Naples to Amalfi Private Tour Recommendations

[Seasands]

Finally pulled the trigger and just booked our first Mediterranean cruise! Doing the 8 night out of Rome. Most of the Naples Port Adventures are only doing a part of the day in Amalfi but my wife and I would like to spend the full day. Any recommendations on private tours would be great!

 

[Anjiebaby]

In 2015 we went on a Med Cruise as a family with 2 teens. WE booked Joe Banana Limos for 3 of our stops.
From Livorno to Lucca and Cinque Terre. From the Port to Rome with a guided tour around Rome. From Sorrento up the Amalfi Coast to Positano then a privatte tour of Pompeii. All three private tours were fantastic.
The drivers were great. The Rome driver even had WIFI in his beautiful Mercedes SUV. They all took us to interesting sites and pre-booked tickets to things like the Coliseum. We conversed by email and set out some highlights we wanted to hit and the drivers worked out the other interesting things along the way. Would definitely recommend them.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

We used Driver in Rome for our excursion out of Naples. You can also check out Tours by Locals.

The thing you need to remember about local tour guides in Italy (especially Driver in Rome) is that most will want Euros the day of the tour, at least with my experience. You can use a credit card, but they charge a hefty percentage for the privilege. Tours by Locals uses a consolidated website where you can pay in US dollars with a credit card before you even leave home. They also offer insurance, as an add on if you want, in case you can't make the tour. i.e. Covid.

 

[brentm77]

Good call. You can't go wrong spending the day exploring the Amalfi Coast. It was one of the best ports on our cruise. We loved it so much that we just booked another cruise with a stop there in 2024.

We used SimplyAmalf. I have mixed feelings about recommending it. From what I later determined, I think it is one guy doing the tours and not a company. His communication left a lot be be desired. When we went to meet him, we wasted nearly an hour of the day because he didn't communicate well and nobody answered the phone when we called the "company." It was a stressful way to start the day, as I thought we would be scrambling to find alternatives. We eventually figured it out. For your reference, unless you book the private tour through Disney, you will turn left as you get off the ship and walk all the way to the end of the pier and through the gates. Don't be fooled by the many Disney-booked private tours waiting as you walk off the ship.

The pros were that he was a local and lived in Amalfi. He was funny, energetic, and sang songs as we drove (unfortunately, his play list was limited to about 10 songs, so it got very repetitive). He knew locals well, and was able to drive us very far into Positano to park, greatly reducing walking distance to get down to the beach compared to where many tours were being dropped off. He did several stops along the way for great lookouts, and always seemed to know someone who would let us park to get a better look at the view. He knew the coast inside and out and didn't let us down at all for seeing fantastic sites in an efficient manner.

The other downside was his English was lacking enough that communication was an issue. We had specifically laid out what we wanted, which was essentially to spend many hours in Positano for a nice lunch and time by the beach, maybe seeing a little more of the coast, and then back to the ship. We expected Positano to be our main destination. What happened instead was an extensive tour of the Amalfi coast. It left only 1.5 hours in Positano, and also stressed us a bit, because he wasn't communicating that the way home would be over the mountain instead of back up the coast, shaving off a lot of time and traffic. On the other hand, we got to see more than expected and Ravello, which wasn't even on our radar, but is a must-see stop in my opinion.

In the end, we had a fantastic day. Almost certainly better than what we had thought we wanted. But, it added some stress not knowing what he was doing or how long it would take. And it is hard to recommend a company that didn't communicate well and didn't do what we had asked. But again, we really liked him as a person and had fun. I would consider him as an option if you want a local with lots of knowledge and don't mind him deciding what and when you will do stuff along the tour.

 

[ILikeWaffles]

I used ToursbyLocals when I took a trip to Italy in 2019. It was a wonderful tour, easily one of the best things that we did while we were in Italy.

 

[gstdog]

Back in 2019. We used Tours of Amalfi Coast to book a private driver for an 8-hour tour. I loved them! If you want to see a detailed review, I wrote it up in my trip report: https://www.disboards.com/threads/a...5-8-completed-july-2019.3759435/post-60843558

 

[Drbutters56]

We used joe banana. This time we might just walk in Naples city proper since the ship is closed

 

[cschaaf]

We did an Italy trip last summer and worked with Pina Esposito (https://www.privateguide.com/en/pina/) for transportation and tours.

We flew into Naples and had Pina arrange a driver to pick us up, take us to a pizza place, then to the Archaeological Museum and wait for us. From there, he took us to Vesuvius, then to our hotel in Pompei. I think it was about 3 days before our trip that we decided to add Vesuvius and she was able to make it happen without issue.

The next day, she arranged a driver to pick us up at our hotel and take us to Pompeii, lunch, and Herculaneum. Pina was our guide for the full day - including at lunch where she made recommendations and showed us how to eat pizza like a local. Pina really shined in Pompeii and Herculaneum. She's very passionate about the ruins, has studied them in her degree programs, and knew how to avoid the crowds (if she saw a crowd headed to where we were going next, she'd encourage us to 'seize the day, andiamo' and walk a bit faster to get in front of them. )

The next day, she arranged a driver to take us through the Amalfi area. Unfortunately, she had a family emergency and couldn't join us, but she worked with one of her local guide friends and he joined us for the day instead.

Finally, she arranged a driver to take us from hour hotel in Pompei to our hotel in Rome.

I found her in the Rick Steves Italy book and she came highly recommended from the Rick Steves world.

Her communication is extremely detailed - some of her mails are a good 5 minute read. Her English was perfect. The drivers struggled with English, but when Pina wasn't with us, we could still communicate with them through very basic words in English or Italian, using hand signals and charades, Google Translate, or, in two situations, the driver called Pina to get her help translating.

Her tours are private, so that comes at a price. We had a group of 4, so the price difference wasn't too bad. Having the private tour allowed us to do whatever we wanted when we wanted to do it.

 

[Pens Fan]

We used https://www.lovelyamalfitours.com/ in 2019. Marco was our driver and he was fantastic. We drove down the Amalfi coast stopping in Positano and Sorrento. We mentioned we wanted to buy some limoncello but wanted to avoid the touristy places. He suggested we make an impromptu stop at an olive oil farm outside of Sorrento that also sold limoncello. He called ahead and arranged an olive oil production demonstration and tasting for us. It was so much fun and I still order most of my olive oils from them. We stopped at Pompei in the afternoon where the company had arranged a private guide for us (which I highly recommend).

All in all it was a great day!