at either 9 or 9:20am. We'd arrive anywhere from 9:30-10am. That should give us 2 hours for a tour. We could easily get back by 1-1:30pm, which would leave us 1.5-2 hours of time to hang out in Sorrento before we have to get on the ship at 3pm. Being active, I doubt we'd want to sit on a tour bus. We'd just have to have a cut-off time that would determine whether or not to proceed with trying to get to Pompeii.

With your given time frame you can't do Sorrento AND Pompeii but easily one or the other. And I would definitely go for Pompeii. April is not as busy so if there's any line at the entrance to the ruins it should't be too long. I would strongly recommend to do a tour with a guide. The site is HUGE and the guide will help you to make the best of your limited time. You need 2 hrs min. better 3. There are accredited guides waiting at the entrance and you can hire them on the spot. Price is very reasonable, well under 100 Euro for a private 2 hrs tour (I can't remember the exact price). And then you probably still have an hour or so left to explore a bit on your own.

Hi Lisa, I booked Sasha Bianco for a tour of Pompeii (& Herculaneum) this coming September. We also booked his brother who is a driver. They will pick us up at our hotel in Sorrento, drive us to each site, provide a guided tour and return us to our hotel in the afternoon. I think you should consider hiring a driver as well so that you won't waste valuable time with logistics (getting to/from Pompeii, walking to Pompeii from train station & back again, purchasing tickets, waiting for the train, etc.). You might e-mail Sasha and see what the cost would be for the driver and guide together; although it's not cheap, I think it's a good value in terms of being able to maximize your sightseeing time and minimize the logistics planning. In my case, we wanted to visit Herculaneum and Pompeii both in one day and having a driver meant that we could also squeeze in a visit to a winery along the way (that Sasha recommended) for lunch and have some leisure time that we otherwise wouldn't be able to fit into our day if using public transportation. I had a hard time justifying the added expense but in the end, I don't know when (if ever) I'll return to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast and I want to make it as pleasurable as possible and see as much as possible. Have a wonderful trip. By the way, your cruise sounds wonderful being that it's much smaller than a cruise ship.

You are aware that your ship will moor offshore at Sorrento and that you will use tenders to reach the port? If you are fit, use the steps which go right up to the town centre (Piazza Tasso) rather than the road.