Excursions Questions

We are taking the April 15 2018 17 day trip leaving from Ft Lauderdale. We are going to be in A30, a balcony room close to elevator. My questions are: why don't they list excursions for Cherbourg as we will be there 8:30 am till 6:30 pm? Does anyone have suggestions on what to do there? In Rotterdam we want to see the windmills but take a canal trip also as well as see some tulips, is there another tour available- not through Princess since they don't offer this all on one tour, that would allow us to do this? Also in Oslo we would like to see the Viking Museum AND the farm village. Is it possible to do this? We don't know how easy it is to book an excursion from the docking sites or how available they are. Last year we did a land and sea from Princess to Alaska so tours were only what Princess offered.

We also don't bring "fancy" clothes for "dress night" (not enough room in suitcase) so if anyone wants to join us those nights for eating somewhere else on ship or wants to join us on our independent sightseeing please let us know. Thanks and look forward to the cruise. Tyler & Phil ages 70 and very active!

From Cherbourg, we visited The Memorial in Caen and then the Normandy beaches as an excursion offered by our cruise line. I did find that there were private tour companies doing either or both of these. The Memorial was one of the best museums I've ever visited, and I was quite sad that we didn't have more time to spend there. I would have much preferred more time at the museum to the 2 hour elegant lunch we were served. But then, I would have gladly taken a protein bar and bottle of water and 2 hours more at the museum.

As to the Normandy beaches....we certainly did not need to visit all 5. One or two would have been plenty! I would have been totally happy with just The Memorial, but my daughter wanted to see the beaches. We also visited the American Cemetary--again, a site well worth a visit.

We found private tours at almost all ports simply by googling the name of the port and then "tours" or something similar. Then look up the ratings of the private tours and tour companies. There are companies that specialize in tours for ship guests, but the prices in Europe were much higher than "on our own." In Alaska, this company was great.

Tulip season is a funny thing--very short and weather dependent. On my first trip to Europe, I timed it perfectly for a visit to Keukenhof (one of the main tourist farms). Many years later, I intentionally timed a trip to do it with my family and the tulips were "late" that year so we missed them. Keukenhof is easy to do on your own by train. I'm familiar with the canal trip in Amsterdam, but placing both of those in one day is pushing it unless you have a company that will meet you at the dock and handle everything. I don't know if there are canal tours in Rotterdam--sorry. Rotterdam is very near Delft, if that is an interest.

Our travel agent also arranged some private tours for people who had booked thru that agency. Again, these were amazing and at excellent prices.

I would not recommend just getting off the ship and hoping to be able to book what you wish. However, booking in advance with a private tour company is very easy and gives many more options than those thru the ship. Most have a policy of not billing you if the ship cannot dock.

We are taking the April 15 2018 17 day trip leaving from Ft Lauderdale. We are going to be in A30, a balcony room close to elevator. My questions are: why don't they list excursions for Cherbourg as we will be there 8:30 am till 6:30 pm? Does anyone have suggestions on what to do there? In Rotterdam we want to see the windmills but take a canal trip also as well as see some tulips, is there another tour available- not through Princess since they don't offer this all on one tour, that would allow us to do this? Also in Oslo we would like to see the Viking Museum AND the farm village. Is it possible to do this? We don't know how easy it is to book an excursion from the docking sites or how available they are. Last year we did a land and sea from Princess to Alaska so tours were only what Princess offered.

We also don't bring "fancy" clothes for "dress night" (not enough room in suitcase) so if anyone wants to join us those nights for eating somewhere else on ship or wants to join us on our independent sightseeing please let us know. Thanks and look forward to the cruise. Tyler & Phil ages 70 and very active!

Have you joined the roll call for this cruise? That is the place where people meet each other on CC, share information that pertains to that cruise, and often plan to do independent shore excursions together.

Have a great cruise...loved the tulips and also the canals but canals can be done anytime of the year.

Also in Oslo we would like to see the Viking Museum AND the farm village. Is it possible to do this? We don't know how easy it is to book an excursion from the docking sites or how available they are.

If you are willing to use the excellent public transportation system in Oslo, this is very easy to do. We purchased the Oslo Pass which includes transportation and admission to many sites for a 24 hr period. We took the ferry to Bygdøy peninsula where we saw three museums. Viking Ship, Kon Tiki and Fram museums. All were worthwhile. We then took a bus directly to the Norwegian Folk Museum (i.e. farm village). After that we took a bus back to town and visited some more museums. If we were more ambitious, we could have done more.

See https://www.visitoslo.com/en/activities-and-attractions/oslo-pass/

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We also don't bring "fancy" clothes for "dress night" (not enough room in suitcase) so if anyone wants to join us those nights for eating somewhere else on ship or wants to join us on our independent sightseeing please let us know. Thanks and look forward to the cruise. Tyler & Phil ages 70 and very active!

For males all you need to wear to "formal" night is a pair of dockers and a long sleeved dress shirt. Tie and coat is not required. Some of us have gone to a short sleeved guayabera shirt and dockers without any problem. Don't be so quick about ruling out the MDR on those nights.

I want to thank everyone for their helpful advise! Not sure how to join roll call for this cruise but will look around and see. Thanks for the info on formal nights, we will give it a try, just didn't want to see people in tux and evening gowns while we were much more casual. Still looking for advice for Cherbourg, is there an "old town" section? We love wooden buildings and history.

I want to thank everyone for their helpful advise! Not sure how to join roll call for this cruise but will look around and see. Thanks for the info on formal nights, we will give it a try, just didn't want to see people in tux and evening gowns while we were much more casual. Still looking for advice for Cherbourg, is there an "old town" section? We love wooden buildings and history.

There are 2 ways to find your Roll Call

This is the 1 I like the best..Under blue banner you will see Cruise Critic>Boards - click on Boards - you will see lots of options (including Ports of Call where might find info on Cherbourg) then Click on Roll Call then Princess then the ship you are sailing on then the date of sailing.

The other way is in the blue banner click on Find Your Roll Call

Hope you find your answers.:)

Cherbourg is a beautiful ancient city, but it sustained a huge amount of damage in WWII. The Abbey was largely destroyed. Some of the forts from the war are remaining and much of the city has been rebuilt. So, you won't see a lot of old stuff in the same way you can in cities that sustained less damage. When we were there, they were working on restoring the Abbey.

The OP's cruise is part of a longer cruise that continues on the to Russia for a total of 21 days. The roll call for the Regal leaving Port Everglades on April 15, 2018 is: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2442908

We will be on the Regal Princess that leaves Fort Lauderdale on 15 April.

We did not see any Princess shore excursions for when we are in Cherbourg. We decided to book a Normandy tour with Bayeux Shuttle.

We did not see any Princess shore excursions that we liked while we are in Rotterdam. We are considering taking the express train to Amsterdam and doing our own tour. We have been to the tulip gardens and Delft, so we really don't want to return. We also might try to find a tour guide that would pick us up from the ship.

We have only been on Princess on an Alaskan cruise. I wore dockers and a long sleeve dress shirt for the formal dining night. I don't remember any tuxes and evening gowns.

We really enjoyed the Princess shore excursions that we took on our Alaskan cruise. I wish Princess would provide better shore excursions for our European cruise.