Hi Andrew,
I returned from this tour just a couple of weeks ago (April 17 sailing date). The ship was obviously new and quite nice. The housekeeping staff and dining staff were on top of their games, and the shows each evening were quite good. The breakfast and lunch foods left something to be desired, though the evening meals were well done.
As for the land excursions, I found the tours and tour guides in Turkey to be the best. Ancient Ephesus and Istanbul were very interesting and picturesque. The archaeology museum in Ephesus is small, but has some interesting exhibits. In Istanbul, the four big sites are the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia (museum/former mosque), Topkopi Palace, and the Grand Bazaar.
Although everyone has his/her own interests, I found my Athens and Ancient Olympia tours in Greece to be the most boring. This was, in part, due to the guide. I "lucked" out and had the same one for both. If you are not dying to know everything ever written about Greek mythology, well...you might get more than you bargained for. Instead of having lengthy dissertations at each stop (sometimes every 50 feet or so), I would have preferred the two minute summary and then time to explore and take photos. My Athens tour included Cape Sounion. While this location provides a picturesque vista overlooking the sea, with yet another Greek ruin atop the hill, it is a full 1 1/2 hour drive from Athens and I did not feel it was worth the 3-hour round trip just for a few more pretty pictures...especially when one considers that you'll almost surely hit rush hour traffic on your return.
By the way, I did enjoy Rhodes. It was interesting just watching as we pulled into port there (and Istanbul too). I took a tour called Beautiful Lindos. This took us to a town about 45 minutes to an hour (?) away. It was very picturesque on the coast and we saw probably the most interesting of the Greek ruins, in my estimation, of those I visited. Also, on the way back to the ship, we stopped at one of the remaining six ceramics factories on the island. They gave us a brief demonstration and the artistry there was very nice, indeed.
In Italy, if you've never been there before, you'll certainly want to go to Pompeii. It was very crowded on my tour, but is still one of those must see places. I decided not to do the obvious tours (Florence and Pisa) at the Livorno port of call and, instead, took one of the new tours to Lerici and Portovenere. These are two small towns across a bay from each other. They don't have any terribly famous landmarks, although there is a castle in Lerici (where we had lunch) and some 15th century buildings among the interesting architecture in Portovenere. I loved this tour just for the photographic potential and the relaxing afternoon. It was a bit farther north than Tuscany, but not a lot.
As for Rome, please take advantage of the before the cruise or after cruise opportunities to arrange your own good tour here. There is so much to see and the pre-planned Carnival tour I took was awful. It was called Highlights of Rome and Regular Vatican. There is way too much to go into about how that tour transpired, but my suggestion is to arrange your own land tour in this interesting city with so many landmarks and sites of interest. Also, be forewarned, the Vatican line (at least on my day there) was horrendously long and the facility closed before our tour got to the front of the line after almost 2 1/2 hours of waiting.
If you are interested, here is a link to my online photo gallery from the trip. I hope you are able to access it. http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?&mode=fromsite&collid=203849820108.591201678108.1179419761170&conn_speed=1
Sorry this is so long, but I'm trying to be helpful. Best wishes for your upcoming cruise. I hope it will be everything you want it to be.
Karen