Western Med

[mahcaeh]

Thinking of a cruise to the med -gibraltar,corsica,cannes,rome,cartagena in early may. Has anyone else been to these places at this time of the year as wondered what weather to expect. Also there is the worry of the Bay of Biscay in May.

Your experiences please!

[sddsddean]

Go to
http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/index.php and sign up for free. On there you can go on the Ports of call board with any queries about the ports. You can also sign up to the roll call for your cruise to 'meet' others on your cruise. This can be very good, as Cruise Critic members often sort out better and cheaper excursions than the ones available through the cruise line. I can't recommend that you go to the site enough! Which ship are you going on? As to Bay of Biscay, like anywhere it just depends what the weather is like. I've been across the Bay twice with no rpoblems at all and last year went round the notorious Cape Horn in a flat calm! You just never know! as an example of advice you will get on the CC boards, you will dock in Civitivecchia for Rome. The cruise line will charge you £50+ for a round trip bus journey just to get you to Rome, whereas if you get the port bus to the dock gates, walk 400yds down the road to the station, you can get a return train to Rome for €9 and that includes the metro!

[mahcaeh]

many thanks for your advice sddsddean will do that

[jno]

if you do take the train to Rome as suggested, get off at St Peter's, as after that it winds slowly around the city before reaching the central station and wastes half an hour of your limited time.

[Prudie]

I've been to the Balearics in early May. If you're lucky it will be sunny but only very low 20s and quite cool in the evenings. Not warm enough for me to swim but that might not matter to you.

[Meg]

Is that on Ventura? I'm looking at that cruise. Never had a problem in Bay of Biscay but I don't suffer motion sickness. Gambling on the price dropping for the time being.

[jno]

keep an eye on the weekend papers' travel sections for bargain offers, and websites like 1st4crusing.

[mahcaeh]

thanks jno for advice about train journey, also to prudie, and meg -yes it was the ventura