NCL Shore Excursions - why so limited?

[JannieAnne]

We are booked on NCL Jade back to back Western Med (Dec 24 2010) then Eastern Med (Jan 2 2011). NCL's shore excursions seem to be very limited at the moment e.g. nothing at all for Casablanca, Agadir, Las Palmas, Funchal, Malaga and Valletta and only the very expensive overnight Luxor/Cairo for Alexandria. Rome, Athens and Ephesus are the only ports with several excursions from which to choose. I am wondering

a) is it because it is a winter cruise?

b) are they still working on them and yet to be posted?

c) are they already fully booked?

My main concern is booking something for Alexandria/Cairo.

Any light on this would be appreciated.

[Sauer-kraut]

You can do Valetta on your own, even making a trip to Mdina without guides.

 

I would go with an NCL excursion in Egypt only because of garauntee that if its running late the ship eill wait.

 

Check out the ports of call boards for ideas on what to see.

[Fishbait17]

I am guessing they aren't all posted yet.. We have done both legs on the Jade and had several choices from each port, including the overnight in Casablanca/Agadir to Marrakech. I don't believe they are overbooked either, as we were able to book any of them last minute over this past holiday (for the Eastern Med) and for the Canary Island side as well (March 2009), even to the point that they were giving away a free excursion in Malaga when you booked the Marrakech overnight. If it makes you feel better, I have only recently been able to see the excursions for our Norway/Iceland itinerary in Sept of this year.

 

BTW, we did all private excursions on both cruises except for the overnight to Marrakech, which was only possible thru the ship's tour.

 

Robin

[Wingtips56]

We are booked on NCL Jade back to back Western Med (Dec 24 2010) then Eastern Med (Jan 2 2011). NCL's shore excursions seem to be very limited at the moment e.g. nothing at all for Casablanca, Agadir, Las Palmas, Funchal, Malaga and Valletta and only the very expensive overnight Luxor/Cairo for Alexandria. Rome, Athens and Ephesus are the only ports with several excursions from which to choose. I am wondering

a) is it because it is a winter cruise?

b) are they still working on them and yet to be posted?

c) are they already fully booked?

My main concern is booking something for Alexandria/Cairo.

Any light on this would be appreciated.

 

 

It could be all of the above, although not likely they are all booked up.

 

It's probably a bit early for many, as those are probably tour contracts renegotiated annually. Some excursions could indeed be seasonal, and not operate in the rainy season or something. The day of the week you're going to be there might also make a difference. Pretend-book a cruise leaving sooner and see what excursions they've got. There were lots of choices for our cruise for everything except Alexandria (read on).

 

We did the same B2B trip ourselves in 2009. We had just done an 11-day tour of Egypt from Cairo all the way south to Abu Simbel (fantastic!!!), flying from Cairo to Barcelona on the same day as sailing, so we just decided to stay in Alexandria rather than do the 12-hours bus trip back to Cairo and the pyramids of Giza. The problem with Alexandria is there just simply isn't much of interest. The new library was great, huge and impressive, but shhhh... it's a library. There is nothing really of ancient Egypt left in Alexandria. And the city tour was back and forth along the waterfront, varing from crumbling stucco buildings to marvelous new hotels and things you can't go into. The grandeur of ancient Alexandria is either underwater still, or gone. And it's a long way from anything else. We decided to pass on the battlefield of El alemain, which was the only non-Cairo out of town trip. It's just sand and graves from what I heard, but I could be wrong.

 

So if you've not been to Cairo before, go now and don't put it off for another time, just in case there isn't another. And spend the bucks to do the overnight excursion, as we talked to people who did just the day trip and were disappointed with the ratio of bus time to site seeing time. And they didn't get to see a whole lot because it was so far. The Cairo Museum, while incredibly tightly packed pending a replacement opening out by the Pyramids at Giza, and the Pyramids themselves are a highlight you have to see at least once in your life ....especially before suburbia finishes enclosing the pyramids and the Sphinx. If you go and don't feel like doing the seriously claustrophobic crawl into one of the pyramids, take that time to visit the ancient boat that was dug up at the site, reassembled and on view inside a really ugly building at the foot of one of the others.

 

Funchal may be in flux at the moment, as there were bad storms that did a lot of damage to Madeira. It's a gorgeous garden island if that hasn't been trashed, so wait and see what comes up. The sled ride down the hill was hysterical!

 

Las Palmas. There were all kinds of tours available, many involved long rides around the island (Gran Canaria), four-wheeling, etc. Many people did the beaches.

 

Malaga - most people take the tours from their to Granada, home to the magnificent Alhambra. Do that if you haven't been. We had, so we stayed closer to Malaga and took a caverns tour.

 

We did the overnight tour of Marakech from Casablanca (catching back up to the ship at Agadir prior to sailing). It was pricey, perhaps a little much, but we certainly enjoyed it, and there is nothing of interest to spend a day in Agadir for. It's all new and boring since being wiped out in the 1960's. We heard the ruined casbah trip from Agadir was uninteresting. Most people just spent the day on the beach if they hadn't gone to Marakesh.

 

Valletta had all kinds of excursions available when we went. We did the 3 cities harbor boat trip, with an all to brief walking tour of central Valletta. Valletta is a little gem of a city and pretty enough just to climb up the steps from the pier to the central square overlooking the whole thing. I wished that had been a longer stop.

 

Note that when we boarded the Jade, there were a number of new excurions printed that hadn't been on the website.

 

One other thing... we didn't get to Athens, diverting instead to Nafplion on the peninsula, since Athens was completely shut down by a general strike. Nothing was going to be open, no transportation of any kind, no dockworkers, etc. We at least had 2 days notice on that, so they did roll out some alternate excursions from the new port. We enjoyed a trip that included ancient Corinth, the Corinth Canal and ancient Mycene. With Ephesus, we really didn't miss Athens at all. NCL of course refunded any missed Athenian shore excursions .. those who booked independently were out of luck...and fuming... ...at NCL of course, who was not at fault.

 

Life is short... just roll with it and drink in the best you can find.

[NMLady]

Since that cruise is still 8 months away, I'd say the answer is b -- they are still posting them. I'd think that by this summer there will be more tours posted, and then even more in the months following.

 

We have a Caribbean cruise in mid-October that is just now putting up som more excursions and that is two months before yours. So, be patient and check again in another month or more.

[Micchi]

I've heard that most excursions aren't finalized - and may not be posted - until six months before a cruise.

[Turtles06]

We are booked on NCL Jade back to back Western Med (Dec 24 2010) then Eastern Med (Jan 2 2011). NCL's shore excursions seem to be very limited at the moment e.g. nothing at all for Casablanca, Agadir, Las Palmas, Funchal, Malaga and Valletta and only the very expensive overnight Luxor/Cairo for Alexandria. Rome, Athens and Ephesus are the only ports with several excursions from which to choose. I am wondering

a) is it because it is a winter cruise?

b) are they still working on them and yet to be posted?

c) are they already fully booked?

My main concern is booking something for Alexandria/Cairo.

Any light on this would be appreciated.

 

We were on the Jade 12-day Med cruise in January. There were a ton of NCL excursions for every port; I'm guessing it may be too early for your sailing for them all to be posted.

 

You have plenty of time; I'd suggest that if you haven't already done so, you really check out the Ports of Call section of CC. You'll find many reviews for reputable private tour operators, including for an overnight in Cairo. They will be a lot cheaper than the ship's tours and you won't spend a ton of time waiting for 40 or so people to get on an off a bus, repeatedly. I think the ship sponsored tours should be subtitled: pay more, see less. (But I do understand that for some pax, the comfort level of knowing "the ship will wait" is important, and I am not being critical of that at all. Just want to be sure you know there are alternatives.)

 

In Ephesus, the regular, large group ship's tours won't get you inside the Terrace Houses, which are really a "must see." Only a private tour (or, I think, a "small" NCL tour which costs much, much more than using a private tour operator).

 

Valletta, btw, is very easy to do yourself. You can walk right into town from the dock (steep uphill), or take a cab or a bus.

 

Whatever you decide to do, have a wonderful trip!

[JannieAnne]

Thank you all for your informative responses. I would probably prefer to book a ship's excursion in ports such as Egypt and Morocco purely to ease the stress as we are newbies to these lands. But of course cost IS a factor! So I will sit back and wait to see what comes up for these areas and start researching on the ports I know we can do ourselves.

[garycarla]

Visit the roll call for your cruise, along with the PORTS OF CALL message boards. You will find out about other options.

[DMH15]

Wingtips56-

 

I just want to say thank you for your contributions. With this thread and others, particularly the volcano threads, you have written long and detailed posts. Thanks for taking the time to do so.

[JannieAnne]

Yes DMH15, I also very much enjoy Wingtips56 contributions. Very informative and a calm voice of reason during difficult times.

[RINGBEARER]

JannieAnne

Hi

just saw your post for your cruise, we are doing back to back also but we start on 2nd Jan 2011.

have you looked at roll call for 2nd Jan cruise??

we have signed up on that roll call.

we are doing private tours in the ports if interested in joining us let me know I will send you some info. (Athens, Izmir, Alexandria)

there are 3 of us mum (70's) her partner (80's) me (40's)

thanks

Gayle

[sandrasherm]

My husband and I will be on the Jan. 2nd Jade. We would be interested in joining up for some private tours.

 

Hopefully, you will be able to respond to me through this link!

Sandra

[Clay Clayton]

We did Jade's 12 night Athens to Istanbul via Aleaxandria cruise in April/May 2008. Some thoughts:

 

-we did private tours everywhere at much less cost and much greater flexiblity than through NCL. This included Cairo. We made it a day trip - a long day as we stayed to see sunset - really not as magnificient as I had hoped, the sun does't set behind the pyramids....anyway, from what I could tell, in most cases the overnight added a nile cruise or the Son et Luminaire, neither of which we were interested in. So we saved the hotel cost.

 

-agree with the previous poster regarding Alexandria - we did what DDP came to call the death march :eek:from the ship to the library. We took a cab back. :D

 

-your best source of private tour info are the port of call boards and your rollcall - if there is one, join it, if there isn't, then start one. We met wonderful people on our roll call who we hooked up for private tours and are still in touch with some of them today - in fact, one couple was just down last weekend for dinner and to see our 'round the horn pictures before they leave for their Manchu Pichu adventure in November.