Price changes on tours?

[sue in florida]

My friend and I have booked our first Azamara cruise on the Quest for November 26th.

I had looked at tours that were offered awhile back and noted the prices. Today I went to Azamara's web site and every tour I was interested in has gone up in price. Is this a usual practice? We usually cruise on Celebrity or Royal Caribbean.

Sue

[Jade13]

Yes on Azamara. I haven't noticed on Celebrity because the last time we took a tour with them was years ago (but will next year on a couple of tours that can only be done through the cruise line). HAL's prices go up but they tend to do it at the beginning of a new year and then in the past maybe $5.00 or so.

 

Note that Bill Leiber stated months ago that they planned to adjust prices depending on how they were selling.

[yayatraveler2]

WE booked this Azamara trip in March after an amazing back to back from India to Athens in April/May of 2012.

The tours have just been posted...The prices range from $140.00 to $400.00 per person without the 25 percent off. What a shock. We will be looking for independent travel.... or possibly cancel altogether...What are they doing?

[uktog]

WE booked this Azamara trip in March after an amazing back to back from India to Athens in April/May of 2012.

The tours have just been posted...The prices range from $140.00 to $400.00 per person without the 25 percent off. What a shock. We will be looking for independent travel.... or possibly cancel altogether...What are they doing?

 

The response is yes, there has been a change in policy which has altered the pricing policy as Bill explained here. Given your comment about cancellation maybe the pricing model has the risk of a few cancellations factored into the calculations as well

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=38612361&postcount=21

[Jade13]

WE booked this Azamara trip in March after an amazing back to back from India to Athens in April/May of 2012.

The tours have just been posted...The prices range from $140.00 to $400.00 per person without the 25 percent off. What a shock. We will be looking for independent travel.... or possibly cancel altogether...What are they doing?

 

Trying to be profitable.

 

What type of tour is $400.00. Is it a standard coach tour?

[ellbon]

Trying to be profitable.

 

What type of tour is $400.00. Is it a standard coach tour?

 

Seen that for flight seeing in alaska.

Private cars and drivers but not the norm

Only rio carnival tickets

[uktog]

Seen that for flight seeing in alaska.

Private cars and drivers but not the norm

Only rio carnival tickets

 

The $400 trip is to Kyoto on the Bullet Train, there are other trips around the $300 which are fairly standard day trips (all day including lunch).

[tgg]

There's another active thread right now discussing roll calls, and why people participate. One of the major reasons mentioned is to find people to share private tours.

 

We just returned from a Quest cruise that had an active roll call. People got together to do private tours in every port. I love roll calls for that reason. It's easy these days to research other people's experiences with private guides and tour operators. You can find out who people liked and who they would advise staying clear of. This information is right here on Cruise Critic. Some people find Trip Advisor useful.

 

So I would suggest joining the roll call, finding like-minded people to share tours with, be willing to share doing the research, and don't be bullied into taking ships' tours with the reminder that the ship will leave without you if you're not back - but not if you take a ship's tour. In more than 20 years of cruising, we've taken only 3 ship's tours. Everything else has been booked privately - and we've never looked at the aft balconies of the ship sailing away from the quay as we arrived back from a private tour.;)

[English Tim]

Trying to be profitable.

 

What type of tour is $400.00. Is it a standard coach tour?

 

It is not about making individual tours profitable, more like taking advantage of a good marketing situation.

 

Many people worry about diy tours, in case of missing the ship, so the lines know that they can pretty much charge what they like.

 

We virtually always do diy tours, partly to travel with the locals and also to avoid paying hefty surcharges.

 

On our first Azamara cruise (it's not just AZ, but all other lines), we had spare OBC, so we took a tour to a winery. All the cruiseline had to pay for was the guise and the coach. They would have made huge profits.

 

We also have to take into account that pre-booking allows a 25% discount, so clearly if one books onboard the profits are still there, plus the 25%.

 

At the end of the day, businesses will make what they can when they can. If customers are prepared to pay, then they will keep doing so.

[Willow1686]

The $400 trip is to Kyoto on the Bullet Train, there are other trips around the $300 which are fairly standard day trips (all day including lunch).

 

You may wish to bear in mind that Kyoto is only 80 km from Kobe, and that Japan has numerous classes of 'bullet trains'. As far as I can tell the superfast bullets don't include Kobe on their routes, which is unsurprising when you consider that Kobe is an offshoot to the main routes, and obviously, a train travelling at 250-300 km per hour isn't going to want to grind to a halt after a mere 80 km.

 

As an alternative you could buy a day pass on the ordinary trains via a Japan Rail West Pass, covering the Kansai area, which will take you to Kyoto and other places in the area for £14. It's not as fast, but it isn't slow.

 

If you really want a bullet train then the 7 day Japan Rail Pass, which covers everything up to the two fastest types of bullet train, would be your best bet. It costs around £185, but you could use it at your other stops in Japan as well.:)

[wripro]

Price hike are just another reason to book private tours which, in addition to being better and more convenient, usually wind up costing less, especially when shared.

[azevedan]

Price hike are just another reason to book private tours which, in addition to being better and more convenient, usually wind up costing less, especially when shared.

 

- No waiting for stragglers

- No forced shopping stops

- Ability to hear what the guide is saying without crowding

- No tromping on and off a bus

- Less crowded at the sites

 

...and so many more reasons. Which isn't to say the a ship's tour is horrible; you just have to alter your mindset.

[uktog]

- No waiting for stragglers

- No forced shopping stops

- Ability to hear what the guide is saying without crowding

- No tromping on and off a bus

- Less crowded at the sites

 

...and so many more reasons. Which isn't to say the a ship's tour is horrible; you just have to alter your mindset.

 

I agree with you re No 1

Ability to hear - dictated by many things, larger tours now often use Whispers which I love as you can be close to your group without having to be right beside them, if you like taking pictures etc, many smaller guides do not useWhispers and are harder to hear

 

Trooping on and off a bus - recent experience of private tours on a minibus vs ships tour - time on and off was about the same, ships tour coach not filled to capacity (we understood that was standard practice for that port) with two doors, vs minibus where people have to go into it in an order to allow various seat folding to happen - I would say each too, the same time

 

Less crowded at sites - nit always the case, but that is down to the sites, how many ships are in port etc

 

Waiting for stragglers - worst experience re this was on a private tour

 

So the advice is do your homework are you going to places that will be busy anyway, exactly what is the seating arrangements in the transport (many minibuses are more cramped with less legroom than coaches) and try and find out will others be joining your trip have mobility issues.

 

We have just had a great cruise in Iceland, at one port, we used a ships excursion we enjoyed. We met a lady that night from the roll call at the Elite lounge, she had been on a roll call organised trip (actually we saw them when we were on our stops during the day). Her trip had been so so only because one guest had a motorised scooter which had taken so much time at each stop to get on and off and others had asked to leave the geothermal pools which she was loving early because she did not like the smell- the leader of this request was the trip "organiser" so the decision was out of everyone else hands.

 

So in all this, neither type of trip is perfect, do your homework and be prepared for whatever might happen but try and concentrate on your once only visit to the lovely places

[uktog]

Ps a typo above, should read I agree with you re No 2

 

Also on re reading I am not saying I would not go on a trip if a fellow guest had a mobility issue - my own mobility is not 100% so am fully understanding, however, others can be frustrated and it is important to know, do the tour company know about the situation and can they handle it, for example ( which I gather was the situation on the Iceland trip I described) can others get off the transport, leaving less able to come off last or is the less able person actually in the seat (for ease of entry/exit) that has to be vacated first.

 

And as a courtesy to others on the roll call, I expect those with mobility issues to disclose this if they are planning to be part of a private excursion group

[nordski]

Ps a typo above, should read I agree with you re No 2

 

 

And as a courtesy to others on the roll call, I expect those with mobility issues to disclose this if they are planning to be part of a private excursion group

 

 

As usual, an excellent point, as are the issues raised in your two posts immediately above.

 

Since we have minor health issues, we are usually reluctant to sign up for private tours lest we interfere with others' enjoyment of that experience.

 

Further, we are less interested now in "seeing it all", not for physical reasons but rather to avoid the "travel blur" that unfortunately afflicts my apprehension. Thus reading the roll calls we assess the private tours being organized, the nature of those doing said organizing and how ambitious they plan to be.

 

We rarely are attracted and, if we decide to take a private tour, we arrange for a personal experience.

 

We also appreciate the often small numbers on ACC tours and the presence of staff members who help with stragglers, suggest alternate routes or find facilities.

 

Therefore, we are always surprised at how dismissive some are of the ship's tours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[azevedan]

Al good points about private tours - no guarantee there, either. One other thing about private tours, though - we are not naturally gregarious, and organizing and/or going on private tours introduces you to a group of fellow cruisers.

 

A lot of my experience with ship's tours comes from other lines; we don't cruise much and have only cruised once on Azamara, to the Eastern Med. Here's the tour summary from that trip:

 

Athens (pre cruise): on our own for two days. Did what we wanted to do. Had a wonderful time. Have a great story about how I got my wallet BACK from a pickpocket on the subway.

 

Kusadasi: ship's tour. I had tried to arrange a private tour that sounded great, but emails went astray. So a ship's tour we settled on (there was that big discount back then). Ephesus: overrun, including with us in the morning. (The private tour had planned to go there in the afternoon.) The other stops (we took a long tour) were much less crowded; one the off-the-beaten path stop we had to our group only. There were probably around 20 or so of us, IIRC. Skipped the carpet shopping stop when we returned and walked around Kusadasi by ourselves instead. The private tour was also going to eat with a family, rather than in a buffet-style restaurant with a zillion other touring groups.

 

Mykonos: Ship's tour to Delos. That was nice because of the guide. The downside was, we would have wanted to wander around a bit more than we did, and it was a largish group. Delos (ruins; no one lives there) was very nice to visit. Walked around Mykonos by ourselves - we had heard from my SIL that it's a very easy port to DIY. You can also ferry over to Delos by yourself.

 

Santorini - overrun (too many cruise ships in port). Ship's tour around the island. Spent too much time at a winery, though it was interesting to see what the 'vines' (little bushes) look like there. Had only an hour in Oia, but at least we were free to wander on our own. Could've spent all day there. Best part was the restaurant (even though we were a big group) in Fira; we were right on the edge overlooking everything. And we didn't have to wait, since it was arranged. So that's a benefit. Stayed in Fira to wander around ourselves, then took the donkey stairs down (and took off our old shoes before getting on the ship (and sanitized them.))

 

Rhodes (overnight) - DIY around the old area the first afternoon and a private tour (organized by another couple) the 2nd day. A decent guide and we went to a lot of neat places which were uncrowded. Stopped at overlooks that looked scenic to us. Guide stopped to buy us fruit at a roadside stand (sweetest oranges EVER!) and gyros in a narrow-streeted town no bus could ever have gotten to. Due to some confusion, we did end up at a gold place at one point, and since the other couple had arranged the tour, I really didn't feel comfortable expressing an opinion about (say) having more time to climb the hill at the Guns of Navarone spot.

 

Cyprus - ship's tour. We were supposed to dock at Paphos, but that got changed to Limassol the night before. Changes in tour departure times were slipped under the doors. One couple on our huge (filled) bus didn't get the message. As a result, we left an hour late and got short-changed because they wanted us to catch up with the other buses to be in a caravan. Several places we stopped were overrun. Private tour would have been much better. Wasn't bad at the mosaics, but still a large group moving around together because of limited time. We took a LONG ride to get to a place just to have lunch. At least DH and I walked around on the shore some. (No, we were not stragglers. Were back in plenty of time.)

 

Ashdod, Israel. Ship's tour to Jerusalem. Big group on a bus. Delays of over an hour due to the highway being blocked by demonstrations. All the sites overrun. That would've been an issue with a private tour, too....there were pilgrimage groups all over. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, for example, was so crowded as to be unenjoyable. Jerusalem would be best enjoyed IMO by staying there and getting to those places early in the morning before tour groups have time to get there. Obligatory shopping stop (taking an hour off our 'tour' time) on the way back.

 

Haifa. Private tour around the 'Christian' religious sites - Galilee and such. Were able to avoid the worst of the crowds (we could see a huge group coming sometimes as we were leaving a spot). Stopped at a couple of kibbutzes. No shopping! Dropped at the airport in Tel Aviv for the trip back.

 

We did learn a lot about what we like/don't like about the tours on the cruise described above, and concluded private tours when cruising are usually the way to go if possible. I'm not saying we won't do a ship's tour; in fact, we're signed up for one on the A Canal cruise we're taking, plus the Azamazing evening, of course.

 

Thoughts on DIY (which we actually prefer, since we know our activity level, and you do exactly what you want to do): cities where there's a good transportation infrastructure, for sure. Usually easy to figure out what to see and do and be able to do it without worrying about a rental car or getting back to the ship and such. Certain countries and locations, just easier to do a tour or at least have a guide/driver. There's also a comfort level (that varies by person and location). I know others have a much more adventurous spirit than we do. For example, a couple on our A cruise took their bikes and did their own bike touring in all the ports!

 

Sorry for babbling on for so long...

[azevedan]

I should add that part of the issue is how much time to organize things. I'm still working, and I travel a lot for work. (And I do try to take extra time in a new place, too....I've wandered all around Bangkok by myself, for example, so I'm not completely devoid of gumption!)

[midwestchick]

My friend and I have booked our first Azamara cruise on the Quest for November 26th.

I had looked at tours that were offered awhile back and noted the prices. Today I went to Azamara's web site and every tour I was interested in has gone up in price. Is this a usual practice? We usually cruise on Celebrity or Royal Caribbean.

Sue

 

 

I read a post on the Celebrity forums and someone said the same about that cruise line. I guess if you're going to do a ship's tour, grab it....you can always cancel at a later date if you choose.

We booked all of our Azamara excursions as soon as we booked the cruise last year since they were 50% off if we booked ahead of time.