I should preface this review by saying that the draw for me to take this cruise were the ports and the ports only. I am not one of those who takes tons of cruises - I wanted to take this cruise for the chance to get to see several ports in Italy and the chance to have that experience is what made the vacation a great one for me. As long as the ship experiences were not completely disastrous, they didn't really factor in for me.
But I have tried to write this review from the point of view of what someone who is more interested in the ship experiences themselves would want to know. I hope I have been successful in that regard...
I flew in a day early so as to acclimate to the jet lag and stayed in a wonderful little hotel in Rome just steps from the Spanish Steps :) I took the express train from the airport to Termini station in Rome, then the Metro subway from there to the Spanish Steps and then a short walk to the hotel. It was very easy and do-able (although transferring at Termini took a while to figure out) but definitely a struggle to do so with 1 large bag, 1 carryon and a backpack and thus was happy to have other private transfers arranged for rest of trip.