Grand Princess Eastern Med Oct 17th-Oct 28h
First a couple notes. I will try not to repeat what has been said before in prior reviews and concentrate on only those things that have not been mentioned or are new. My wife and I are reasonably seasoned travellers and don't tend to take many excursions, preferring to do many ports on our own. For this reason, most of the notes on ports of call are for those that prefer to do things on their own. We also tend to pick cruises based on itineraries rather than Cruise line. Overall this was an outstanding cruise with some minor quibbles that I have saved for the end. Ok, on to the review:
Pre cruise we redeemed points for the Hilton Airport. It was obviously easy to get to from the Airport since it has a moving walkway to/from the Hotel. Also important was the bus that ran every two hours starting at 8:00 that dropped us off between the Circus Maximus and the Forum. After two days in Rome we opted for the Princess transfer from the Airport. The trip was 50 minutes to Civitavecchia on a standard tour bus through mostly rural farms and small communities. Our "guide" gave some rudimentary comments about the area we travelled through. Embarkation was quick and painless.