Cruise experts - 7 day 2025 cruise with Italian ports?

[Hereallweek]

I'm a first-time cruiser, planning to travel with a friend in Autumn 2025.

We're both keen to see a bit of Italy, but the distances involved between places are huge, so a floating hotel that moves you from A to B while you sleep sounds very attractive.

I learnt a little bit about cruising from, bizarrely, a work project, so I know about balcony vs. inside cabins, fly out the day before, get a cabin well away from noise in the the lower middle of the ship etc.

BUT, I am really struggling to find a cruise that would fit the bill:

• Budget is flexible but not top end
• Fly-cruise
• Autumn 2025
• Roughly a week long
• Ideally starting or leaving from Palma (first choice), or another Spanish or Italian port
• At least three Italian ports, ideally the pretty coastal stuff, we're less bothered about the big historic cities
• For other ports we'd prefer Spain and/or France, don't fancy Turkey and although Croatia is apparently very pretty, we're not looking for multiple stops there

Any ideas please? I don't mind if it's a budget or family-friendly cruise line as we'll be out exploring every port day. I've tried some of the search-a-cruise websites but drawn a blank so far.

Thank you!

Emma Cruises is pretty good

https://emmacruises.com/

Sorry, pressed send too soon

She is a YouTuber who has a lot of interesting and helpful videos about cruises, but she also works with travel agents to help people find a cruise that suits them

Many years ago we did a carnival cruise out of Barcelona that took in civitaceccia, Naples and Sicily among others

Have a look on Vivavoyage - we use this for booking cruises. You can search by date/destination/cruiseline/departure port.

I've currently got my eye on this one for next year - https://res.vivavoyage.co.uk/swift/cruise/package/1378322--europe---western-mediterranean---barcelona?siid=344963&lang=7

This goes from Barcelona, but there are also some from Palma with MSC which might also
fit the bill for you

You are fairly broad in your departures and ports so you could start there. Each port will have a list of ships in port on a specific date. Find which ships are in the ports you want to visit then search for that ships itinerary.

If you want to do Italy then look at Venice, Livorno or Civitavecchia (Rome) as a start or end port.

There are 000s of options so you have to narrow it down some how.

I would look at MSC cruises as they seem to have lots of itineraries starting and ending in Italy.

That looks like just our sort of thing, definitely one to investigate, thanks!

Check your cruise line for it's environmental impact first, some are horrendous.

Thanks all - the search websites recommended (which were much better than the ones I tried) have narrowed it down to a dozen options to investigate further.

once you have narrowed it down use YouTube to find reviews.

www.celebritycruises.com/destinations/mediterranean-cruises/italy-cruise

We've been with Celebrity a couple of times but not to Italy (other than final destination of Venice.

There seem to be a number of options on the link above