cccruisin

I’ve sailed numerous times on celebrity and many other lines. Will not make a long list but celebrity is for sure not what it once was.

Avoid celebrity. Not what it once was.

Besides many issues like entertainment one worse than the other.

Tender in Shetland islands 2 hours to get off ship. Get very little time in port because not enough tenders.

Using 2 80 passenger tenders to get almost 3000 off the ship.

Stupid dump awful.

Have tenderd many ports pri

Princess, Cunard and others never such a stupid ridiculous experience.

Any line is better than Celebrity!!!!!

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Jet came back from day tour in Manta with SOS Manta tours. The worst ever . Have had cruise critic group tours all over the world and this was by far the worst.

Started they didn't pay to park with other tour companies and police wouldn't let us board. After 1 hour delay had to cross street and vans met us.

We formed a group of 8 and they added 2. As getting on vans they added 3 more.

Got to fishing village late. Boats were long gone.

Rain forest a dangerous 1 1/2 hour hike.

Took us to some govt museum after saying we were 10 min from hat factory.

Then took us to shop in hat store. When asked about demo guide said oh factory closed today.

Guide only spoke when we asked questions. Told us nothing. He was talking to driver and had radio on whole time.

This is the second time I have used Stephen from Best Cruises. Both times we docked at Phu My for the day. The first time I arranged a tour for 6 of us to go to HCMC. The second time (because the first tour was so good) I arranged a tour for 35 people. This time we visited Vang Tau. Everybody raved about the tour.

 

I find this company to be very professional, reliable and willing to go the extra mile. Stephen is very efficient in organising a tour to suit your individual needs.

 

The bus was ready waiting for us when we docked, and it was the best bus on the wharf. It had disco lights and a good sound system which rocked us along on our way back to the ship! Our tour guide was very knowledgable and I would not hesitate recommending Best Cruises to anyone for anything you need in Vietnam.

 

What a fabulous company to deal with.

Thank you for the heads up. Stephen seems very accommodating but to get specific details in writing is worse then pulling teeth. He keeps saying dont worry. Our tours are flexible for our clients feel happy!! I can always count on a laugh from his emails. Carryn

Has anyone used Best Cruises in Vietnam - Stephen. We contacted him for a Halong Bay junk cruise and he has proposed doing all our Vietnam tours. Any info would be appreciated. Thank you Caryn

Hi

 

We have just returned from the S E Asia cruise on Millennium. We used Stefan to arrange a day tour to Hanoi from Halong Bay as well as the 1/2 day junk trip on Halong Bay. He also arranged an overnight tour to Saigon for us visiting the chu Chi tunnels on day 1 & seeing the sights in Saigon on day 2. All tours were great & good value. We would definately use him again. We formed small groups for each toiur via the CC thread & everyone was happy with their choices.

I have been communicating with both tour companies and at this point I am very confused. Did anyone tour with both, Best Cruises (Stephen) and Smile Tours (Thi) and can recommend one or the other. Appreciate any input.

Busybean - One more question - what hotel did you stay at? Did Best Cruises supply it? His website says you overnight at one of two hotels, one is awful and one is wonderful. He says its out of date anyway. Waiting to see what hotel he includes in our tour..... Thanx for all your input.... Caryn

Hi

 

We have just returned from the S E Asia cruise on Millennium. We used Stefan to arrange a day tour to Hanoi from Halong Bay as well as the 1/2 day junk trip on Halong Bay. He also arranged an overnight tour to Saigon for us visiting the chu Chi tunnels on day 1 & seeing the sights in Saigon on day 2. All tours were great & good value. We would definately use him again. We formed small groups for each toiur via the CC thread & everyone was happy with their choices.

Thank you for the heads up. Just waiting on specified details from him. Originally requested a quote for 1/2 day Halong Bay cruise from him and with the response he suggested some other port tours as he had our whole itinerary on file...

Anyone use Best Cruises for other ports besides Halong Bay??contacted him for junk on the bay and he came back suggesting some very interesting tours for Saigon and Hanoi also. Appreciate any feedback.....

Hi! We are two south florida usa couples sailing the british isles cruise on the QM2 in Sept. interested in whats to see and do in Liverpool. Any recommendation of private tour guides, any special beatles sights to see. Open for your expert opinion. Thanx Caryn

Has anyone used Nile Blue Tours to tour the pyramids, etc. in Egypt? We are thinking about booking them for a private tout. Thanks for your input!

 

Heather

We used Nile Blue privately from the same sailing as the big 3 bus group. Our guide was good and our trip very enjoyable but the company gave all it's effort to the big group and the small private groups were more of a filler. We had NO security, the first day the guide had 3 water bottles for 3 persons from there on we were on our own, any attempt to alter a sight was an annoyance and unexpected traffic seemed to anger the Nile Blue owner, Ghada. It was definitely a good experience but I might look into other companies more experienced with private tours.

Just returned from tuor with Nile Blue. They were ok. The owners were very busy on a large group from our sailing and private groups became third class citizens. The tour guide and driver were good but appeared to have not followed the itinerary order I was given. The first day we seemed to see less then expected and the second day traffic became an issue. Ghada (the owners wife)upon communicating with our guide became curt and unprofessional. It appeared it was her guides errors that caused the issues. I would consider checking with other companies before booking Nile Blue....

We just returned from our Oceania cruise and we used Ephesus Deluxe for our tour to Ephesus and surrounding highlights. Our guide for Ephesus was Akol and she was wonderful. We also used the same company for a Best of Istanbul tour the following day and again they were wonderful. They have a great price if you are doing both cities. We even had some individuals who did one day but not the other and they were given price discounts based on our numbers as well. They were great in organzing everything, especially as our numbers kept increasing once we got on the ship and news of our tour spread. We chose which sites we wanted to see and when the ship was an hour early into port and cut our time down, they made adjustments to ensure we saw everything we wanted.

We are booked with Ephesus Deluxe in December - glad to hear you were so pleased with their services. Looking forward...

I understand that the Jade Dec 12 has over 100 people booked with Nile Blue privately. Just another option from Ramses.

I'm booking romeinlimo for some of my pre-cruise time in Rome, thanks to the many accolades here on CC. My questions:

1-They are suggesting an 8 hour tour with a driver, and a guide for the Vatican. Do we need a guide for other sites? Or is the driver usually knowledgeable enough to provide info?

2-Have you ever just gotten a guide at the Vatican rather than scheduled one in advance? If so, how did that work out? Did you still have to stand in line for tickets? Can you just visit the "church" on your own without tickets? (I obviously have lots more research to do! I visited Rome years ago, but I was on a tour and they took care of everything.)

3-Do you tip on top of the fee for the driver, or is it included?

 

4- Not a romeinlimo question, but has anyone ever done a day trip from Rome to Pompeii? Is that possible?

 

Thanks in advance for answers to my questions!

We have done Rome to Pompeii twice. It usually includes Naples and is a very long day. If I am not mistaken there is some option with Capri also, have never done that., next time. Have a great trip!!

last year we did great tour in st pete others mostly on our own - did tour in vasa museum and blue room both in sweden, estonia, helesinki, oslo we remember almost nothing ecept noble peace museum in oslo was awful and a waste of $$. this year we have booked either private or up to group of 8 in every port we are visiting - barc-rome-ephesus-greece-cairo. found using hop on hop off and rick steves you really remembered nothing once you got home.