Please check out cruisecritics.com forums, they are the best for cruising. They have seperate sections for every cruise line, and every port of call. Plus they even have a sign up for your particular cruise, you can "meet" or just "chat" with people who will be on your exact sailing( but you don't have to). The best part is there is almost always someone who has taken your cruise, or visited the ports you are going to and they often have great tips for shore excurision, ship or private, and sometime people arrange to share taxis or private tours.

Hi,
Regarding Toulon, check this website http://www.varprovence-cruise.com/
you can visit by yourself, spend a day in town + cable car, or rent a car for a day, depends on what you intend to do, what are your interests.

Cruise forums I have read focus more on which cruise to choose, how to make most of the cruise, pre/post activities, and ship provided shore excursions vs. doing them on your own. For cruise at all vs. doing it on your own, the choice become more individualistic: just what you want to get out of the trip and how much time and effort you can or care to invest. As long as your expectations match what each method provide, that is the better choice for you.

Unless you are taking ship provided excursions only, you have to deal with transportation issues for both cases. The difference is that with the cruise, you can get time crunched. I have seen frenetic cruisers in Italy trying to get back to boats on time. On the other hand, doing it on your own, you have to arrange all the mode of transportation on your own (more in quantity) but you get to choose how time crunched you care to be (more options). As long as there is a way to get to your destination; by car,bus, or train; you can spend more time in one place by taking time off other location.

If you don't want to or have time to make accommodation arrangement on your own, a cruise solves that problem. One of my fondest memories of Italy is staying in a small inns where I get to talk to the inn keeper and how she chased after me after I left the inn to make sure I have not forgotten to take my room key (key heavy kind that you usually leave at front) because she would be locking up the inn earlier that evening.

Thanks to all responders. Each of you spoke to some of the thoughts I have had about the pro's and con's of the choices. I will check out the recommended sites...any information helps!
lm

You should post this on the Fodor's Cruise Forum too.

We're doing an eastern Med cruise next May to many of the same ports. The cruise line hasn't issued their list of shore excursions and prices yet but we expect they'll be high.

We've decided based on past trips that we'll do Mykonos, Santorini, Istanbul and a few others on our own. Istanbul is no risk as it's an overnight and on Santorini and Mykonos we plan to stay in the port towns.

We haven't decided yet on how to get to Pompeii from Naples and Ephesus from Kudasai. Depends on the ship's prices and timeframes. Also have to some research on the Athens offers.

It depends.Have you been to the ports before? Is cost an issue? By on your own do you mean with or without a private guide? How many are you? The more there are in your group reduces the per person cost for a guide or taxi. Are you a worrier? A ship shore excursion will guarantee you do not miss the ship departure. If you are on a very large ship you may be time issues getting off the ship, priority is given to passengers with shore excursions.There is a hybrid way. The cruise line offers transportation only, in some ports.Taxis can duplicate cruise ship city tours.

We are do it yourselfers.

VENICE-Take the cruise ship transportation to San Marcos square.

ATHENS-Walk or take the cruise ship shuttle to the trolley into Athens.

ISTANBUL-You can take taxis from site to site starting from the dock.

MYKONOS- Have not been there.

NAPLES-We took the cruise ship excursion to Capri, Sorrento, and Pompeii.We covered a lot but had to put up with an hours stop at a cameo factory/store at the end of the day. On your own I would recommend a guide.

ROME-Our cruise started and ended in Rome. So I have no experience as a day trip. You can take the train( I took it from Rome to the ship), but you would have to know your way around after you get to Rome. Also you would have to take the train or a cab back to the ship. There is so much to see that I would splurge and hire a guide who picks you up and takes you back to the ship.

FLORENCE/Pisa- Take the cruise ship transportation (bus) to/from Florence.You could pre buy Museum tickets over the internet. Great gelotto.

TOULON- Never been there. I would go to other areas of Provence, Aix, Arles, etc.

BARCELONA-We hired a taxi for the 4 of us, 2 couples.Sites are scattered throughout the city. One of us spoke some Spanish which helped a lot.

Good advice above in using the cruise critic site.

I forgot KUSADASI. We took the cruise ship tour which covered Ephesus(you need an onsite guide to get the most out of it ), the Virgin Mary house, and a temple ruins.

Great responses/help everyone. The cruise critic site was amazing and the comments here have been useful. Thanks so much

I suggest you purchase the Rick Steves book that is a guide to Med. cruise ports - it is written for cruisers with alot of very practical logistics on how to get to the sights you want to see. That will be invaluable in helping you sort out what you can do on your own and what might be best to do with a more organized excursion.

Then as others have said, Cruise Critic is also your friend - on your roll call you can plan for small group tours that will probably be cheaper than what the ship offers. Sounds like a wonderful trip, enjoy!

RS is usually a pretty good resource. The one "exciting" moment was trying to get to a hotel in Seville at night. We figured when the street got so narrow we could hardly open our car doors we should look for another route(we could see the front door to the hotel less than 1/2 block away). You can imagine our surprise when we walked out of the hotel the next morning that there was barely room to walk 3 people abreast let alone drive through....All the vendors had opened up shops for the day. My dad still brings it up 8 years later and we all just crack up remembering our time in Seville.
Thanks!

Here is another vote for Rick Steves' "Mediterranean Cruise Ports" guide book. He provides opinions on which ports are easy to sightseeing on your own (and including HOW-TO) and which ports are better off doing a cruise excursion.

VENICE - easy to DIY if you have a whole day here. Read RS's book on how much time to allow yourself to get back to the ship.

ATHENS - we followed RS's direction to take bus then metro from Piraeus to Athens for a metro ticket of €1.40/pp. (A metro ticket includes a bus transfer.) We have been to Athens before, therefore we only wanted to visit the Acropolis Museum and have a chicken souvlaki lunch at O Thanasis (Mitropoleos 69, just off Monastiraki Square). But if you want to see more sights in Athens, you may want to go over to cruise critic's roll call forum to join up with other cruisers to form a private van tour.

KUSADASI - if you only have half a day on shore, then take a ship's excursion. If you have a whole day, then you'll have plenty of time. We googled and booked online with "Ephesus Shuttle" for a 4-hour tour of Ephesus including terraced houses for USD$39/pp. Their guide was waiting for us with a sign at the ship dock.

ISTANBUL - We had 1.5 days here so we toured it on our own with RS's Istanbul guide book. We took TRAM from cruise terminal (near Istanbul Modern Museum) to Sultanahmet. You'll need to go to a bank ATM to withdraw Turkish lira, then go inside the bank to break up a paper money into coins in order to purchase Tram tokens from machine. (It was 2 lira per ride in May 2012. But I read it is 3 lira per ride now.) Or you may take a €10 taxi ride from port to Sultanahmet. All the tourists sites are within a small area. We did not attempt to see Topkapi Palace, because we know it will eat up a whole day.

NAPLES - Read RS's "Mediterranean Cruise Ports" guide then make your decision. You may see many sites in a hurry for a day, or be more selective. We have been to Capri before (not impressed), so we spent the morning sightseeing in Naples on our own and took an afternoon ship excursion to Pompeii for USD$69/pp. It saved us time, and we were glad to have a guide to make the ruins came alive for us.

ROME - one-way train ride from port to city is 70 minutes. If this were your first visit to Rome, you may want to form a group at Cruise Critic roll call for a van tour, or join a ship's excursion.

FLORENCE/PISA - read RS's "Mediterranean Cruise Ports" guide for options and HOW-TO. If DIY by train, look up Italian train schedule at http://www.trenitalia.com ahead of time to plan on catching a particular train to come back. Regional trains may run late, so don't cut it too close.

TOULON - read RS's guide for options.

Thanks for the info....I am planning on picking the book up today.
lm

We're also doing a cruise next June, followed by some additional land time in Italy. I've done a lot of research both here and on cruise critic. If you haven't already joined your cruise roll call or if one isn't already started, be sure to do so over on cruise critic. That will help with the excursions. Either in joining one, or helping to see what your options are. Also the ports of call boards are a great resource for each of your ports. The Rick Steves' books have been my bed time reading for months now!

We have decided to do private excursions in each of our ports so far, mainly due to our group dynamic - it's myself and husband, our two kids (ages 11 and 13) and then my parents, who are in their mid 60s. For us, having a guide take us from the ship to the sites will just alleviate much of the stresses than can come up when traveling with the group we have. And we will have someone to tell us what we are seeing, which is really the whole purpose of why we are going. I've searched pretty hard to find guides who have experience with kids, although ours aren't young kids - they will have to be engaged for several long days!

I think it really depends on your personal travel style as to DIY or excursion. I love the research and either way, we'll have great trips!

In the case of the usual Italian cruise ports it also depends on plain old geography and infrastructure or lake thereof.

For example, a ship docking in Livorno ("for" Florence and Pisa) sometimes docks in the most "industrial" of areas where there are no close-by public transport links; getting a taxi can be a challenge as well. Even if you do this on your own you have to get from the ship to the nearest public transport or rail point and go from there. When you return and want a taxi back to the ship sometimes it helps to have a picture/drawing of a cruise ship in case one of the drivers who doesn't understand a lot of English.

For Civitavecchia there is sometimes a free shuttle bus from the ships to the port entrance; that is still another 10-15 minute walk to the train station; and the train, depending on which one you take, can take a good hour or more to get to the San Pietro station for Vatican City and then Termini for downtown Rome.

A decent guidebook explaining all these various details would be an excellent investment IMO.

My husband and I were just in Naples a few weeks ago, not on a cruise, in a hotel.
We hired a local guide for the day and I can highly recommend her. Her name is Marina di Martino and you can find her site at: www.napolinostressitinerari.com

We walked all through the old historic part of the city and she took us to places we would have walked right past or if we had gone in we wouldn't have known what we were looking at.
She is very personable, engaging and asks you if you have any particular interests and will tailor the tour to that if you like. She is not expensive at all, I think she does it for the love of her city, not to make money.

She will take you into some shops but only a few and only where she thinks they make the best of something and there is no pressure to buy at all, she just wants to show it to you. She took us to a place where they make limoncello from organic lemons and we are still kicking ourselves that we didn't go back there and buy out the store. We thought as we were going on to Sorrento and the Amalfi coast there would be plenty of good limoncello. Boy were we wrong, never found any as good as that one!

Mostly she showed us historic buildings and sites, ancient Greek and Roman ruins under churches, we went to an interesting convent, some beautiful cathedrals and later she took us in her car to some of the prettier seaside residential areas. She is very passionate about her city and very knowledgable of its history.

She also will accompany you to Pompeii and other outlying areas if that is what you want.

She gave us tips for Pompeii which we were glad of and looking back I think we should have had her accompany us as it was a bit over-whelming on our own. Plus I overheard some of the so-called guides that were there with groups and they were terrible. I would have been annoyed to have paid them money.

I meant to add that in Naples you won't have far to go to see the city from the dock area.

I prefer to do things on my own, on a Western Med cruise (my only cruise) in 2011 we took the cruise's transportation only option into Florence and I pre booked tickets to see the statue of David at the Academia, and we saw the big food market and strolled around doing our own thing for the day and it was perfect.

I was in Mykonos years ago and am pretty sure you could wander around there on your own without paying some exorbitant fees to be shown around. Same goes for Venice and Athens.
Our cruise started in Rome so we had a few days there beforehand and took a car and driver to Civitavecchia to get on the ship. If Rome is a port of call for you a possibility is to book a car and driver/guide to pick you up, show you around and deliver you back in time.

There are at least three or four posters on the cuise forum here on Fodors that are super knowledgeable about those ports and could be very helpful to you. They rarely post on the Europe forum, so you might post on the cruise forum and see what other advice you get.

I've been to all the ports you mention on cruises except Toulon, and only visited Florence and Rome when not on a cruise, so no advice on those from a cruise point of view.

Florence is small and walkable. Read ahead and chart your walking on a map. Book museums ahead of time.

Rome, pick what you want to see carefully and book ahead if you can. With such short time you might consider a tour or guide in Rome to be more efficient.

Venice, we walk or take a vaporetto on our own to the places we want to see, but you might want a tour of the Doge's Palace.

Mykonos, ship provided shuttle and we walked everywhere else, no need for a guide.

Athens, we shared a taxi to the sights we wanted to see and back. Didn't bother with a guide because of my Architecture/Art history background. Take water.

Istanbul, Took taxi from Port to city, toured on our own. Fabulous food everywhere we ate, even just quick stops.

Kusadasi, we formed a small group with others from our ship and hired a van/driver for the entire day for about $10.00 a person. Visited Mary's house, cave's, churches, etc. as well as Ephesus. We had a good guide book of Ephesus, but the guides sounded really good and I would do that next time. Take water, sun hat, etc.

Barcelona, taxi is cheap, fast, efficient. We took it to the farthest sight we wanted to visit, then used a combination of taxi and walking the rest of the day. Gaudi's work is top of list of things to see. Sorry I don't have any, but do get some recs of places to eat because lots of places on the Ramblas are pretty bad.

Naples, very easy to take train to Pompeii (take water) or Herculaneum and walk Naples on your own. Don't be fooled by taxi drivers quoting high rates at the port. They often double the cost, but if you say you will just take the bus, they quickly reduce it. There is a bus called the Ali bus that goes straight to the train station for about 3 euro pp. I've even walked it. If you get a decent rate, of course, the taxi is easier. If you are taking the ferries anywhere, consider the ships's tour, so you are sure to make it back on time. Everything I've ever eaten in Naples was good to great.

You can always buy water, but nice to have it when you want it at the archeological sites.

An addition to my earlier reply:

ISTANBUL tram token - the token machine takes paper money in small denominations as well as coins. If you have just drawn Turkish lira from an ATM machine they probably are all in 50 YTL denomination. That was why we went inside the bank to break up a 50 YTL into smaller denominations and coins to buy tram token.

We changed the remaining YTL back into Euro at a money change place in the bazaar in KUSADASI. The area outside the Kuşadası cruise terminal has been developed into a sprawling shopping bazaar.