We are going on a cruise which has a one night excursion to Agra from our stop in Bombay. Besides the Taj Mahal, we can choose one of these activities:
Tour Agra Fort
Tour Itmad-id-Daulah
Tour Fatehpur Sikri
Visit the Kohinoor Jewelery Museum and store
Which of these would you choose?
Thanks for any opinions.

Wow, with the exception of the jewelry museum, all are part of the history of the area - but...the fort is most related to the history of the Taj so I would choose that.

I'd say Fatehpur Sikri as it is stunning and very different from the Taj...

Certainly Fort Agra, it is intertwined with not only the history of Taj Mahal but on a larger plane the destiny of medieval India was controlled from here. Shah Jehan was incarcerated here after the battle of Fatehabad, that saw the glorious Rahtores & Haras turn into implacable enemies of mughal empire, hastening it's demise.

I'd vote for Fatephur Sikri. It's beautiful and mysterious.

Fatehpur Sikri - it is very beautiful and intersting.

I would also say Fatephur Sikri, but I would first want to know how much time you are going to spend there, what the rest of the Agra trip looks like and what time of year you are going. If you are making this trip in say May or June, and are going to be hitting Fatephur Sikri at about 2 pm I would not take it, as you will find 'nary a tree in the area and temps will be over 100F. Fatephur Sikri is about an hour or so outside of Agra. It is a wonderfully preserved former palace (royal city really) and worth seeing, but there are circumstances under which I would not recco it, like in summer and like if you are only there for an hour or less, as you really won't have time to see and appreciate it. In the winter with 2-3 hours to enjoy it and a tour guide I would certainly do it. Add up the time to and from Agra and see how much time the tour really spends there.

I actually am a big fan of the Agra Fort, it is well preserved, and laid out in the typical Mughal style and I find it quite romantic to see the Taj from the same aspect that Shah Jahan saw it for so many years while imprisoned there by his son (talk about ungrateful kids. . . .). If you aren't seeing any other Mughal palaces in India then you might enjoy this one. It also has the advantage of being right in town and you won't spend a lot of time on a bus getting to it. They have a small but excellent bookshop with lots of coffee table type books on India.

I also would put the Itmad- ud-Daulah third. If you choose to go to Agra Fort and have some free time, you could easily do this yourself, it is just up the river about a mile from the Taj. You could perhaps skip one of the visits the tour will invariably make to a "handicraft factory" (i.e. a place with one small loom where they are making a rug and then a huge salesroom where they will try to sell you rugs) and hire a bicycle rickshaw guy to cycle you out there, wait for you and take you back. It is quite pretty, but compared to the Taj, Red Fort or Fatephur Sikri, not as interesting.

Please make the effort to get up to see the Taj at sunrise, and try also to get over to see it at sunset whether or not your tour makes another trip over. It looks very different at all hours of the day as the light reflects off the marble. It is also relatively empty as sunrise and very eerily beautiful. You will get better pictures at sunrise and sunset as well. For sunrise and sunset times go to sunrisesunset.com

The Kohinoor Diamond is from the old diamond mines in Hyderabad way in the south and Agra is not the source for any jewels, so I definitively would rule that out, looks like a real tourist trap to me.

Finally, IMO an overnight trip from Mumbai is a short visit. I don't believe there are any non-stop flights to Agra, so you will have to fly to Delhi and then drive or train down, this is a 3-4 hour trip after a 2 hour flight. That's 5 hours at a minimum without including getting to the airport first, no delays in the flight, no waiting time for the group when you get to Delhi, and no traffic between Delhi and Agra. This will cut into the actual time you will spend in Agra quite a bit. You may be spending more time getting to Agra than you will in Agra. Also, if your trip is in the winter, flights into Delhi are very often delayed due to fog, esp morning and evening flights, which means you may have less time in Agra. If you are flying Indian Airlines, then I would seriously reconsider this trip. Jet Airways, Sahara, Air Deccan are fine, but I really can't recco Indian Airlines any longer, they just are not a good airline in terms of service and on-time record IMO, esp domestically. It's like Aeroflot. I used to say they were OK, but having flown them a lot recently I just can't recco them in good faith any longer.

Another vote for Fatehpur Sikri with the Agra Fort second.

Thank you for all your suggestions.
Our ship arrives in Bombay at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday and leaves at 6;00 p.m. on Wednesday. We are going to be on a chartered plane to Agra and so we will have enough time to see the Taj and do one more activity. We will definitely do the Agra Fort or Fatehpur Sikri as our second tour. I think we will make our decision based on how much time they have allotted for each. It sounds like the Fatehpur Sikri tour would be much more time consuming than the Fort, so we will have to see how the timing works out.
Again, thanks to all for your help.

Oh, and I should mention we will be in Agra mid March...hope it is not too terribly hot!

Fatehpur Sikri and the Fort. Does anyone know if they still have the dancing bears on the road from Fatepuhr to Agra -- I was there in 1996 and there were dozens of bears.

Yes, the bears are still there, but maybe not dozens...

I was just there,and we did not see them at all.

We just returned from Agra two weeks ago. We saw about a half dozen bears.