Who takes the cruise line excursions?

[shipgeeks]

Then there is the option of doing neither a ship excursion nor a local company's excursion. Just walk around the port. We usually try to read up on each place a bit, in advance, and then just have a look from the deck, and go. We've never wished that we had done a tour instead. In places like St. Maarten, you can walk to a gorgeous beach in about 15 minutes. In San Juan the ship is most likely right at Old Town and the walk along the shore. And so on.

[joespin]

We have arranged private tours in every port for both of our cruises, except for St. Maarten. We wanted to do the America's Cup Regatta Race, which was an absolute blast, but Carnival had contracted with them and they could not privately book any Carnival cruiser. I am finding that more and more, especially with Carnival. I have been pricing and planning a Southern Caribbean cruise as well as our Bermuda cruise next summer, and have found 2 other excursions that cannot book cruise passengers--they must book through the ship. Frustrating!

 

Why do you have to tell the tour operator that you're on Carnival?

[essgee_ca]

A lot of posters on this thread talked about how the price is cheaper. In the Caribbean, I agree. However, Alaska it is not cheaper to do a private excursion vs the ship excursions. In some cases it is more expensive! I don't know about Europe/Asia/Australia etc.

What I have learned from experience is that the private tours are usually smaller and more personal. I have done about half and half (private and ship's excursions). The ship's excursions seem to be big groups of 20-30 or more. All of the private excursions I've been on have been 5 - 12 people. We really get to know our tour guides and they are quite happy to make a detour or change in the plans to accomodate the passengers.

For example we used Peat Taylor (I think that was his name - it's been awhile) in Ocho Rios and there were about 10 of us. We went to Dunn's River Falls. We were the first group there which made the climb more relaxing. After Dunn's River Falls, we went through the rain forest, up into the Blue Mountain area and even stopped at a primary school (several teachers were in the group) Then Peat took us wherever we wanted to go, restaurants, back to the ship and back out again, shopping etc. We saw a lot more of Ocho Rios than did our table-mates who did a ship excursion.

In Alaska we used F.I.S.H.E.S. to go whale watching in Icy Strait Point. There were 5 of us plus the boat pilot. We passed a ship's excursion boat. There had to be 100 people on it.

That said, I did a ship's tour to Stingray City and it was fabulous. It was my first cruise and I didn't know any better, but lovely all the same despite there by 30-40 people.

Do your research, and look into private excursions. However, don't forget that the ship does offer some nice excursions.

[kitty9]

For more exotic locales, I usually take the ship's tours. For example, I could not see going it alone in Vietnam, Cambodia or Myanmar. For Europe and Caribbean cruises, I either book a private tour or just go it on my own.

[STARFISH*4]

we do half and half but lately more ship excursions...i think it depends on your port, time in port, tendering; have noticed on our last cruises that there are alot of passengers taking the ships tours and alot more taking the ones after to the airports.

[ShebaGingerMax]

So if I book a private tour, and my itinerary says that the ship will arrive at 8am, what is a safe time to book my tour for? Is 8am when the ship actually arrives in port or is that when debarking begins? Also, how long before the ship is scheduled to leave should we be back on board?

[Cruisin' Chick]

So if I book a private tour, and my itinerary says that the ship will arrive at 8am, what is a safe time to book my tour for? Is 8am when the ship actually arrives in port or is that when debarking begins? Also, how long before the ship is scheduled to leave should we be back on board?

 

The time that is listed is the estimated time for the ship to arrive. But then there's often paperwork that the bridge deals with the port master on. Once the ship is cleared, there could already be a line to leave the ship (often it doesn't take too much time, but if you're behind a lot of passengers who are futzing around with looking for where they put their cabin card, which is required for leaving the ship...). And if it's a tender port, when you're anchored away from the pier, those with morning ship-sponsored excursions (as well as those with special privileges such as elite status) will get first priority to board the tenders.

 

So definitely don't book a 8am tour if that's the time your ship is arriving. Tell any excursion operators the name of your ship just in case the ship can't make it into that port (which happens) so you don't get charged for an excursion you can't make (make sure of any cancellation policy). Often a tour operator will advise you if you can make one of their tours.

 

Personally for my family, I'm the port researcher. I'll read the guide books and look up the website for each port. Then we'll pick some places to sightsee or shop on our own (we don't do active excursions like ziplining anyway). But we don't go too far from the port, and we doubly check our watches against ship time and take the ship's newsletter for that day with us.

 

The few times we do excursions, we have found we prefer the ship excursions as a whole. Just turns out that way.

[paul929207]

So if I book a private tour, and my itinerary says that the ship will arrive at 8am, what is a safe time to book my tour for? Is 8am when the ship actually arrives in port or is that when debarking begins? Also, how long before the ship is scheduled to leave should we be back on board?

It is usually about 30 minutes after the sceduled time that you will be getting off the ship. If you have a private tour, the guide will be aware of this and wait.

[kitty9]

So if I book a private tour, and my itinerary says that the ship will arrive at 8am, what is a safe time to book my tour for? Is 8am when the ship actually arrives in port or is that when debarking begins? Also, how long before the ship is scheduled to leave should we be back on board?

 

If you're in a tender port, it could take longer to leave the ship. Those with ship's tours get the first tenders and then those with priority tender tickets.

 

If it's a docked port, you should be on board 30 minutes prior to the posted sailing time. If a tender port, the last tender can leave 45 minutes before departure time. Look at your daily newsletter for return times.

[jnc411]

We have been cruising for a number of years, and have done both the ships tours and organized our own tours with other tour companys, and on our own. It just depends on what port we are in , what country, how long our ship will be in port, and most important what we want to see while we are there. We have found some ships tours to be very good and enjoyed them. Do the research on the port before you decide, so much information available on CC and other internet sites. And the people on CC are for the most part very helpful in answering questions as well.

Cori

[romnan]

For the most part we have relied on the Cruise Lines for shore excursions,but have begun to steer away and do things on our own. I do use CC as my main resource and I have never been disappointed:)

[beachchick]

We have arranged private tours in every port for both of our cruises, except for St. Maarten. We wanted to do the America's Cup Regatta Race, which was an absolute blast, but Carnival had contracted with them and they could not privately book any Carnival cruiser. I am finding that more and more, especially with Carnival. I have been pricing and planning a Southern Caribbean cruise as well as our Bermuda cruise next summer, and have found 2 other excursions that cannot book cruise passengers--they must book through the ship. Frustrating!

 

I hear this often and my response is that they may have contracted with Carnival, but they and Carnival have not contracted with me in deciding how and when and with whom I will book my excursions. As far as I'm concerned, Carnival has no right to make that kind of contract "for" me without my consent. If Carnival wants to buy out the entire excursion, then fine. They would own all the tickets and could re-sell them to their passengers only. But Carnival (and any cruise line) has no business trying to force me to use their excursion service for an activity that the general public can still book. To be blunt, we would lie and say we are not cruise passengers.

 

Why do you have to tell the tour operator that you're on Carnival?

 

Exactly! We don't have to tell the excursion company anything except our names, contact information (cell phone works for us), and credit card number (if required).

 

depends on how reliable that you believe the tours providers to be. If you are late returning from a private tour, the ship may not be there. If you are later getting back on a cruiseline provided excursion, they will wait for the tour to get back. They will not wait if you get off the bus or tour that is provided by the cruiseline and are late getting back.

 

The truth is that ships will almost always wait as long as possible. In most cases, it's not a problem and the delay is usually not that long, but in others the ship cannot remain in port. There are fines and overages for being in port overtime; there are other ships/boats scheduled to arrive and which are slated for that dock; there are all the other passengers onboard who can reasonably expect that, for example, the captain will not hold the ship for 10 hours (an extreme example to be sure) so that the next port would be missed. If a ship excursion is late returning and the captain has not been able to hold the ship, the cruise line will arrange and pay for passengers to meet up with the ship at the next port or ASAP. If a non-ship excursion is late and the ship has departed, passengers must make arrangements on their own (sometimes with cruise line port agents to assist) and at their own expense.

 

 

My impression from a months reading and participating in these boards is that Cruise Critic members lean to privately arranged shore excursions. My observation from just five cruises is that most cruisers stick with the offerings of the cruise line. Anybody have a handle on the actual stats?

 

I don't think anyone here, not even those who work for cruise lines, could provide accurate statistics on ship excursions versus on your own. One thing you could look at is how many passengers the ship holds and then how many slots there are on excursions at each port. For example, if you're on a ship that holds 2,500 passengers and the total number of excursions slots at port A is 1,000, then you've got a baseline.

 

In our experience, it depends somewhat on the ports involved. In Hawaii both times, most passengers we talked with and met rented cars, took public transporation, or arranged private bookings for activities. OTOH, in the eastern Med and Asia, even members here seem to lean toward ship excursions. I'm guessing it's the familiarity factor? If people feel comfortable, they're more likely to go off on their own; if they don't, they may be prefer to stick with the cruise line. I think (but am by no means certain) that there are certain ports where passengers must book through the cruise line due to strict procedures of the country involved. We're the type of people who research the places we're going to visit, land or cruise, and almost always go off on our own. We prefer to be in charge of our day.

 

We've taken a total of four ship excursions over eight cruises. One was the Trollstigen Road in Norway, which we simply could not have done on our own because it was an all day excursion that met up withn the ship at the next port up the coast. Another two were snorkel excursions in the Caribbean that were the same price regardless of how we booked, so we figured it was just as easy to book the excursion. The fourth was a city tour my mother wanted to take. It was only 3 hours, so of course we agreed to go with her. Fortunately it was on a small open air double-decker bus.

 

We do not generally like any formal excursions, ship or otherwise, because we're very independent, have traveled extensively, and don't like the "herding" and strict scheduling. However, we also think ship excursions are an excellent choice for newbie cruisers, inexperienced or nervous travelers, and really anyone who wants to do them. As far as we're concerned, it's wonderful that there are options. We really only care that all passengers have a good time and enjoy themselves. If that's on a ship excursion, great; if it's on their own, also great.

 

beachchick

[cjm66]

My rules of thumb are:

 

If the alternative independent tour is a full day with real uncertainty about traffic jams, breakdowns or other reasons for not getting back on time and you really want to do it go with the ships offering.

 

If you are on a ship with a lot of passengers all trying to get off at a tender port, book a morning tour that you realy want to do and stay on shore having beaten the "tender ticket system".

 

Otherwise Google, TripAdvisor and Cruise Critic your own way.

 

We have enjoyed the ship organised tours we have done. The best have been my snokelling trips in Tahiti ( I have promiosed not to snorkel alone) and the Taieri Gorge Train Trip (NZ) in the dining car with good company, lunch and wine.

[griffy116]

We base our decision on the port. Some of the ports have loads of options near the port where we are docked and if we are familiar with the port, we make our own reservations on our own. Some ports...Jamaica, for example, we are just more comfortable with the ship's excursions. I've seen some unreliable vehicles in some ports and if the distance is far from the pier, I don't want to chance being stranded with a broken down car and the ship sails away without me. In Hawaii, we were comfortable renting a car and going it on our own and had a great time. I think there are lots of people like us that weigh the options to make a decision but I don't think there are any statistics.

[gagal10]

We tend to do ship excursions on our 1st visit to anywhere, if we do any excursions and on subsequent trips we might drift out more if we have interest.. We aren't afraid of adventure, but have had experiences with Cruise Ship Excursions that didn't thrill us, so in a new place, so far, the Cruise Line Excursions have went where we want to go and still give us time to visit the local HRC, Margaritaville and/or Senor Frogs, buy what we want to buy and then be back on our nice, pretty balcony looking out at the gorgeous water with no one but us, which is our favorite part of cruising.. :)

[paul554]

Honestly like others have said it depends on a lot of factors. The majority of cruise going people dont read this website or usually research in depth the ports. Most of them figure the cruise ship excursions are the best deals and they enjoy the ability to preplan them before even setting foot onboard the ship. Add in that most cruise lines give you some form of OBC for booking now a days and that encourages booking things through the cruise line as well.

 

I personally dont book through the cruise line MOST of the time and do everything on my own. Alaska though is as always the exception it appears. Some excursion, such as the Tram ride in Junuea are cheaper to book throught he cruise ship! Granted its cheaper by 2 bucks a person but still, it goes to show that sometimes the cruise line prices are indeed a good deal.

[r.haywood]

went on a cruise last november to the carribean with royal carribean

never booked one trip with the cruise line one reason being when you spend anything on board they allso load the tips on top plus if you pay by credit card there will be a 3% handling charge and another fee if they convert to your currency.

ifound that if you walk straight out of the docks past the mass of sellers at the gate you will find idividual with thier own transport who are willing to take you on a tour,

they are all insured for this work and you will find as we did you are treated as a person and not a number each tour lasted about 4hrs on each island at an average cost of

£35-00 per head we were allso taken to more places of real interest than those run by the ship,on top of this at the end of the tour we requested to be set down near a beach

which they did and for an extra £4-00 per head he returned 2hrs later to take us back to the ship being that he only took our party of four it turned out a most enjoyable trion each of the islands we visited

[melsimpress]

I think it's also pretty dependent on the port. But, it is pretty astounding to see all the cruise line sponsored tour buses that line up on each port we've been on.

 

Thanks to Cruise Critic boards, we've been booking our own tours or just go with the tour operators when we get off the ship. The only times we've booked a cruise ship tour are on tender ports where we have a scheduled departure time on the tender boats instead of trying to fight the masses trying to get off the ship.

 

Just a quick question from a 2nd time cruiser, when in a tendered port and a heap of people are booked in for a shore excursion at say 7.15am, how does that tour start on time.? Are you perhaps better off to go your own way in the morning if you can, and book an afternoon tour?

 

Cheers

Melissa

[sukismum]

We mix and match.

 

Brilliance of the Seas Mediterranean cruise 7 May 2011

 

Monaco & Monte Carlo, ship's excursion conducted by the most excellent Margaret, an English ex-pat whose knowledge of the area was second to none. Well worth the money spent!

 

Missed Florence trip by not booking in advance, too far and expensive by taxi and worried about getting back to the ship in time so make sure you book early for this one if Florence is on your itinerary.

 

Rome, took train from Civitavecchia to St Peter's square, 9 euros return each, open top city bus tour 13 euros each. Have visited the Vatican before, so didn't join the mile long line to get inside. Arrived back at ship in plenty of time although it was rumoured that the ship sailed without 5 passengers who were late, the Captain actually waited 30 minutes over sailing time for them.

 

Athens, ship's excursion - Acropolis and city tour. Very well conducted, not too rushed, gave us oldies pleny of time to have a good look around the Acropolis.

 

Kusudasi, took a taxi from the port to Ephesus and wandered around at our leisure. Taxi 35 euros each way, have to watch the entrance fee, Turkish liras only. Turkey is not in the Eurozone and touts were changing euros for Turkish lira at inflated exchange rates. If you go on ship's excursion, the entrance fee is included in the price. We enjoyed this trip on our own.

 

Santorini, again, went under our own steam, very enjoyable few hours looking around this pretty island.

 

Salerno, took ship's tour of Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii. The boat ride to Capri was quite rough and we only had just under an hour to look around the main town area. The guide took us to a park which was boring, I would have preferred to visit the very up-market shops, just to look mind. We left the conducted tour early and sat in the main square with an excellent coffee and people watched.

 

Another boat trip to Sorrento, short ride and this is a nice place to visit except we were taken on the obligatory tour of a furnture making facility, would rather have had a good look around the town. Had lunch here, which was much better than the meal we were provided with on our last organised tour in Italy.

 

Coach to Pompeii, again taken first to a commercial enterprise which cut short the time to visit the actual site and we were rushed from one area of the ruins to the next. Exhausted by the time we got back on the coach which took us back to Salerno and the ship. Couldn't have been more ready for a nice cuppa.

 

Barcelona, didn't have time to sightsee due to early flight home, but again the open top buses are excellent value. You can get on and off at any stop and there are about 5 different tours around the city.

 

Just one tip, if you book the ship's excursions before leaving home, you pay in your local currency and it is cheaper than booking on board ship

[sukismum]

Then there is the option of doing neither a ship excursion nor a local company's excursion. Just walk around the port. We usually try to read up on each place a bit, in advance, and then just have a look from the deck, and go. We've never wished that we had done a tour instead. In places like St. Maarten, you can walk to a gorgeous beach in about 15 minutes. In San Juan the ship is most likely right at Old Town and the walk along the shore. And so on.

 

Love St Maarten town beach, in 2002 it wasn't gentrified, sat near small beach shack, cold drinks on tap from the guy hiring out the jet ski's, husband went off for an hour on one and I just reclined on a sunbed supplied by my friend, the vendor. Bliss!!

 

It's still nice now the promenade and bars have been installed but Mary the fruit seller has gone from THE Marvin Gaye boardwalk

[Zambini]

Unless it's a very close port time and there is a question if we will get back on time from an independent (rare) we don't take the cruise line excursions and haven't for years.

[Nature Cruiser]

It all depends. I do the research and then carefully check times. We take ship excursions when a full day is involved and there is any possible chance of not getting back on time. We did actually miss the last tender once when we had trouble with our rental car - never again. When it is a big city, it is always cheaper and usually just as easy to go with a local operator. In the Falklands we found ourselves on the same tour with our ship mates who paid more than twice what we did for the trip. One can book local tours in advance as well. In more remote places, smaller ports or places where some serious driving is required I stick to the ship excursions. I never want to be standing on the dock again wondering what my options are.

[bedfordmom]

We base our decision on the port. Some of the ports have loads of options near the port where we are docked and if we are familiar with the port, we make our own reservations on our own. Some ports...Jamaica, for example, we are just more comfortable with the ship's excursions. I've seen some unreliable vehicles in some ports and if the distance is far from the pier, I don't want to chance being stranded with a broken down car and the ship sails away without me. In Hawaii, we were comfortable renting a car and going it on our own and had a great time. I think there are lots of people like us that weigh the options to make a decision but I don't think there are any statistics.

 

On our first couple of cruises we either did the ships excursion or port shopping. Our last cruise to the Mexican Rivera we had all independent excursions and had a blast. We agreed it was the best excursions we ever did.

 

One ship excursion that I reluctantly booked (in Semana) was due to the fact that we had alot of OBC which we wanted to use so we booked that on board. So thats another reason to book (onboard) ship excursions.

 

Another reason to book ship vs independent is the amount of danger involved. We are planning on climbing the volcano in st kitts on our next cruise and given the potential dangerousness of the climb I would prefer the ship in case of accident etc. (even though I know we would enjoy an independent much better).

 

So it depends on port, ease of getting back to ship on time; dangerousness, and personal preference and ultimately comfort level.

[DixieQuilter]

We recently returned from a Baltic cruise. We determined over a month in advance that we would need to book shore excursions in two of the ports - Warmunde/Berlin and St. Petersburg. W/B because of distance from port and St Petersburg because of visa requirement. After checking the relative costs of cruise line and private tours, we went with SPb Tours for both and both tours could not have been better. Our experience was that if you go with an established private tour company, they know exactly when you have to be back at ship and their reputation is riding on their delivering as promised. In addition we noted that SPb actually had an office in the St Petersburg port terminal building which lent credibility to their operation in my view.

[amyarizona]

We always do it ourselves but this takes the time and interest to do the research and/or put together a group.

This past Med cruise with 8 ports I put together two groups and booked one tour in advance. The first group thing did not work out well. I thought from online research we could get a taxi in Messina, Italy to take us to Taomina cheaper than the tour. But the taxis all work together and price fix so the six of us wound up with a shorter trip in a cramped taxi for the same price as the tour. Not terrible but not the best case scenario.

 

On the other hand, my private tour of Ephesus worked as planned. For the most part we beat the tour buses to the site (a good thing not only for crowds but for the heat) and had a wonderful private guide for about half the cost.

 

For the other 6 Med ports my husband and I did it ourselves with guidebooks, podcasts, and downloaded PDFs. And our table mates at dinner seemed to think we had more fun on our day than they did.

 

It is more stressful and takes more time to do-it-your-self. But it certainly works for me. I haven't taken a ship cruise for years.