We are doing 10 day Mediterranean Cruise in June; Rome, Sicily, Greek Islands, and Kusadasi, Capri..any thoughts where we definitely would need a shore excursion...we do like to go out on our own but this is totally foreing countries..

If you want to see Ephese (beautiful!) from Kusadadi, you need transportation. Best to book a tour.
Greek Islands, depending what island.
Rhodes e.g.is easy to do yourself, ship docks almost in city-center..

In Sicily we went with www.sicilylife.com. We toured Mt. Etna and some of the cities.

mom9153 - 2006 we did a cruise that hit several of the Greek Isles, Italy, Istanbul and Kusadasi. I'm e-mailed my trip report to several people. If you want it (too long to post here) just send me an e-mail. I recommend doing private guides versus ship shore excursions. Kusadasi/Ephesus we used Ekol Travel whose prices were quite reasonable. Look at www.ekoltravel.com Feel free to contact me.

In Rome (Civitavecchia Port) we definately recommend you to hire a driver from drivearounditaly.com as we did and it was an amazing experience..

Civitavecchia/Rome = www.romecabs.com

Naples/Pompeii/Amalfi Coast = www.driveamalfi.com

Livorno/Florence/Pisa/Tuscany = www.florencetour.com

Messina/Taormina = www.sicilylife.com

Venice = www.aguideinvenice.com

Villefranche/Monaco/Cannes = www.revelation-tours.com

When we were on a Med. cruise in June 2006 we used 4 of the drivers / tour guides mentioned in the above post by sbx427.

We used:
Stefano Costantini - Rome Cabs
Salvatore Lucibello - Drive Amalfi
Alessandro Pagano - Sicily Life
Michel Legrand - Revelation Tours.

They were all excellent.

Carole

As was already reported, if you want to explore Ephesus and the ruins there ( it was great) you will need a tour, it is quite a ways from Kusadasi. I don't know what islands you're going to, but we took the ship's tours for all except
Mykonos (the ship tenders you directly into town)and Rhodes which also takes you directly into the ancient walled city. We were in Rhodes all day so visited Lindos also( about a 45 min drive from the Old City). Lindos is beautiful and you can take a donkey ride up to the top of the Acropolis. You can hire a taxi from the Old Town for 100 euros round trip, our driver was very informative.

as per our previous experiences we recommend you the following limo companies used for shore excursions:

In Sicily: www.sicilylife.com
in Rome: www.drivearounditaly.com
in Naples: www.italylimousine.it

Relax and have a good time!!