Hi all...we are doing our first cruise ever and first trip to Europe this summer. Wondering if any have taken the western Med cruise recently and if you stuck with the excursions by the ship or did you use independent companies...or winged it on your own in certain ports. Don't think it will be as easy to do independently as it would be say in the Caribbean to just get transportation once you get there since many of the sites are an hour from port. Think we will need to arrange ahead of time. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!