Time Related Excursion Question

[BayouGirlUSA]

Hi Cruisers,

 

I have an excursion question. If the ship arrives in port (Juneau, Alaska) at 12 noon and you want to do an excursion at 12:30 (and Princess does have this time on their exursion schedule) is this possible? I am trying to book 2 excursions in Juneau and trying to figure out time restraints.

 

Any help/info is greatly appreciated!

[paul929207]

If it is a Princess shore excursion, yes, you can do the 12:30. It will go off late if the ship is late arriving. If it is a private excursion, most likely, they will wait for the ship.

 

You mention 2 excursions. Not sure what you mean. Be careful booking two very close together. The first may be late getting back. You may want to talk to the shore excursion staff about the timing if they are Princess tours.

[BayouGirlUSA]

If it is a Princess shore excursion, yes, you can do the 12:30. It will go off late if the ship is late arriving. If it is a private excursion, most likely, they will wait for the ship.

 

You mention 2 excursions. Not sure what you mean. Be careful booking two very close together. The first may be late getting back. You may want to talk to the shore excursion staff about the timing if they are Princess tours.

 

Thanks....the 2nd excursion we would like to do is an hour and 15 minutes after the end of the 1st excursion...so I think we would have enough time!

 

When you pre-reserve an excursion(s) and for some reason the excursions would not be attainable...what happens then?

[BayouGirlUSA]

If it is a Princess shore excursion, yes, you can do the 12:30. It will go off late if the ship is late arriving. If it is a private excursion, most likely, they will wait for the ship.

 

You mention 2 excursions. Not sure what you mean. Be careful booking two very close together. The first may be late getting back. You may want to talk to the shore excursion staff about the timing if they are Princess tours.

 

Yes, I forgot to add, these excursions would be Princess Excursions...since this is our first cruise, we have decided not to do any private excursions.

[paul929207]

Princess shore excursions are available for reservations about 75 to 90 days before boarding. Occasionally they are available 120 days before and other times not until 60 days.

[DrivesLikeMario]

Thanks....the 2nd excursion we would like to do is an hour and 15 minutes after the end of the 1st excursion...so I think we would have enough time!

 

When you pre-reserve an excursion(s) and for some reason the excursions would not be attainable...what happens then?

 

It depends on when you cancel. If you wait until that day of the tour to cancel, you lose the money.

 

I will not book 2 tours on the same day unless I'm really, really sure they'll be on time. In my experience, they rarely ever are on time, even when you tell them you need them to be. Just be cautious.

 

Time moves at a different pace in other parts of the world. We like to call "ish" time - i.e. - "The tour ends at 1pm" actually means "The tour ends at 1pm-ish" or: whenever they feel like ending it, the people all get back onboard the bus/train/tour boat, and it makes it through traffic and back to the ship. We've had tours that were anywhere from 15 mins. late to over 3 hrs. late getting back to the ship.

[janina]

If it is a Princess excursion at 12:30pm than no problems. :)

[bluenoser2]

I'm usually the one who "goes with the flow" and lets my hubby do the booking of excursions by what he'd like (if hubby's happy, we're all happy....). But after our first cruise, I made him promise that no matter HOW GOOD the excursions looked, he would NEVER EVER book 2 excursions in one day, even if they looked like we "could make it". I was never so grumpy as the 2 days we attempted (and "succeeded") in completing both excursions. There was nothing wrong with the tours, I just was overloaded and .... well, hungry, if that's possible on a cruise!

[anharley]

I have done two excursions in a day in multiple ports both on my own and others booked back to back with the cruise line. I have never ran into any problems as long as I scheduled them at least 30 minutes apart.

 

With that being said, I found this on directly on Princesses website under their shore excursion Faqs.

 

Multiple Excursions in One Port

 

Allow at least 60 minutes between each tour. All tours depart from, and return to, the cruise ship pier. By scheduling in this manner, you will have sufficient time to take multiple tours.

[caribill]

When you pre-reserve an excursion(s) and for some reason the excursions would not be attainable...what happens then?

 

Not sure what you mean by "not be attainable".

 

a) If you mean there are no spots left to reserve, then you can be placed on the waitlist

 

b) If you mean the excursion gets cancelled by Princess, it means you will not be charged for it

 

c) If it means you reached port too late, then if it is cancelled by Princess you will not be charged for it.

 

By the way, with Princess you will not be charged for the excursions before the cruise. The cost will be put on your shipboard account.

 

Also, for each port there will be a deadline for cancelling without gettiung charged. It is usually about 2 days before that port.

 

Also, you are smart to book the excursions you want online as the popular ones will most likely be sold out by the time you board the ship.

 

The tickets for the excursions you book before the cruise will be in your cabin the day you embark, either when you arrive or later that day.

[Cruisin' Chick]

More things to be aware of:

1) sometimes the time of the excursions may change. That happened on our Hawaii cruise with one excursion we had booked. But we dropped that one anyway (we also booked a similar one at the same location because we weren't sure which one we would do...both ended up being at the same time to combine everyone on the same bus). So check out your tickets that first day to make sure that didn't happen, especially if you had booked two cruises. I don't think the computer will care that you have overlapping excursions.

2) sometimes the time in port will change too. So if you plan to do some sightseeing on your own or shopping, you'll want time to do that.

[phabric]

My sister booked 2 excursions (island tour around 9 and snorkling at 1 ) in St Martin. On the island tour, with passengers getting on/off bus for the sights, half way around the island, she decided to take a taxi back to port for the afternoon excursion. She missed the pm excursion. She went to the excursion desk and was refunded her money.

[BayouGirlUSA]

Not sure what you mean by "not be attainable".

 

a) If you mean there are no spots left to reserve, then you can be placed on the waitlist

 

b) If you mean the excursion gets cancelled by Princess, it means you will not be charged for it

 

c) If it means you reached port too late, then if it is cancelled by Princess you will not be charged for it.

 

By the way, with Princess you will not be charged for the excursions before the cruise. The cost will be put on your shipboard account.

 

Also, for each port there will be a deadline for cancelling without gettiung charged. It is usually about 2 days before that port.

 

Also, you are smart to book the excursions you want online as the popular ones will most likely be sold out by the time you board the ship.

 

The tickets for the excursions you book before the cruise will be in your cabin the day you embark, either when you arrive or later that day.

 

What I meant by "may not be attainable" when booking excursions in advance, you "think" you may have it all figured out especially when trying to do 2 excursions in one port...I was just wondering if you Pre-reserved 2 excursions in one port and there was no way that it could happen...what would Princess do? But I think you may have answered that question for me in your above post! Thanks!