New Excursion Policy at HAL

[Typhoon1]

Yes, "cost cutting and revenue enhancement" are the orders of the day.

 

Those have been the operative words for the past few years.

[serendipity1499]

TeamBozo, Thanks for your post...We rarely take Ships tours for this very reason, however may I suggest that you write a letter to HAL in Seattle about your dissatisfaction with the tours you took..

I agree with you & others, 40-65 Psgrs on one tour is outrageous! However, unless Psgrs complain nothing will be done! HAL will continue to lose revenue from not only those of us who normally book private tours, but from more & more Psgrs, who will become fed up with these over crowded excursions..:(

BTW the Voyage of the Vikings is on our Bucket list..Are you going to do a review of your cruise?

Can't do it in 2013 because we are doing Sout Amer. & Antarctica, on HAL next year, but hopefully will be able to do it in 2014.."God willing & the Crick don't rise".

Thanks again for your post & welcome back..

Cheers....:)Betty

[serendipity1499]

CCL became the biggest cruise operator in the world for one reason: they generate profits.

 

Well if that is the case, why haven't the stockholders reaped more of those profits? ;)

CCL stock increased to over $40 a share in Oct 2010 to $47.63 on Feb 11, 2011..After Feb, 2011 it slowly decreased & has still been hovering around $30 to $35 a share all of 2012..

We were fortunate to have purchased it when it was much less.. But wish we had purchased more of it & sold it when it was high..LOL ;)

[whogo]

TeamBozo, I hope you will write excursion reviews on the HAL website, assuming HAL allows negative reviews.

[localady]

TeamBozo, I hope you will write excursion reviews on the HAL website, assuming HAL allows negative reviews.

 

HAL actually appears to be posting the negative reviews regarding shore excursions also. In looking at our upcoming excursions, some of the reviews posted on the HAL site by prior cruises are not so good. It was refreshing to see.

I actually rethought one of our excursions based on the fact so many cruisers confirmed that instead of "3 walkers" for the activity level, there should have been 5, because of the level of walking required on the tour! :eek: With DH's bad knee, I reconsidered and booked something more doable. :D

[wander]

I do not see anything new about this.

 

We have been traveling on full buses for years in some ports, depends on the port. Also, large buses (48 folks is common, I was unaware 60 passenger buses even exist). A lot depends on the specific ports you visit and the tours you take, be it on HAL, Princess or whatever. (Never have cruised on the top line ships like Silverseas.) Even on the "limited capacity" tours sometimes there are large, full busses (just one or two of them versus 7 or 8 on some tours.)

 

Is this good - not really, but it is not a change in my experience. We also do private tours, but it just depends on where one is and what one likes to do. For into the wilderness type trips or into the real countryside we are used to small vehicles whether on a private tour or HAL and we do lots of those as we mainly cruise to places where plant and animal live are priorities.

 

Big buses are a pain I agree, but sometimes we have personal reasons for sticking with HAL tours.

[DizzyDallasDi]

We were fortunate to have purchased it when it was much less.. But wish we had purchased more of it & sold it when it was high..LOL ;)

 

Ah yes....the stock market crystal ball we should all be blessed to have. :D

[vbmom87]

seemed pretty clear to me, after reading the post. the new policy is to cram as many as possible on a bus.

 

Agree, but I was responding to another poster who was confused. ;)

[vbmom87]

Skip the Ship trips. They are 2 to 3 times the cost of doing it on your own with a local guide and having a group of less than 6!

 

We booked a private guide in Turkey for $75pp, for all day all entrys and lunch.. The ship wanted $165pp for something similiar.. We met the guide at the port and were at many of the sites before anyone arrived form the ship, we departed as they arrived. So it was all day. We saw the sights before the crowd, saw 30% more stuff and were back on board by the time the first bus returned....having a Martini

 

In another port the ship wanted $2000 pp for a flight seeing. We got the same for $660pp by going direct

 

Or

In Rome, ship wanted $520 pp for a group tour, We got a private guide for $200pp, and there were just the 2 of us !!!. We went where we wanted, stayed as long as we wanted, got to the head of the line ,.

 

Like you, we prefer booking our own tours most of the time. (There were reasons on occasion that a ship's tour worked better for us) However, we have never seen the cost savings you are reporting. In fact, in Alaska last year, we actually paid more for several privately booked excursions. The main difference was we were in a much smaller group, which we enjoy. Other ship excursions were either the same price or just a little more expensive. We don't necessarily choose the private vendors because they are cheaper. We prefer the experience we are getting with them and will even pay more for it if we believe the added expense will be worth it to us.

[kazu]

Like you, we prefer booking our own tours most of the time. (There were reasons on occasion that a ship's tour worked better for us) However, we have never seen the cost savings you are reporting. In fact, in Alaska last year, we actually paid more for several privately booked excursions. The main difference was we were in a much smaller group, which we enjoy. Other ship excursions were either the same price or just a little more expensive. We don't necessarily choose the private vendors because they are cheaper. We prefer the experience we are getting with them and will even pay more for it if we believe the added expense will be worth it to us.

 

Most of my private tours have worked out to be cheaper than the ships' excursions:) but not at the savings that HawaiiDan was showing. In the Baltics, the savings can get pretty good but I'm only talking about saving maybe 25% - 40% (depends upon the euro and exchange rates as well).

 

 

Like you, we take them for the quality and the experience first - the savings is just a bonus. And yes, there were a couple in the past that might have been a tad more expensive but they were in no way comparable to the ship's tour and encompassed so much more that they were worth every penny:D

[Hawaiidan]

The figures I cited were in the past 9 months. The Rome trip for example was "Secrets Of The Vatican" at $520 or 540 pp lilited to 20 persons. We booked a local private guide, for 7 hours, which included all tickets and priority entry. Pick up at Train sta and return. The whole trip with tip ran $450 for the 2 of us !!!

 

Oh it cost us $8pp rt on the train from the port and back The ship wanted $100 pp for a transfer rt to drop you downtown Rome and pick you up 5 hours later.

 

There are times when we took ship tours,however, like when you have to tender in you get the first tender like in Santorini. there it is faster because of the trams and the 2nd anchorage move.

 

Or in Istanbuhl, we took a short cheap Ship tour for $30 4 hours and used it to get around and then left it and walked back to the ship exploring through the Bazzar.. ( and it was) for hours on our own.

 

The ship in some cases has an advantage. However, the majority of times the mark up the tour 100%. and sell not only the tour but the fear tht somehow you might never make it back to the ship ! Fear sells:eek:

[ninkb]

On our recent cruise (NA . . . eastern Med. in May) we did mostly ship tours b/c hubby didn't want to risk missing the ship in Athens or any other ports. I was hesitant for the very reasons so many have mentioned: too many people, hold ups with slow moving passengers, etc.

 

But our excursions were great! Some were small, others in the 30-40 range but we had personal headphones and could easily hear the guide. We never felt rushed, and we thoroughly enjoyed what was offered on each excursion. Some ports we chose to simply walk around on our own - and that also worked.

 

Bottom line, it's an individual decision and just because one person didn't like the tour, it doesn't mean that all HAL tours are to be avoided. Know what is best for you, and select wisely.

 

In the past, we've been on the crowded, slow tours also. But that was NOT our recent experience. I don't want readers to think that all HAL tours are going to the dogs.

 

Yes, you might put me in the category of "HAL cheerleader". We return to them again and again because we like what they offer.

[KirkNC]

As a bean counter by profession I can say we often get so focused on savings enhancments that we forget that many will react as the OP and take their excursion business elsewhere. I think HAL needs to be very careful on topics like this as well as dining room and room stewards. If the quality of the product is not there, people will go elsewhere.

[3rdGenCunarder]

The figures I cited were in the past 9 months. The Rome trip for example was "Secrets Of The Vatican" at $520 or 540 pp lilited to 20 persons. We booked a local private guide, for 7 hours, which included all tickets and priority entry. Pick up at Train sta and return. The whole trip with tip ran $450 for the 2 of us !!!

 

Oh it cost us $8pp rt on the train from the port and back The ship wanted $100 pp for a transfer rt to drop you downtown Rome and pick you up 5 hours later.

 

There are times when we took ship tours,however, like when you have to tender in you get the first tender like in Santorini. there it is faster because of the trams and the 2nd anchorage move.

 

Or in Istanbuhl, we took a short cheap Ship tour for $30 4 hours and used it to get around and then left it and walked back to the ship exploring through the Bazzar.. ( and it was) for hours on our own.

 

The ship in some cases has an advantage. However, the majority of times the mark up the tour 100%. and sell not only the tour but the fear tht somehow you might never make it back to the ship ! Fear sells:eek:

 

I find the 100% markup difficult to believe. Yes, the cruise lines have always overcharged for city transfers, like the one you mention to Rome. But where I have been able to make a direct comparison--price a tour online and compare it to the ship's tour--I've seen very little difference in price. When we were in St Kitt's, we did the Sugar Train ride. I think it cost $100 to book directly and $110 from the ship. But the ship provided bus transport to and from the train station, so there wasn't a lot of markup there. Maybe the ship didn't pay "rack rate" for the tickets, but the difference in cost to me was minimal, and if the ship made a profit because of a group rate, no big deal to me. IIRC, the Skagway train trip wasn't marked up, either.

[lalawgirl]

Have any of you experienced this problem in recent cruises?

 

Interesting point! We booked only one ship's tour on our recent Eastern Med on the Nieuw Amsterdam. Our guide and driver were great, but the group was entirely too large. (It was the waterfall national park excursion out of split). Bathroom breaks, the short walk around the waterfalls in the national park, lunch -- it all just took so long with the large group (50 or so people). With regard to the walk especially, we had several people who were not very mobile who took quite a long time to walk the route. (This tour was billed as an "active" one and advised there would be a lot of walking). It was disappointing as we missed out on a lot of the tour promised stops because of these factors.

 

I tend to book one or two "ship's" tours per cruise, but I have re-thinking this. My last cruise on Oceania had a lot to be desired in terms of the tours offered and how they actually unfolded...

 

 

I wish there was a way to learn ahead of time how many per bus will be booked for each tour!

[hammybee]

I am another who sees nothing new, here. Popular tours, especially in Europe, had full loads, 20+ years ago. Come to think of it, I do not recall being on a shore excursion with any cruise line where it was not a full house.

 

Lord knows there are more than enough seasoned small and private tour operators to choose from if one prefers a more intimate touring experience.We have not always been able to afford the experience we prefer and make do. Public transportation is always a good option, too.

[kakalina]

Those of us who do book private tours need to keep it to ourselves. When we go to Rarotonga we had a lovely snorkel tour we always booked. $50 for a BBQ and 3/4 day snorkel. Well, HAL finally found out about it and booked out the tour for the morning on our next cruise. They are charging $145.00. Same tour, same amount of time, same BBQ.

 

We were able to book it privately for our group but the times are much different and get us back to the ship much later than before.

[localady]

On our recent cruise (NA . . . eastern Med. in May) we did mostly ship tours b/c hubby didn't want to risk missing the ship in Athens or any other ports. I was hesitant for the very reasons so many have mentioned: too many people, hold ups with slow moving passengers, etc.

 

But our excursions were great! Some were small, others in the 30-40 range but we had personal headphones and could easily hear the guide. We never felt rushed, and we thoroughly enjoyed what was offered on each excursion. Some ports we chose to simply walk around on our own - and that also worked.

 

Bottom line, it's an individual decision and just because one person didn't like the tour, it doesn't mean that all HAL tours are to be avoided. Know what is best for you, and select wisely.

 

In the past, we've been on the crowded, slow tours also. But that was NOT our recent experience. I don't want readers to think that all HAL tours are going to the dogs.

 

Yes, you might put me in the category of "HAL cheerleader". We return to them again and again because we like what they offer.

 

So comforting to know that you had a positive experience on the NA Eastern Med tours. :D We have booked about half of our tours through the ship and others independently. It depends on the port, and so many other factors. :cool:

[Hawaiidan]

That some of these shore excursions have a deal with Holland America to price in accord with whar Holland America charges? The ship sets the price and the company falls in line to keep the contract.

:eek:

I think 100% in un-controlled markets is conserative.. As some report its 150% to 200%.

[3rdGenCunarder]

Interesting point! We booked only one ship's tour on our recent Eastern Med on the Nieuw Amsterdam. Our guide and driver were great, but the group was entirely too large. (It was the waterfall national park excursion out of split). Bathroom breaks, the short walk around the waterfalls in the national park, lunch -- it all just took so long with the large group (50 or so people). With regard to the walk especially, we had several people who were not very mobile who took quite a long time to walk the route. (This tour was billed as an "active" one and advised there would be a lot of walking). It was disappointing as we missed out on a lot of the tour promised stops because of these factors.

 

I tend to book one or two "ship's" tours per cruise, but I have re-thinking this. My last cruise on Oceania had a lot to be desired in terms of the tours offered and how they actually unfolded...

 

 

I wish there was a way to learn ahead of time how many per bus will be booked for each tour!

 

I think you have to expect a standard-size bus unless the description says otherwise, like "minibus" or something like that. How many will be on the bus depends on how popular the tour is, but in most cases, expect to see full or nearly full buses.

 

The sad thing is that the tour staff (packager and ship) aren't good at math. If they have 4 and 1/2 busloads of people, they tend to fill the first 4 buses and then the last bus is only half full. Why not divide the total number of people booked by the number of buses and give everyone a little breathing room?

[3rdGenCunarder]

That some of these shore excursions have a deal with Holland America to price in accord with whar Holland America charges? The ship sets the price and the company falls in line to keep the contract.

:eek:

I think 100% in un-controlled markets is conserative.. As some report its 150% to 200%.

 

So now it's a conspiracy?????????????

 

Does Oliver Stone know????????? :eek:

[MightyQuinn]

I think HAL is in full control of shorex pricing and the tour operator just accepts their terms, if they want the volume of business that HAL can provide. I watched a program recently about cruise lines and their revenue strategies to break-even on sailings. It was reported that shorex is a key money maker (top 3) with 75% of passengers booking at least one ship tour. The tour operator typically gets between 40-50% of the shorex price. The program was about RCI but I expect that the general concept can be applied to other cruise lines.

 

Case in point: we recently did a quickie PNW cruise on HAL and booked a Seafood & Wine excursion in Astoria. Turned out we were the only people on the tour, so it was cancelled. Not deterred, we ventured into town and visited the sites of the cooking class and winery tasting. We got talking to the proprietors and learned that HAL gave the cooking school $15 pp while the wine cellar got $20 pp. The shorex cost $99 pp. Tidy profit, methinks.

 

We typically prefer private tours but do consider shorex in certain situations. We try to avoid coach tours if at all possible. I've found that shorex staff are pretty tight-lipped about the size of group tours, though they will respond if pressed. So we do not pre-book ship excursions but wait till we're on-board and have a better idea of exactly what we may get.

[Jade13]

 

In another port the ship wanted $2000 pp for a flight seeing. We got the same for $660pp by going direct

 

.

 

Which tour was this?

[Jade13]

we became aware of a new policy relating to excursions that seems to be causing problems. On the Voyage of the Vikings, I prepaid 20 excursions. However, the size of the groups has gotten so large that the quality of the tours is really deteriorating.

 

I discussed this (very politely) with Joseph L'Episcopo (the Shore Excursion Manager ) and to my surprise he agreed that excursions had gotten much too large. Unfortunately, he said the size limits are now coming directly from Carnival. He has expressed his concerns about this issue, but believes that cost cutting/revenue enhancement is the priority. They've also cut the food and water provided on excursions to a minimum. This doesn't really bother me, as long as I know to bring my own supply.

 

I apologize if this issue has been beaten to death already, but the new policy was an unfortunate surprise to me. We canceled several tours and are planning to arrange more port visits on our own. I always appreciated the convenience of using HAL excursions, but the quality has dropped to a point where I feel compelled to do things on my own. We're leaving on a 55 day transPacific/circumnavigation of Australia next month and I think I'll avoid HAL trips unless there is no practical alternative. Have any of you experienced this problem in recent cruises?

 

We have been very aware of this issue for years, and were on VOV last year. We booked a lot of ships tours on VOV because some of the locations were so remote that a private guide was not available as the ship was using all of the towns vehicles/buses and resources. For the most part the tours were not very good (with only a few exceptions) and were on large crowded buses. One was so bad in Iceland that besides the fact it was a bus tour that everyone thought was a boat tour, the guide and driver would not let anyone out for any photo Ops and we drove around for hours on a large bus with dirty windows. On two boat tours there were not enough seats and people had to stand, including us on one of them. I said something to Joseph and he just recited the number of seats on the boats verses the number of passengers - but clearly the companies were selling seats outside of what they had sold to the cruise line.

 

Earlier this year we were on Veendam in South America and I put together about 12 days of private touring for groups of 6-10 people. We only did one half day HAL tour and it was our least favorite tour of the trip. It wasn't really bad but it was a large group on multiple buses in Grand Cayman. We had been to the Botanical Gardens before and knew there would not be much savings to go on our own since it was at the other end of the Island and taxis are expensive. There was a long trail where they should have taken some of the group who could walk but as standard on these tours we did not go very far into the Gardens and did not see that many Iguanas (although one of the guides knew we were looking for them and took us away from the large group a couple times to show us some Blue Iguanas he had spotted).

 

One type of tour I would recommend and not hesitate to book through HAL would be a tour that involves a scenic boat tour or show because you will be with a larger group either way. One of the best HAL tours we took was the wine and cheese canal tour in Amsterdam where it was pouring down rain but the canal boats for HALs shore excursion pulled up right behind Maasdam. We did, however, overall find the tours in Canada/New England to be much better than in other countries as far as quality.

 

HAL's tours are the most expensive we have found in the industry, and although most of them sound great on paper, the reality is that they are mostly very large bus tours. At least on Celebrity we have found the tours significantly less expensive. We do not do private tours to save money (although it usually works out that way), but for a much better experiance.

 

In any event, I would strongly urge anyone to try to put together private tours in most areas and when possible.

[cruisemom42]

It seems cruise lines are doing everything in their power to convince me NOT to book shore excursions through the ship! (And by corollary, to eventually to convince me not to cruise at all....)

 

My cruises for the last few years have been almost all in Europe, so I'm sure this doesn't apply universally, but I do agree that prices of the ships' tours are much more than a comparable small private tour of 6-8 people in most places. In fact, I've posted here before that I took a private tour of ONE for a full-day out of Haifa, then a private tour (same guide) with another couple (total of 3 persons) in Ashdod (Jerusalem) for a fraction of what HAL would've charged me for two full-day 40-45 person bus tours. And this was with a licensed local guide, not just a driver. It also happened to be one of the BEST private tours I've ever taken.

 

Also on that same HAL cruise, I experienced one of the WORST ship tours I've ever taken, outside of the Caribbean. This was at a port in southern Turkey that is a rare call: Antakya (not to be confused with Antalya), which is the site of ancient Antioch. I could not arrange a private tour, so took the full coach tour. Our guide was terrible; she started out by saying "I could tell you all a lot of history and dates, but you'll just forget it anyway." Not a good start. Then she proceeded to make jokes in very poor taste about an ethnic minority in Turkey, talk on her cell phone, and plug items we should buy at the shopping stop where she clearly got a kick-back. Ugh.... I think that is the last ship shorex I've paid for.

 

Princess used to have a set of smaller-group tours that were called Elite Tours or something similar. They used smaller buses and had a max of 20-24 passengers. I did some of these with my mother on a Med cruise in 2006 and most of them weren't too bad. (Except Istanbul, which was a disaster -- plenty of time for shopping and rug demonstrations, only 30 minutes or so in Haghia Sophia because "we were running behind." :rolleyes:) I think this would be a good niche or compromise for those passengers who prefer to take the ship tours but want a smaller group. On the minus side, they were a fair bit more expensive. I have no idea if Princess still offers these.

 

The new generation of cruisers, who are well used to using the internet to research ports and private tours, and who have read DIY guides like Rick Steves' Mediterranean ports book, are booking fewer and fewer shore excursions. Ships seem to be making an effort to maximize their profits by cramming more people onto buses. I am convinced that some ships even time their port stays so as to make it nearly impossible for DIYers to go it alone (e.g., half day port stops at Kusadasi, or arriving at Katakolon at times that make it impossible to catch the local train to Olympia). Unfortunately, I don't think the bean counters realize that this is turning off folks (like me) who would not cruise at all if we did not have the option of doing our own thing in port.