We had a lovely 7 day cruise on the epic with our boys ages 6 and 7. It was our first time cruising so I wasn't sure what to expect but we had a really relaxing and enjoyable holiday. I found it a little difficult to get specific information on shore excursions with kids similar in age to ours so here is what we got up to:

Rome embarkation: We flew into Ciampino airport that morning and arranged a transfer directly to the ship with Anthony Cagnoli and sons. The driver was there to meet us and dropped us right at the check in area. It cost €150 so there are certainly cheaper options but it was easy and smooth and the journey is quite long so I can understand the cost. It was raining really heavily in Rome and embarkation was just through one gangway. Queue time was around 15 minutes to check in and then we went through security etc. As first time cruisers we weren't told the location of our stateroom or where to go once we got on board and security was a little manic with day trippers re-embarking the ship at the same time so we were a bit confused at first but we found our room and settled in. Most passengers get on at Barcelona so for eg. we missed out on things like the laundry bag deal as this was offered on our first day, the dailies refer to day 1 as the Barcelona day. Other than that it didn't really matter that we got on in Rome.

Day 2 Livorno: We got the ship shuttle to the train station $15 dollars return for adults and $10 for kids. We asked about this on the ship but no info was available and it wasn't mentioned in the daily, then we queued for the wrong bus for a while at the port but the bus is actually towards the end of a line of buses and there is an NCL staff member taking names and room numbers, the fare gets charged to your room. We decided to take the train to Pisa. There was a long line for tickets but nobody was using the self serve machines, they were easy to use and we got our tickets there, very cheap I think less than €4 for adults and €1.50 for kids to Pisa. We were unlucky on the train as the driver didn't turn up so after sitting on it for an hour we had to get off (announcements were only made in Italian but almost everyone in our carriage was from the ship and didn't speak Italian). We then had to get the next train which ended up being incredibly overcrowded, all a bit of a nightmare with kids but all was forgotten when we got the Pisa. Read more