Sea cruises from Rome (Civitavecchia) or Barcelona or Genoa, company: MSC Cruises — page 23

We recommend flying in the day before the cruise begins.

• Arrive at the port 2–3 hours before departure.
• When booking an airport–port transfer, allow at least 5 hours between landing and the scheduled sailing.

Technically yes, in practice we advise against it. A delayed morning flight costs you the cruise rather than one item on an itinerary. We recommend arriving the day before and staying the night.

Twenty to thirty minutes by taxi off peak, and closer to forty in the morning rush. The distance is about fifteen kilometres.

The name of the terminal is printed on the boarding documents for your sailing and only that is binding. The port register lists 7 terminals: A, B, C, D Palacruceros and E Helix on the Adossat quay, the separate Terminal MSC on the same quay, and the World Trade Center Barcelona on the Barcelona quay. Helix is not a separate place beside the lettered ones. It is terminal E.

No. The port estate is not crossed on foot, and the last stretch is covered by port shuttle or taxi even if public transport has already brought you close.

Boarding usually opens in the early afternoon and check-in closes two to three hours before departure, so you want to be at the port well ahead of that. In July and August we add a separate hour for the queue. Here the five-hour figure means a cruise line transfer, not being at the port as it does in Civitavecchia.

One night is enough to board without running for it, and a second turns the journey out into part of the holiday. The place is walkable, so even a short margin of time goes on the city rather than on transport.

It happens, but in our bookings it is a handful of cases a season. The drive takes two days with a night on the way, and parking for the length of the cruise is booked together with the cabin.

The currency of the contract is either the euro or the US dollar, and the booking itself decides which. Payment goes by transfer, in euros or in zloty, to the details we set out in the document. With a payment link the settlement runs in zloty only. Prices on the site are shown in zloty at the day’s rate.

The counterparty on your contract is a Polish tour operator, not an intermediary registered abroad. Its entry in the Central Register of Tour Operators and Entrepreneurs Facilitating the Purchase of Linked Travel Arrangements (CEOTiPUNPUT) and its UNIQA guarantee are quoted in full in the section on who sells and who answers.

Warsaw, Kraków and Gdańsk. The hardest part of the journey is not the flight but the eighty kilometres from the airport to the port.

Because the port for Rome lies in Civitavecchia, eighty kilometres north west of the city. Operators name the region their port serves rather than the address of the quay.

It follows from where you sleep. Staying near the Vatican makes one station the obvious choice. Staying by the main hub makes crossing the city for a faster train pointless.

It is short and flat, so yes, although heat makes it tiring. Anyone who would rather not walk takes the local bus, which follows the same road.

No, and there is no exception for a short distance. Everyone rides the shuttle from the gate onwards, and it costs nothing.

Five, and that figure is not caution for its own sake. It adds up the ride out of Rome, the change onto the shuttle, the desk itself and a reserve for a train that runs late.

No, and confusing the two ends in an argument at the desk. One figure belongs to a service sold by the line. The other belongs to this page and means your presence on the quay.

The currency of the contract is either the euro or the US dollar, and the booking itself decides which. Payment goes by transfer, in euros or in zloty, to the details we set out in the document. With a payment link the settlement runs in zloty only. Prices on the site are shown in zloty at the day’s rate.

The difference sits in the kind of trip, not in the quay. One direction is chosen by car and the other by air, and that decides whether the starting city gets seen or merely passed.