I got so much info from these reviews on CC that made our cruise a great experience and vacation; I thought I should add mine as well to share. My wife and I arrived in Barcelona three days ahead of the sailing to acclimate and explore Barcelona. As per recommendations, I got Euros in advance from my bank at home which made life a lot easier when I arrived. From the airport, we got on the Aerobus (6 Euros each) very easy. We got of at the last stop, Plaza Catalunya. From there it was a short walk to our Hotel Continental (recommended by many) on CC. While the location is spectacular, on Las Ramblas the hotel is a little old but I don't regret the choice at all. The balcony room is highly recommended. We took the HOHO (hop on hop off) bus two of the days. It does three different routes. We were reluctant to get off seeing the long lines waiting to get on. From our hotel that is nicely located in the Gothic area, we were able to stroll through this fascinating very old section of Barcelona.

We took a cab from the hotel (12Euro) in the morning, and boarded Voyager quite easily. Waited for the buffet to open to have lunch and explored the ship. This was our sixth cruise and first in Europe. In general the entertainment was pretty nice and the cruise director Mercedes had a great attitude, was warm and funny. Service on the ship was very good, through out the ship.

For our first port in Toulon, we went to Cassis, an old fishing village. It was a half day tour and we enjoyed it. Second port was Livorno where we also took a half day tour to Pisa where we enjoyed learning about the leaning tower. (I also enjoyed a street minstrel serenading my wife.) On day three we decided to do Rome on our own. We took the free shuttle to the town and then walked about ten blocks to the railroad that brought us to Rome. From there we took the Metro to the second stop the Colosseum. It truly is an amazing sight to see coming out of the Metro. We used the services of a tour guide there to get us in the Colloseum quickly (27 Euros each). I understand that tickets can be purchased a block away at Palentine Hill that is less expensive and will give easy entrance to the Colloseum. Exhausted, we headed back to the ship after this stop. We spoke to several travelers that took the ten hour tours and regretted the length of time. Next was our stop at Sicily where we took the Godfather Tour. It sounds a bit cheesy but was really quite impressive. True it was where the movie was filmed but there is a town there that dates back before the Inquisition. We toured that and another town up some very huge mountains. Read more