I will be taking a cruise in July on Royal Olympic with stops in Venice,Corfu,Istanbul,Greek Isles and Croatia.We will be only in each port for a few hours. Would you recommend taking tours offered by the crusie ship, locals or just do them on our own? I have been to Venice before. Thanks for your advice

Hi Marianne,

From people who have done this sort of on-off tour, I have been told that they thought they would have preferred to just walk around for a while.

I took a Royal Olympic cruise that stopped in Kusadasi and took the optional offered by the cruise line to Ephesus for appox $45.00 which included a local tour guide to explain the local culture and what you were looking at whilst in Ephesus. Some other people on the cruise toured Ephesus on their own. They paid a taxi about $80.00 to drive them to Ephesus from dockside and had no tour guide. There were 4 of them so it ended up costing each $20.00. So it depends..... I paid $45.00 and got a personal tour, they paid $20.00 but had no guide. I paid for mine with credit card on the ship, they had to pay with cash up front to the taxi driver.

YOu can get a lot more cruise input in the fodors.com travel talk forum for cruises.
also at www.cruise2.com, www.cruise.com
etc etc

I did a different Royal Olympic a few years ago. We did pay for the tours and the only one I was a little disappointed in was in Ephesus. Our guide was great, but they bring you back to port in time to "buy a carpet" We did skip out on that and explore the port town.

The one I did not want to take was Santorni, but it turned out to be good that we did. We had to tender and they take those who paid for excursions off first which meant we were off the ship an hour before the others. With such a short stay that was key!

I warn you, this is a working cruise. Those shore excursions start very early. All in all, I felt like we got a good deal for our money.

We just returned from Corfu yesterday for the first time. Corfu City where you will be is very fun for the afternoon in the old city. If you have all day a trip to Glyfada beach, or Kassiopi in town would be a blast. I wish I could go back today! Any other questions please ask. PS Rex in Corfu town has a wonderful menu.

Besides Istanbul you will enjoy a walk on your own. Istanbul is too big and there are tooo many things in different places to see. A guided tour might work out better. I wouldn't trust the locals waiting in their cars trying to offer THE best tour...!