I'm lost when it comes to RCI Shore Excursions - Jewel of the Seas

Hi,

I'm leaving 19-Nov-2017 out of San Juan and I went to go check out the list of shore excursions for my ports:

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Basseterre, St. Kitts

St. John's, Antigua

Castries, St. Lucia

Bridgetown, Barbados

I checked out the shore excursions and not one has a review, why is booking a shore excursion with Royal a gamble?

With other cruise lines I ALWAYS looked at the reviews as thats the most important to me.

Now I have to try to find the same excursion on Viator, try to find reviews and that can take hours or days.

Incase you can recommend anything for our cruise...

We like snorkelling, hiking, adventure stuff or just exploring different beaches.

Also try look at the port of call forums:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587

Hi,

 

I'm leaving 19-Nov-2017 out of San Juan and I went to go check out the list of shore excursions for my ports:

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Basseterre, St. Kitts

St. John's, Antigua

Castries, St. Lucia

Bridgetown, Barbados

 

I checked out the shore excursions and not one has a review, why is booking a shore excursion with Royal a gamble?

With other cruise lines I ALWAYS looked at the reviews as thats the most important to me.

 

Now I have to try to find the same excursion on Viator, try to find reviews and that can take hours or days.

 

Incase you can recommend anything for our cruise...

We like snorkelling, hiking, adventure stuff or just exploring different beaches.

While there may be better excursions booked privately, I don't think you will find many really bad tours booked through the cruise line. Every one we took was pretty good when we did basically that cruise in February.

There should be some with reviews, but most on royal won't have many. Pick a few you think are interesting, then ask here and some may have done it and give some feedback.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Forums mobile app

You really don't need to book port excursions especially on this itinerary with the cruiseline...Very easy to do some research including your rollcall and book privately on your own. Why pay more and be herded in large groups :confused:

We enjoyed the private tour we booked with Glory Tours in Barbados. They picked us up right at the port terminal and our half day tour (our choice) included Harrison Caves, Bathsheba & Welchman Hall Gully ( to see the monkeys)...others in our small group (8 people total) went on to lunch and to swim with the turtles.

Hi,

 

I'm leaving 19-Nov-2017 out of San Juan and I went to go check out the list of shore excursions for my ports:

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Basseterre, St. Kitts

St. John's, Antigua

Castries, St. Lucia

Bridgetown, Barbados

 

I checked out the shore excursions and not one has a review, why is booking a shore excursion with Royal a gamble?

With other cruise lines I ALWAYS looked at the reviews as thats the most important to me.

 

Now I have to try to find the same excursion on Viator, try to find reviews and that can take hours or days.

 

Incase you can recommend anything for our cruise...

We like snorkelling, hiking, adventure stuff or just exploring different beaches.

I don't think many folks go to the RC website to review the excursions. For reviews, most folks put them here on CC or on TripAdvisor. Most RC excursions will be fine. They will be larger groups (more crowded) than the independent excursions. Have you been to any of these islands previously? If so, what did you do then? Which islands are new to you? This will help posters give you better guidance.

St Thomas= island tour if first time there, shopping downtown, lunch at Grrengos

St Kitts= Island tour if first time there, beach day at Carambola or day pass at Marriott

Antigua= lunch sail with Cool Cat, or beach/lunch at Jacque O's, or boat trip to Prickly Pear island, shopping in town....Goldsmitty jewelry is a MUST! Fish sandwich st Hemingway

St Lucia= definitely island tour if you haven't been there, sail to the Pitons, zip lining, day pass at a resort (don't just stay by cruise pier as not a lot to do right there)

Barbados= definitely a boat /snorkel trip with Silver Moon or Calabazza, or an island tour if first time there

St. Kitts - Thenford Grey's "Grand Island Tour" - highly recommended. At the tour's end - there was the option of beach or back to ship.

St. Thomas - We took the ship's excursion to St. John (since it involved sailing to and from), it was a bust, I'd not recommend it. In the "Port of Calls" forum - St. Thomas - there is a huge thread "St. John on your own" - worth checking, mostly for people who wanted a day at the beach (not us).

Barbados - we negotiated a taxi (70$ for 3 hours), wanting to see the Bathsheba, and then he took us to Harbor Lights beach for a swim.

For Antigua - we've taken a tour with Elmo Luxury Safari Tours, tailored around what we specifically wanted to see. Also highly recommended.

St. Lucia - we looked for a land and sea tour (involving one way by car and one way by boat), Spencer Ambrose didn't offer this tour for the day we were in. Ended up with James Touring - also a bust, wouldn't recommend him.

Hi,

 

I'm leaving 19-Nov-2017 out of San Juan and I went to go check out the list of shore excursions for my ports:

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Basseterre, St. Kitts

St. John's, Antigua

Castries, St. Lucia

Bridgetown, Barbados

 

I checked out the shore excursions and not one has a review, why is booking a shore excursion with Royal a gamble?

With other cruise lines I ALWAYS looked at the reviews as thats the most important to me.

Take a look at Tripadvisor...you'll be able to find reviews of the vendors there. For example, you can see reviews on the Skyride to Paradise Point and the Kontiki boat for the St Thomas port.

If you like hiking, I recommend the Mt Liamuiga volcano hike in St Kitts. The tour company RCCL uses was ok, but if you volunteer to get into Adrianne's "experienced" hiker group, be prepared to move. The guy is really informative, but even the best of us had a hard time keeping his pace. I would do that tour again without hesitation.