More Cruising Info

So Diana, the hostess of our big cruise group, mentioned Cruise Diva as another website with info. I found this hilarious post about Gentlemen Hosts. This really rings a bell, when Carol and I went on our cruise to Alaska, even the married women in our group who were travelling with their husbands lamented on the lack of dance partners. Hmmm... wonder how you make sure there are Gentlement Hosts on our sailing?

Also I got an answer to the question - is it okay to stay the night in Rome? - over on CC. People do it all the time, although some warned that it might not be strictly legal. Particularly, one poster said they had just done it in Rome last month, and another said they did it in Florence (along with lots of other people on their ship).

Also, I "met" a couple who has gone on lots of cruises, and found their website (I know there are probably lots of them out there). The Halls sound like a fun couple. Their last cruise went to Split and Venice (among other places). Check it out. Also their description of their stay in Venice sounded heavenly:

The ship did offer a shuttle to the hotels in the St. Mark's area. Your bags traveled in a different shuttle and were delivered to your hotel...

The choice we made was to book a private transfer from IC Bellagio through our Travel Agent. We were met right at the terminal, and took a private taxi tour of the Grand Canal en route to our hotels. We dropped the bags at the hotel, and then the water taxi took us on a tour of the "undiscovered" canals of Venice, including the Armory where the great galleys were built. After that we had a 2 hour walking tour of the back ways of Venice with a great guide, winding up at our hotel...

Rome Transportation To

It looks like it is easy to take the train from Civitavecchia to Rome. There is an entire thread here on the Cruise Critic boards and also Carol got similar advice from her friend Joann. This would be particularly easy if we are not traveling with lots of stuff. It looks like it actually takes less time on the train than if we are driving. Here is a link to a step by step how-to on taking the train from Civitavecchia. It only costs about 11 euros (roundtrip?). On the other hand, I wonder how crowded it gets?

If all we want is transportation to Rome this might be a good time to get on the cruise bus with everyone else (no tour just transport which in itself is advertised from Celebrity as $74 (US dollars) per person).

Or we might want to have a private tour that takes us to Rome on the first day and shows us "everything", then the second day we do it on our own. This will also depend on whether we spend the night in Rome or on the ship.

Note: Carol found a link to a private limo service in Rome (I am moving that post here so we can keep them all together). kay t 12/6/07

Happy Monday.