3 nights, La Valletta to Civitavecchia (Rome)

Three nights, four ports, no sea days. This sailing on EXPLORA II runs short and dense, from Valletta to Civitavecchia by way of Tunis and Palermo, and it asks you to move quickly through four very different cultures. Valletta is a walkable grid of honey-limestone streets inside bastion walls, holding Caravaggio's largest painting in St John's Co-Cathedral, which I'd time for the start of the day before tour groups bunch up in that one small oratory. La Goulette opens onto ancient Carthage and the blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said, though Carthage is a scattered zone where a driver or guided tour, not the train, is the difference between seeing it and spending the day connecting the pieces. Palermo docks a short walk from the cathedral and three street markets, where you eat arancine and panelle standing up at the vendors, not sitting down where cruisers get overcharged.

This rewards a traveler who likes a fast, port-heavy pace and wants range over depth: Knights-era Malta, North African antiquity, and layered Sicily in one short run. Skip it if you want unhurried sea days or a single region to settle into. Note too that Civitavecchia is Rome's gateway, not Rome, and the FL5 regional line carries the real day, so budget for that gateway rather than expecting the port town itself.

EXPLORA II is all-suite and all-oceanfront.