Crown Princess: Caribbean Exursions, to book or not

[I_heart_vaca]

My BFF and I are booked on the Crown Princess Western Caribbean, March 2012 (Happy birthday to us!). We have read all about the great excursions this itineray offers and wanted to get some advice from the seasoned cruisers here...other than price are there any real pros and cons to booking the excursions with the cruise line vs on our own?

 

I have already read a lot of the message threads here on booking tours, but they seem to focus on price and I just want to know that if price were not an issue (same trip, same price) who would you book with?

 

FYI: This will be my first cruise, BFF's second, and first trip to most of the ports for both. We are, however, both event planners, so handling logistics is what we do!

 

thanks:D

[CruiserBruce]

My BFF and I are booked on the Crown Princess Western Caribbean, March 2012 (Happy birthday to us!). We have read all about the great excursions this itineray offers and wanted to get some advice from the seasoned cruisers here...other than price are there any real pros and cons to booking the excursions with the cruise line vs on our own? On our own.

 

I have already read a lot of the message threads here on booking tours, but they seem to focus on price and I just want to know that if price were not an issue (same trip, same price) who would you book with? Private tours

 

thanks:D

 

All that being said, the Caribbean is probably not the hot bed of private tours. Europe and Asia are. Most tours in the Caribbean are short and focused on one or two items.

 

If money is no object, we would always go private. There are many issues with the "jam you and your new 40-50 best friends on a bus" scenario that just turn many people off.

[cb at sea]

What is it that interests you? So many things in the Caribbean are so easy to do on your own....so give us more info!!!!

[I_heart_vaca]

OK..more info...we are not 'shoppers' or 'foodies' so we don't care about bar-hopping or stores and souviners. We So far this is what we are looking at:

 

Grand Cayman: defietly want to see the stingrays. Can't decide between one of the ship tours which include boat rides or a local tour with waverunner - which we love.

 

Belize: We want to visit the ruins. It looks like its an all day trip (7.5hrs) - This is the only one we are set on using the ship for, so we don't get left.

 

Roatan: thinking of zip-line or visiting the park to play with the monkeys

 

Cozumel: This is our beach day...we are thinking of doing a private beach (Naci-Cocom). We will def. do this one on our own.

 

Since we know what we want to do, I am just wondering if there is a compelling reason to book with Princess. As I said the fat that's its a little more would be ok if it were a better experience or had better access, etc.

 

Any advice or experiences with tours welcome. Thanks!

[johneeo]

OK..more info...we are not 'shoppers' or 'foodies' so we don't care about bar-hopping or stores and souviners. We So far this is what we are looking at:

 

Grand Cayman: defietly want to see the stingrays. Can't decide between one of the ship tours which include boat rides or a local tour with waverunner - which we love.

 

Belize: We want to visit the ruins. It looks like its an all day trip (7.5hrs) - This is the only one we are set on using the ship for, so we don't get left.

 

Roatan: thinking of zip-line or visiting the park to play with the monkeys

 

Cozumel: This is our beach day...we are thinking of doing a private beach (Naci-Cocom). We will def. do this one on our own.

 

Since we know what we want to do, I am just wondering if there is a compelling reason to book with Princess. As I said the fat that's its a little more would be ok if it were a better experience or had better access, etc.

 

Any advice or experiences with tours welcome. Thanks!

 

You will get many good ideas from the Port Of Call threads for each island.

[KirkNC]

Price is a big part but one thing I don't like about ships excursions is the cattle call atmosphere. Usually it involves a large bus with lots of slow people that mill around and take forever to do anything. I prefer smaller groups.

 

Kirk

[Coolmama_1]

Most people book private to either save money or fine tune the excursion to their own needs. In a private excursion, you are usually the only group with a driver and can tailor the excursion to what you want to do etc. On a ship sponsored excursion, you will be with a large group.

 

The main reason for a ship sponsored excursion is that you will not get left behind if van breaks down or ferry is late returning ( ex Cozumel going over to mainland) Every time we have been in Cozumel, it seems the ship is waiting for a group to return. One time it was us. We were 45 minutes late getting back to ship. On our cruise in Feb, there were almost 300 people on several tours that we waited almost 1.5 hours to return

 

We do a combinnation of both. Also, if you are interested in ruins, Tulum is a great tour from Cozumel.

You can zipline right at the port in Roatan and the beach there is nice as well.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[FawnRiver]

Thus far, we have booked excursions through the ship or just done some shopping near the port (or getting lost, like we did in Philipsburg, St. Maarten :eek:).

 

We've never been in a really large group on a ship run excursion, but we don't do the 'sit on a bus and get driven around' tours, so it can depend on what you're looking to do. We usually do the snorkeling tours, so they don't get too large.

 

I like the ship excursions because they may cost a few dollars more (or not, some I've researched and to go privately would cost about the same) and you don't have to worry about the logistics. I do some of that for clients at my office and its nice to let someone else worry about the details when I'm on vacation. Plus, you can book at the last moment if necessary. After we got lost at St. Maarten, we decided to book something for our next stop in St. Thomas and we did that at 10pm the night before.

[I_heart_vaca]

Thanks everyone. I am reading all the Ports of Call threads to get more ideas. I have time, so my friend and I will sort thru and do some research - no hardship there. Research and planning are part of the fun for us.

[Sheffie]

OK..more info...we are not 'shoppers' or 'foodies' so we don't care about bar-hopping or stores and souviners. We So far this is what we are looking at:

 

Grand Cayman: defietly want to see the stingrays. Can't decide between one of the ship tours which include boat rides or a local tour with waverunner - which we love.Definitely book through a private operator for this port. You don't have to worry so much about the timing getting back to the ship as you can see SRC from the decks of the ship. Just schedule it so you will be back on the pier about 1/2 hour or more before you are supposed to, and you will STILL probably have to wait in line for a tender.

 

Belize: We want to visit the ruins. It looks like its an all day trip (7.5hrs) - This is the only one we are set on using the ship for, so we don't get left. Good reasoning for booking this one through the ship.

 

Roatan: thinking of zip-line or visiting the park to play with the monkeys

 

Cozumel: This is our beach day...we are thinking of doing a private beach (Naci-Cocom). We will def. do this one on our own. We did this beach day last year. It was great. That time of the year the water in the pool and at the beach should be nice and warm.

 

Since we know what we want to do, I am just wondering if there is a compelling reason to book with Princess. As I said the fat that's its a little more would be ok if it were a better experience or had better access, etc.

 

Any advice or experiences with tours welcome. Thanks!

 

Be sure to check out the adults-only pool on the back of the ship.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[Geordie2]

Hi we have just booked this cruise . We have never done a western caribbean cruise or a princess before so really looking forward to reading all the tips about the ports of

call. Jacqui