We were booked for a cruise on this ship later and were fascinated by the idea of sailing on it the first time. After spending a week with family in Pennsylvania, we flew from Philadelphia to Rome and explored the city for about a week. Even that was not quite enough - so much to see! We stayed in the Hotel Santa Maria in Trastevere, which was lovely, and really well located.
Embarkation in Civitivecchia was well organized. We took Bob's Limos, which dropped us off right at the entrance to the embarkation hall. There was no significant wait anywhere until we'd checked in and gotten our group assigniment. We simply sat and waited for our group to be called, and we were on our way. Once on the ship, though, getting to our stateroom was a bit of a challenge, since most of the elevators had been appropriated by the staff for bringing luggage to rooms. We had a bit of a wait for an elevator. Had we not had carry-on bags, we would have taken the stairway.
The ship itself is beautiful. It is large, but not so large that you can't get around, and while I think it was pretty fully booked, never seemed crowdedl
The cabin was well located and well appointed, We were able to walk easily almost everywhere. Service was wonderful. This cabin had a shower rather than a tub, which I understand is the standard for this ship. That is actually an advantage, since the lack of a tub allows the shower to be bigger. It's also much easier to get in and out of.
We stayed nearly a week at the Hotel Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. We did both Vatican and Colisseum/Forum tours, which were both wonderful, but mostly we just walked around this wonderful city.
We visited the Picasso Museum, which was wonderful.
This is one where we should have prepared a bit before we got there. We enjoyed our walk around town, but I don't think we got as much out of the stop as we could have.
The street art in Cartagena was absolutely wonderful. It's worth it to walk around just to check it out.