Shore Excursions

If an excursion is listed as "closed", is there likely a chance to get tickets onboard or is it more than likely no longer an option?

We kind of put this off till the last minute and we are debating the unlimited package but it may not be worth it if we can't do the ones we really wanted.

Also, how do we even book the package? It seems from online that I can only book a la carte.

You can ask once onboard to be put on the list sometimes people will cancel the tour or O may add another bus

I think once you put in all the tours you want & go to check out it will calculate the package price ..I am just guessing

we rarely do the ship's tour

i am sure someone will know how they work

It's funny, I haven't done ship excursions in years but I'm just not feeling up to researching independent tours at this time. I recognize that means paying a premium, but I was rather hoping that O's excursions would be better and smaller than the big ships and so that might level it out a bit.

Pick the tours you want online. In the cart, you'll see the "retail" price, the "passport" price (including the passport basic cost associated with your cruise) and the discount "your world" price (based on minimum # tours required for your cruise).

Amazingly, the "cart" figures it out (including subtracting the cost of the most expensive ones for as many as you get if you picked excursions perk for O Life).

If you take excursions for O Life, make sure that the average cost per tour is less than $100 after the 25% Your World discount.

Select the cheapest way to do it and proceed.

Note that the value of any O Life Tour, if canceled by Oceania, is $100.

It's funny, I haven't done ship excursions in years but I'm just not feeling up to researching independent tours at this time. I recognize that means paying a premium, but I was rather hoping that O's excursions would be better and smaller than the big ships and so that might level it out a bit.

Well actually they contract with the same companies as the mass market lines. But due to the amount of passengers, depending on which ship you're on they may not be as many people on your tour.

Since the onset of oLife tours we've done more ship's tours than we did in the past. Most of the time they were smaller groups than we remembered ... but on our 15 day Riviera cruise this past May, the four ship's tours we took were quite crowded. (Full-sized buses, not smaller ones.)

Still, the tours were good.

Mura

Thank you for the quick replies!

We didn't take the shore excursion perk because silly me thinking I never book shore excursions and now wanting to :P Probably cost a few dollars but it is what it is. I think we might try to do Bermuda on our own but will pick excursions for the other ports.

I'm a little sad to see the special ones seemed gone so far but maybe we will get lucky onboard. If not, hopefully these ones will be good too.

Thank you for the quick replies!

 

We didn't take the shore excursion perk because silly me thinking I never book shore excursions and now wanting to :P Probably cost a few dollars but it is what it is. I think we might try to do Bermuda on our own but will pick excursions for the other ports.

 

.

Bermuda you can DIY or share a taxi with some on your roll call I think the tour rate was $50 per hour but just ask the driver

You can also take the bus or the Ferry for a reasonable fee

Very true. But when we were there in October 2016 we hired a "private guide" who is a taxi driver off-season. He did a great job and the price was fine. He was waiting for us when we finally got off the ship, which might not be true if you are just looking for a cab.

Email me if you want his info. As I recall there WERE plenty of cabs waiting off-ship to pick up possible tourists. It can just be more convenient to order someone who is waiting FOR you.

Mura

A note on shore ex from O. Many places, like in the South Pacific there are simply not enough resources to supply the ships passengers. O simply uses up all the available resources and the option of doing it your self is impossible or next to impossible

The Caribbean on the other hand is, at every port a giant shopping mall of vendors. Alaska too.

Many Med ports are this way as well

.

Plan in advance, its always possible to book a bunch of shore ex when you first can, and then , If you can, get replacements from non O tours and cancel your O booked tours. That way you have some insurance you will not get shut out.

A note on shore ex from O. Many places, like in the South Pacific there are simply not enough resources to supply the ships passengers. O simply uses up all the available resources and the option of doing it your self is impossible or next to impossible

The Caribbean on the other hand is, at every port a giant shopping mall of vendors. Alaska too.

Many Med ports are this way as well

.

Plan in advance, its always possible to book a bunch of shore ex when you first can, and then , If you can, get replacements from non O tours and cancel your O booked tours. That way you have some insurance you will not get shut out.

A corollary to this is that what you find dockside may not be worth the money or risk. On a South Pacific cruise we thought we might take one of the dockside snorkel tours we were told would be available- until we saw what was there. One look at the under-maintained, over-filled boat killed that idea. When you have grown up around boats, you know better than to take that chance.

Thank you for the quick replies!

 

We didn't take the shore excursion perk because silly me thinking I never book shore excursions and now wanting to :P Probably cost a few dollars but it is what it is. I think we might try to do Bermuda on our own but will pick excursions for the other ports.

 

I'm a little sad to see the special ones seemed gone so far but maybe we will get lucky onboard. If not, hopefully these ones will be good too.

Tom (of Tom’s Port Guides) did all the research for you. Here is a link to a post on my roll call for a later sailing with the same itinerary:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=55991301&postcount=6

I messed up the Bar Harbor link in the post.. here it is:

http://www.tomsportguides.com/uploads/5/8/5/4/58547429/barharbormaine-08-21-2013.pdf

Also, on further research there has been a shuttle in Boston in the past.

A note on shore ex from O. Many places, like in the South Pacific there are simply not enough resources to supply the ships passengers. O simply uses up all the available resources and the option of doing it your self is impossible or next to impossible

The Caribbean on the other hand is, at every port a giant shopping mall of vendors. Alaska too.

Many Med ports are this way as well

.

Plan in advance, its always possible to book a bunch of shore ex when you first can, and then , If you can, get replacements from non O tours and cancel your O booked tours. That way you have some insurance you will not get shut out.

We haven't found that to be true with the few stops we have on our Pacific Serenade cruise in January. Private excursions were easily arranged on Easter Island, Bora Bora, Fakarava and Raiatea. And of course, Moorea and Tahiti are easy to do on your own. I'm sure there are less visited islands where there may be issues but that hasn't been the case for these ports.

A corollary to this is that what you find dockside may not be worth the money or risk. On a South Pacific cruise we thought we might take one of the dockside snorkel tours we were told would be available- until we saw what was there. One look at the under-maintained, over-filled boat killed that idea. When you have grown up around boats, you know better than to take that chance.

For future reference:

In Bora Bora, contact Patrick at Maohi Nui.

For Easter Island, it's Marcus at Easter Island Travel.

Both will need to be booked MANY months in advance. Google them and you'll see why.

Agreed, after doing my research those two (and a few others) had consistently good recommendations across multiple sources.

Certain ports are fine to wing it, others aren't. If you don't have the time or interest in doing trip research that's when the ship provided tours are invaluable.

For future reference:

In Bora Bora, contact Patrick at Maohi Nui.

For Easter Island, it's Marcus at Easter Island Travel.

Both will need to be booked MANY months in advance. Google them and you'll see why.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

Newbie question. When you look at the excursions, will it tell you the time it leaves? Do any of the 3-4 hour ones leave in the afternoon?

Venice to Rome Sirena May 29, 2019

When you look at the schedule (I assume you are talking ship's tours) it does show departure time and duration -- although sometimes that can change. Not dramatically!

As to "do any 3-4 tours leave in the afternoon", sometimes they do. We had that on our recent Riviera cruise. But you really need to check the listings for your cruise. They may not be available yet for a May 2019 cruise. I know they aren't for our April 2019 cruise.

To give you an idea, try looking for similar ports leaving sooner and see what they show. That can often give you an idea of what is available.

Just don't take them as written in stone!

Mura

Mura, thank you. I looked at a similar itinerary next month. I see all the excursions and how long they are, but I don't see anything about what time. Where does it show what time it leaves?

TY

Whenever I go to the excursion list, it definitely shows the departure time and duration. I'm surprised you don't see that. On our recent cruise where there were two tours a day (they were usually 3 hours or less in duration) -- one in the morning, one in the afternoon.

But it DOES seem to me that usually there is one a day and it probably leaves in the morning ... it really can depend on your itinerary. FWIW, where we had two tours a day we were on a very port intensive 7 day cruise. I don't know if that is a factor or not.

Can you send me a link to the page you are looking at?

Mura

Mura, thank you. I looked at a similar itinerary next month. I see all the excursions and how long they are, but I don't see anything about what time. Where does it show what time it leaves?

TY

AFAIK it only shows the time when you look at your booked cruise

I could be wrong

AFAIK it only show the time when you look at your booked cruise

 

 

 

I could be wrong

You are correct.

Times, different prices (YWYW, Passport...), are visible when you look at your BOOKED cruises.

Maybe we aren't talking about the same things.

When I go to see the listed excursions I always make my own list and cut-paste it to Word Perfect.

To do that I have to click on the link that says something like "more details". Or you just click on the tour name itself. That is when you see the COMPLETE description of the tour and get the time and duration, tour I.D., etc.

Are you just looking at the brief information you first see?

Mura

Maybe we aren't talking about the same things.

 

 

 

 

 

When I go to see the listed excursions I always make my own list and cut-paste it to Word Perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

To do that I have to click on the link that says something like "more details". Or you just click on the tour name itself. That is when you see the COMPLETE description of the tour and get the time and duration, tour I.D., etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Are you just looking at the brief information you first see?

 

 

 

 

 

Mura

See my earlier post: no need to "cut and paste". O will send you a PDF of all tours on your cruise. I use it for marginal notes, comparisons etc.

But do they have the pdf available for a cruise in May 2019? Personally I prefer to cut-and-paste because I edit as I go and I set it up the way I want. I also can set the text larger so that I can READ it, which I don't find so easy with pdfs. Of course, when I was in my 20s this wasn't a problem ...

Mura

But do they have the pdf available for a cruise in May 2019? Personally I prefer to cut-and-paste because I edit as I go and I set it up the way I want. I also can set the text larger so that I can READ it, which I don't find so easy with pdfs. Of course, when I was in my 20s this wasn't a problem ...

 

 

 

 

 

Mura

They usually have the PDFs six months out. I use a Mac and open it in Preview. I could probably also open it in Word for Mac (or on a PC). I then immediately save it from Preview (or Word) as a DOC, which allows me to edit it down to those tours in which I am interested (or set it up any other way I like).

Often, on a longer cruise, the DOC may be 30 pages +\- before I edit down to about 10 double sided pages.

Of course, the further out you get the PDF, there's always a chance that more tours will be added in the months to come. But, the same is true of the website.