One Day In Naples, Italy With A Family On A Cruise

Naples, Italy is a major cruise port that's known for two main things: the gateway to the Amalfi Coast (for cruisers) and Pompeii. 

We enjoyed a full day in Naples on our cruise stop, and our family decided to focus on Pompeii. We also wanted to explore Naples a bit and get some good food! 

Here's our trip report and what we found.

Overall Naples, Italy Impressions

Naples felt more industrial than I expected, but so do most port areas. However, the area around the port is very walkable and the town square is just a quick walk away (and it's surrounded by good food). It's important to note that there isn't a lot of share in Naples - so plan appropriately in the summer.

Most people on our cruise were either doing a trip to the Amalfi Coast, or going to Pompeii. To set expectations, Pompeii is a quick 25-30 minute bus ride, but the Amalfi coast is a day trip. 

If you're planning the Amalfi Coast, plan to be in a bus for 8 hours with the first stop 1-2 hours away. It's a trek. In fact, traffic delayed several busses in the afternoon - luckily they booked through the cruise line and the ship waited.

Our family went to Pompeii, and it was one of our highlights for the entire trip to Europe. It was our kids' favorite place to see, and it was so immersive in what ancient likely was like, it was just fantastic. I highly recommend stopping at Pompeii with your family.

Trip Background

We visited Naples in mid-August while on a cruise on the Norwegian Escape. Our cruise docked at the secondary Naples Dock, which is a longer 10 minute walk from the city center, but nothing too crazy.

We were traveling with the family - two adults and two kids. We focused on Pompeii as our main excursion, and booked it directly via Viator. We found the price to be a fraction of the cost versus the cruise line, and we couldn't have been happier. Our tour included transportation via bus from the ship to Pompeii, a guided tour with an archaeologist, time to shop, and a bus ride back to the ship. It only ended up being about $30 per person for this!

Things To Do In Naples With Family

Here are some of the things that we recommend to do as a family with younger children in Naples, Italy:

Pompeii 

We did a guided Pompeii Tour and we highly recommend it. Check out this link for the booking. We took a bus directly from our cruise ship to the archaeological site, and headed in.

Our guide provided us with wireless headphones so we could hear him speak as we wandered the ruins. The tour itself was 4 hours, with about 2 hours inside the park.

Here's a glimpse of some of what we saw:

We started just outside the smaller Pompeii Theater, and were able to walk on the bottom and up the stairs. I'll remind you this was August and it was hot, and shade was a premium! 

We then went up and down a few streets, which were simply impressive. Then we were able to go inside one of the Roman villas. Honestly, my wife and I both said we could totally see ourselves living in a house like this! Romans had taste in design. It was impressive.

Check out the tile work of this mosaic! You couldn't get this made today!

We ended our tour in the Forum. Off to the right is where the "bodies" are. These are plaster casts of remains that were found. My wife and I were concerned about the kids seeing these, but honestly, they were find and very curious about it. I think it's important to share things like this.

Overall, we loved seeing Pompeii and I personally could spend much more time here. We didn't even get to the museum where many of the artifacts are kept.

Dining

One of our goals for Naples was to find a good pizza place! We were a bit disappointed in Italian pizza after Livorno, so this was a high priority. We asked our guide for his favorite pizza place, and it didn't let us down.

We got off the bus and walked over to Vincenzo Capuano vivere di pizza é maraviglioso. We each got our own pizza (honestly, we didn't need that much food but we all wanted to try something). And it was phenomenal.

If you're looking for good pizza in Naples, check it out:

Explore

There's a lot to explore outside the cruise ship terminal and around the main plaza. When you dock, you immediately see the Castel Nuovo, which you can enter and tour.

Walking past that (and towards pizza), take a turn into the Galleria Umberto and check out the amazing windows and light. It's pretty impressive.

Just walking around the main plaza are lots of shops and historical sites. It's incredibly walkable and you're only a 10 minute walk back to the ship. Just be mindful of the heat.

Final Thoughts

It was great to visit Naples as a family, and Pompeii was one of our families favorite things to see in all of Italy. 

Plus, the food was great and overall we had a fun day in Naples.