There were four of us traveling together. We flew to Rome three days before the cruise and stayed at the Hotel Mozart. We had booked rooms in the Vivaldi Suites and were very satisfied with the rooms. The breakfast (included) was delicious.

Our Rome trip was uneventful except for one distressing adventure. The four of us (me, DH, my husband's sister and brother-in-law) had seen Rome on trips before and decided we wanted to go to the synagogue. We had been there before but the synagogue was not open when we went. We asked the hotel to call a cab for us. When the driver arrived I showed him the name and address of the synagogue in my Rick Steves' guidebook and he agreed to take us there. When we got to the "synagogue" we told him that it did not look familiar. He said we were in the right place and sped off. It turned out that he had dropped us at a mosque. There were lots of people around, there was a flea market and the vendors were dressed in Muslim garb. We spoke no Italian, had no phone and no one could help us or understand us. We were in a strange city and there were no cabs in sight. My brother-in-law is 83 and has difficulty walking. This was extremely frightening and distressing. We had no idea how we were going to get back. We walked for about five blocks. We approached a young woman who spoke English and she agreed to help us get back to our hotel. We had walked to the train station and she assisted us with tickets and rode back with us to the Central Terminal. She was our guardian angel and she was lovely. Her name is Francesca and we are very grateful to her. We told the manager at the hotel about the cab situation but he said there was little he could do. He called the cab company and they offered to buy us a free drink. I would advise anyone taking a cab anywhere to write down the number of the cab and the driver. This is something I usually do in New York but I did not do it in Rome and I was sorry.

We had booked a private car for transportation from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to the pier. We were very satisfied with our driver from Italy by Limo. He was prompt and courteous. Read more