We sailed the first of October, 2004 and did Barcelona, Villefranche, Livorno, Rome, Naples, and Malta.

You can't ever predict the weather, but ours was not good. We missed Villefranche due to high winds (couldn't offload the tenders) and had to skip the South of France all-together. The next day we had to anchor at La Spezia and tender in instead of being able to dock in Livorno. We made Rome the next day and had perfect weather, but hit a storm that night as we headed for Naples, that had things crashing onboard the ship. When we reached Naples we couldn't get into the harbor, because a ship that got damaged in the storm was blocking the entrance.

I was later told that Mid-Sept till the end of November was their stormy season and the weather was more iffy that time of year in the Med.

For a hotel in Rome, we booked the Intercontinental Hotel at the Spanish Steps on Priceline. We knew it was the only 5 star hotel that they offered, so we pretty much knew ahead of time what we were bidding on.