I first discovered Joe Banana while searching for the best rate for a roundtrip transfer from our cruise port in Livorno to the city of Florence. Since we’re not huge art people, we didn’t want to join standard Florence in full tour. There were places we wanted to hit that other tours didn’t go to so I figured a transfer would be the best bet. I made the tour sharing group on Joe Banana’s website about 2 months before our sail date. A few weeks before the sail date, it started filling up. I wasn’t sure if it was because I cross-posted it on two Roll Calls on CruiseCritic or if the website listing just worked. We shared the tour with two couples, totaling to 7 people in the van. We paid about 80€ per person for a roundtrip transfer to Florence. Our driver met us at the gangway and drove is to Florence – it was a relatively relaxing ride. The van was very clean and water was provided for each of us. Our driver actually gave us the option of stopping off at Piazzale Michelangelo, a hill on the south bank of the Arno River, just east of the center of Florence. It’s not included in the tour so props to our driver for offering it to us as an option. He dropped us off at Piazza della Repubblica and told us to meet back there 6 hours later for transfer back to Livorno. He was on time to meet us – at exactly the right place. He got us back to Livorno on time – early in fact! All in all, a very successful booking with Joe Banana and I will definitely book with them again in the future.

Booked through cruise critic, 8 of us shared the car for the day. The lovely lady had us away from the ship early, which made up early into Florence, giving us time visit the Basilica of Santa Croce where Michelangelo is interred, along with several other famous people, to walk the streets, take our time seeing the statue of David and spend a little time in the market over the lunch break. This was a very worthwhile tour, and I would highly recommend this as a way to see this lovely city.