Have you ever had a problem doing a non-Carnival excursion?

[katiel53]

We book our tours both ways. In Alaska, as someone mentioned, we booked the rail tour through the cruise line as the railroad said they wouldn't allow us to book on our own. Most places though, we book on our own.

 

A few things I wouldn't book on our own would be trips that took a while to get to where we wanted to go. For example, in April we went on Freedom of the Seas and were in St Thomas. My sister and I wanted to go to Trunk Bay. It was so much easier just going with the cruiseline's excursion in that it picked us up (as well as Carnival passengers) right at the port and took us there and returned us to the pier. To me, it was worth the extra money than trying to get to Red Hook, the ferry etc. etc.

 

I would also take a cruise excursion if I didn't feel safe in a port. I wouldn't go cave tubing, but if I were to do that, I think I would rather book a cruise excursion in Belize than venture out on my own. I'm just using this as an example, so please don't flame me for it.

 

I think there are lots of excursions that are far less than going with the cruise ship. Some seem like more fun than what is offered by the ship. Most times we look for excursions that are not ship affiliated, by each cruise we do research and then decide.

[Kurbanfan]

No ship excursions for us.......when we did the cave tubing in Belize a month ago the Carnival excursion was a joke....they now wear these silly little helmets and they still were not tied together:rolleyes:They didn't even get to float down the river once out of the caves or have lunch......and it was more expensive...

We booked stingray sailaway in Grand Caymans with Chip and the Carnival stingray tour was canceled due to the rain.......we had a blast! It didn't rain the whole time we swam with the stingrays......

Remember these non Carnival companies make it by word of mouth......they make sure you are back on that ship.....if not they would be out of business in a heartbeat.

[itsmebuggy]

We're cruising on the Dream in just over a week and this will be my 8th Carnival cruise. However, this time we're doing all non-Carnival excursions: cave-tubing.com in Belize, Victor Bodden's Zip and Dip in Roatan, Nachi Cocom beach resort in Cozumel, and a taxi to the beach in Majahua while in Costa Maya.

 

Has anyone ever had a problem doing a non-Carnival excursion? Did you ever miss the excursion or get left on the island because they brought you back late? I hear that Carnival gets the people on Carnival sponsor excursion off on the tender boats first. This applies in Belize. Thanks for any feedback about your experiences or the excursions that we have chosen.

 

 

we have never had an issue but I am sure that the group that came in late in St Lucia last year was glad they booked though carnival lol other wise about 30 would have been left behind lol their excursion came in 10 min's late

[homepukes]

Did a non ship three beach snorkle tour in St. Thomas. I didn't realize there was a one hour time difference from Port Canaveral. The tour company didn't mention it when I talked to them. When we got off the Dream and made our way to the tour pick up area they were not there. It took me a little bit to figure out we were an hour late. The tour had already left. They were real good and came back and got us but we missed one of the three beaches. So my only advice is double check the times.

[Raring to go]

We will do private excursions in the morning on a full day in port, but I would never do a full day or afternoon private excursion and run the risk of missing the boat. There are just too many variables. Once on Royal Caribbean we were on a full day excursion booked through the ship that had problems, and the boat sailed almost an hour late because it waited for us to arrive back at the ship.

[Kurbanfan]

So far what we are hearing is that Carnival excursions are the ones that come back late......

[bankerbabe]

Another option, as kind of a mid-way between the cruise line excursions and doing it on your own is shoretrips dot com. We used them in Grand Cayman last year, and it was cheaper than doing it through the ship, though not quite as cheap as doing it on our own through the same company.

 

What it did provide, though, was a little extra hand holding. I was confused about port vs. ship time, etc. and the staff at shore trips was very helpful.

 

So, if you need the extra help or are just not sure you feel comfortable going on your own, I would recommend them.

[bratgrr1]

On our cruise in a week, in Key West, we are doing a private parasailing at 9am and then a Carnival excursion (white knuckle thrill ride) in the afternoon. It comes back at 2pm and ship leaves at 3. But it's a Carnival excursion and I'm sure they allow time for travel back to the ship.

 

We're also doing a private horseback ride on the beach booked in Freeport. But it's our only excursion and it's at from 10-12:30 and our ship doesn't depart til 4:00 so I'm ok with that.

 

On a previous cruise we booked with H'evan Scent in Jamaica (private). Best excursion we've EVER had and was not offered through the ship. Had no problem making it back to the ship.

 

We book both through the ship and private and havent had problems.

[Carnival Platinum Cruiser]

We're cruising on the Dream in just over a week and this will be my 8th Carnival cruise. However, this time we're doing all non-Carnival excursions: cave-tubing.com in Belize, Victor Bodden's Zip and Dip in Roatan, Nachi Cocom beach resort in Cozumel, and a taxi to the beach in Majahua while in Costa Maya.

 

Has anyone ever had a problem doing a non-Carnival excursion? Did you ever miss the excursion or get left on the island because they brought you back late? I hear that Carnival gets the people on Carnival sponsor excursion off on the tender boats first. This applies in Belize. Thanks for any feedback about your experiences or the excursions that we have chosen.

 

No problems: Victor Bodden was great (zipline and island tour with beach stop)

 

Cave tubbing with Yanni @ cavetubing.com Great service although we returned only about 45 minutes before final tender in Belize but they were well aware of the time.

 

Nachi Cocum great place. Take a taxi back when you are ready to leave.

[crusinpsychRN]

We almost missed the last tender in Belize when we did cave tubing and zip line. The driver was speeding to get back to the port and joked his cousin was the Captain. We were too close for comfort.

[pjhootch]

We have only booked Carnival excursions twice and both times it was because we decided the night before we wanted to do something specific and it was impossible to find and independent tour at that point. Both of them were fine but crowded.

 

Every other excursion has been independent and set up well in advance after doing some research. We've enjoyed them because we've been on tours that averaged 10 people or less (we have 5 in our family), they were much more relaxing and personal that way.

 

We've never had a problem getting back to the port on time and have found our tour operators are very careful about keeping an eye on traffic and the time for us.

[vacruizer]

I've mostly had great experiences with private tours but did have a scare on our very first first cruise. Booked for the Stingrays and Rum Point in Grand Cayman with Nativeways, who gets rave reviews here on the boards.

 

The owners had mixed six passengers from the Miracle in with about 20 from the Valor that due to port times as well as them changing ship time and us not, essentially had two hours more in port that we did. We should have known we were in trouble when we sat at the pier chatting with the owner for over an hour past our tour time. He promised us we'd be back with at least an hour to spare to shop. No such luck. The tour itself was great, but the guides just kept telling us to relax since we were on island time. At less than an hour to our last tender, we were still out on a boat stopping to look at lizards and big houses. The other ship people weren't concerned at all since they had another two hours. We finally made it back to the bus and prayed for no traffic back to Georgetown - thankfully there wasn't any. We approached the tender pier at 5 minutes to last tender time and made the bus driver pull over and let us off instead of continuing on to the lot we left from a few more blocks down the road. We literally ran across traffic, walked on to the second to the last tender, and by the time we got up to our cabin and dropped off our bags, the ship was already pulling out early. :eek:

 

As for Carnival tours, I've done a few and have actually really enjoyed most of them. On several I've been pleasantly surprised that we were in a small group with very personal service from our guides.

[JerseyshoreBruce]

I've mostly had great experiences with private tours but did have a scare on our very first first cruise. Booked for the Stingrays and Rum Point in Grand Cayman with Nativeways, who gets rave reviews here on the boards.

 

The owners had mixed six passengers from the Miracle in with about 20 from the Valor that due to port times as well as them changing ship time and us not, essentially had two hours more in port that we did. We should have known we were in trouble when we sat at the pier chatting with the owner for over an hour past our tour time. He promised us we'd be back with at least an hour to spare to shop. No such luck. The tour itself was great, but the guides just kept telling us to relax since we were on island time. At less than an hour to our last tender, we were still out on a boat stopping to look at lizards and big houses. The other ship people weren't concerned at all since they had another two hours. We finally made it back to the bus and prayed for no traffic back to Georgetown - thankfully there wasn't any. We approached the tender pier at 5 minutes to last tender time and made the bus driver pull over and let us off instead of continuing on to the lot we left from a few more blocks down the road. We literally ran across traffic, walked on to the second to the last tender, and by the time we got up to our cabin and dropped off our bags, the ship was already pulling out early. :eek:

 

As for Carnival tours, I've done a few and have actually really enjoyed most of them. On several I've been pleasantly surprised that we were in a small group with very personal service from our guides.

WOW! I would have had gas i would have been so nervous....lol....Good thing your in good shape to run across traffic and to the pier...lol...Great post!

[cruisejunkie2]

I only book repitable private excursions only I have been on 6 cruises and I only go private! Do not book stupidly that is the name of the game. Belize Nacho and Cynthia are great! Jamaica Marva Shaw at knowjamaica etc you will NOT be disappointed hell you can use your common sense book with proper timing to get back.

[jbh7]

I just got off the Carnival Conquest last week and our biggest issue was the Carnival excursion, not the private one. We weren't cleared to leave the ship until 9:00 AM in Jamaica and were supposed to report for our excursion at 9:15. so now you had all 2000+ people trying to get off the ship at the same time. But getting off the Carnival ship was a fiasco. the first gangway was backed up so they told us to go to the other one at the front of the ship. we were backed up along the entire hallway on the 2nd deck. After 45 minutes in line, we were told we were only halfway there!! So we jumped out of line and went back to the first gangway which was now empty, but there were no Carnival employees with walkie talkies checking with each other to break up the line. There were probably about 200 to 300 people behind us still trying to get off the ship.

 

So we were 50 minutes late to the terminal for our excursion. When we asked the Carnival rep, she told us the bus was gone, the next tour was full, but she would check to see if she could get us on it, or there would be a 25% cancellation fee. I promptly informed her I was NOT paying a fee because I couldn't get off their ship. Luckily the tour representative was at the terminal and she helped us to get on another bus to go on our excursion, the Carnival rep was useless and not helpful at all.

 

The next day we tendered in Cayman and we had booked an independent tour. I will say the tender process did work well, we were at the theater about 7:20 and got on the first 'non Carnival excursion' tender that morning, so had no issue making our 9 AM excursion. The tender process actually worked better than the docking at the pier the day before.

 

Just be careful to check your time on the excursion, making sure you have time to disembark and confirm the excursion to the ship's time...

[paulandfran]

We've never had a problem either but we do allow a lot of extra time for our return to the ship. Say if we're sailing at 5:00 pm, we plan on getting back to the pier or tender by 3:00 or 3:30. Then we normally find something to do close to the ship like shopping or if there's a beach or bar within walking distance to the pier we'll hang out and have a drink or a swim. If there's nothing around we just head back and hang out at the pool. I don't like to be stuck in traffic or cut it close.

[DEBnGAB]

We've never had a problem either but we do allow a lot of extra time for our return to the ship. Say if we're sailing at 5:00 pm, we plan on getting back to the pier or tender by 3:00 or 3:30. Then we normally find something to do close to the ship like shopping or if there's a beach or bar within walking distance to the pier we'll hang out and have a drink or a swim. If there's nothing around we just head back and hang out at the pool. I don't like to be stuck in traffic or cut it close.

 

Same here...do the tour in the AM hours or the first half of the day and then give a lot of extra time to get back.

[paulandfran]

Did a non ship three beach snorkle tour in St. Thomas. I didn't realize there was a one hour time difference from Port Canaveral. The tour company didn't mention it when I talked to them. When we got off the Dream and made our way to the tour pick up area they were not there. It took me a little bit to figure out we were an hour late. The tour had already left. They were real good and came back and got us but we missed one of the three beaches. So my only advice is double check the times.

 

That's a good point. We always keep our watches on "ship time" and either my husband or I always wear a watch and we have a clip on watch thing on my tote. I make sure we always have two watches, just in case one of them stops working. We actually had that happen while swimming at Magen's Bay once. We were lazing around on our floats drinking bushwackers and every once in awhile I'd ask my husband what time it was. And he'd say it's almost 3 and I said ok, we'll leave at 3. We were quietly savoring the last bit of time on paradise. But finally I thought time can't be going this slow and I looked at my husband's watch and the second hand wasn't moving. LOL. It had stopped at 20 til 3:00. It was only like 3:30 but we hit traffic and while we made it back ok, we ended up not having time to shop. I was glad we had allowed extra time though.

[DvsDave]

I have booked all my excursions on my own... and did so in Belize.

 

Cave tubing is about an hour drive from the port and our excursion used the same caves as Carnival. The roads are a joke, I thought the driver was going back and forth to amuse us but the roads really were in that bad of condition. There was also a police road block looking for drug smugglers.

 

We got back at 4:15 and the last tender was at 4 !!! We rode back with the Carnival employees!!!

Belize did not seem to be a place you would want to be stuck in.

 

My advice is to use Carnival for this excursion.