Hadn't been on this forum in a while and missed the concluding part of this wonderful report, thanks a ton Eschew! Did you you get a local guide/tour operator in Katakalon and Dubrovnik, would like to have the contacts. We're doing a 7 night Venice to Istanbul cruise on Celebrity next June and will be visiting these two ports, apart from some others we've been to earlier. Thanks again for taking the time to give all these details:)

Sally: the weather was HOT, HOT, HOT. Everyday was 90 plus except for Venice where it rained for one day and it was a welcome relief.

geetika: thanks for the comments :) much appreciated. As I have said before, when I wrote the TR, it brought back memories and I got to go through the whole travel experience again.


If you are looking guides for those 2 ports, you have to book very early as the company that we dealt with are very small, but with good reputation.

For Katakolon, Taxi Katakolo (Andreas)
http://www.taxikatakolo.gr/

For Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik Day Tour (Stephan)
http://www.dubrovnikdaytours.net/
They will customize a tour for you.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot for the contacts Eschew, am emailing them right away! There's a recent thread on Cruise Critic about Katakolon Express, mixed reviews, some say the tour was excellent and some others that the bus didn't even show up, people had to scramble to find some other transport once in port. Will let you know how it goes, thanks again:)

Would a round trip airfare cheaper than a multi-city airfare?
It seems flying round trip from US to Rome would be much cheaper than fly to Rome and fly back from Venice. How much and how long a train ride from Venice to Rome? How about one way airfare from Venice to Rome on a local carrier? Are thety viable options?

Actually last yr. we did a multi city on the UAL website. We flew ORD to FCO for a cruise, then FCO to MAD for a few days, them back to ORD and it was actually $100.00 less than a standard R/T. However some other stops instead of MAD were more. MAD just happened to be less, why I don't know.

Larry, it is call airport tax and airport landing fee. Some of the airports charge so much more money for landing fee is ridiculous.

Toronto has one of the hihest landing fee in the world. I think Tokyo is next highest by a big margin. Here is an example: "It costs $324 to land a B747 in CLT, but $11687 to land the same plane in YYZ in 2010."

OMG!. I had no idea. Charlotte isn't Toronto but it's not exactly Podunk either. :D