No Excursions, No plans, no...nothing.

[bumbleklutz]

In grand Cayman, try the glass bottom boat or submarine ride. Its not through carnival. Prices were a bit high but very worth it. The place to sign up is right by the pier across the street from a Hard Rock Cafe

 

I have to second this suggestion! The submarine ride will set you back about $85 per person, but for me it was worth every penny. I would do this one again without hesitation; it is one of the most memorable excursions I have done.

[SASA13]

Prior to cruising I will research the boards and get an idea of what the port has to offer, if we have not been there before. Then we "wing it". We don't like to set an alarm clock on vacation or have to adhere to a schedule.

We normally get off the ship after everyone else, walk around, discover things on our own etc. If we want to go to a beach, we will pick a beach and spend a few hours there. We always have a great time. We too, enjoy the ship more than the ports.

[Skywench]

I very rarely take excursions and never book them in advance. When I'm on vacation I want to just relax and play it by ear. I don't want or need every day/minute planned out for me or be on a schedule. That's what I have to do for work!

[dwjoe]

Port days I like to plan out every day's morning and afternoon activity. I want to make the most of the time we have there. I don't like the idea of being ashore in an unfamliar place and thinking, now what do we do?

 

Sea days I don't plan other than to pick up the ship's daily and say, hmm, that looks interesting, maybe I'll go. Mostly I just chill on sea days.

Edited July 8, 2014 by dwjoe

[Krazy Kruizers]

When we first started cruising, we took tours in all the ports -- ship's excursions because back in the 80's there were not too many vendors.

Now we just do what we want to do -- if we see a new excursion -- we go on it.

[Hlitner]

We do it all the time. In fact, we have an upcoming 38 day Transpacific cruise that goes to many interesting places (like New Zealand, Hawaii, and Australia) and have not planned a thing for any of the ports (although we have planned an after cruise driving trip in NZ). It is likely we will board that ship without having any excursions (we seldom book any kind of excursion) or definitive plans. We will certainly do things in all the ports, but probably not decide what to do until a few days before we arrive or perhaps on the same morning :)

 

Hank

Edited July 8, 2014 by Hlitner

[sail7seas]

When we cruise a new area, we usually pre-book a few excursions, do enough reading to know what is available and 'loosely' plan what we will not in ports we had no booked excursions. We often decided that morning when the ship arrived in port. We would catch a taxi/tour guide at the dock or taxi off to whatever we wanted to see or do on our own.

 

For ports we were repeating, we always knew where we wanted lunch, what beach we might want, what shopping interested us, what repeat sightseeing we might like to do again.

 

Though we cruises a great deal, DH was tired when we went on our cruises as he was still very busily working at his practice and I never wanted to load him up with too many arranged in advance commitments. Many was the Caribbean day he was happy to plant himself at the pool and have a lazy day. We loved that unstructured ease.

 

[leaveitallbehind]

Anyone ever do this? Just cruise with NO plans in place? What did you end up doing?

 

..it will be our first time at GC and on the advice of friends who have been there a few times, we're thinking of renting car...but not planning on anything definite.

 

We don't do any cruise sponsored excursions in the Caribbean, preferring to do things on our own. So in that respect, we don't plan anything formal and will just pick a beach or location we are interested in and will frequently hire a taxi, or rent a car.

 

To that, we have rented a car in Grand Cayman and spent the day "touring" on our own. Every ship sponsored excursion we would be interested in can be done on your own: Stingrays, Hell, Aquarium, 7-Mile Beach, etc. Very safe island and easy to navigate.

Edited July 8, 2014 by leaveitallbehind

[gooch47]

On our latest b2b we never got off the ship except at NOLA between the two segments.

[Scrapnana]

On my Disney cruise I made no plans and took no excursions. I walked around the ports and was pleasantly surprised when I was told about the free trolley in old San Juan.

[Warm Breezes]

Anyone ever do this? Just cruise with NO plans in place? What did you end up doing?

 

We're going to Grand Cayman, Belize, Roatan, and Cozumel -- it will be our first time at GC and on the advice of friends who have been there a few times, we're thinking of renting car...but not planning on anything definite.

 

We've been to Belize, Roatan, and Coz and are happy to wing it in all three places...

 

We did this on our last cruise with stops in Grand Cayman and Cozumel which we had just been to last year on different cruises. In Grand Cayman we ended up staying on the ship and in Cozumel we took a taxi to Paradise Beach.

[marco]

Yep!!!! We've been taking the "Annual Friends and Family Winter Caribbean Cruise" now for almost 40 yrs. Started when I was a kid with my parents. We've been to just about every island multiple times and we frequently don't even get off the ship. The BEST time to be on the ship is when it is docked and everyone else is off! We usually have 20 or so people in the group (but this coming winter we already have 38) With a group that size, a cruise is the best vacation. We all round robin at a few tables at dinner, everyone does their own thing during the day and everyday it's a different "mini-group" of folks who want to do something together. At dinner, we compare notes and plan the next days activities.

[DonnaK]

We booked our last cruise at the last minute, so I didn't have time to make plans. We ended up doing nothing at all, just being lazy, walking around the port area. We are repeating the same cruise this summer, and this time we will definitely have a plan. We don't care for ship's excursions, but without having an idea of what to do on our own, we'd just end up doing nothing again. (and our daughters will end up sitting all day in the closest place that has free Wi-Fi)

[SMerritt]

Another no planner here. Once in a while I'll grab a tour once off the ship. When I had my cruise partner, we booked randomly at the dock.

It drives me nuts to read about people booking and planning many months in advance. I know, some are planners, but it leaves the mystery behind and the potential for cancellations etc. Then, they get all upset about it.

 

We just "winged it" in Hawaii on the POA - GREAT CRUISE!

 

My wonderful mom always said - The more plans you make, you will come home with complaints - missed this, missed that........

 

As m,any above posted, avoid the stress and just be surprised!

[DCNative]

I do that all the time when I'm with friends. We do a little research in advance about the best beaches, sites, restaurants, etc., and then we just get off the ship and catch a taxi to wherever we want to go. It usually costs much less and you don't have all of the crowds from the cruise ships.

[cb at sea]

We seldom do an excursion...private or ship's! We read up on our ports, and do stuff on our own! You save a bunch of money, and as long as you do your research, you don't miss anything that interests you!

[geoherb]

We will generally do one excursion per cruise in the Caribbean. For our cruise in less than a month, I don't have anything planned. We have been to all of the ports before (San Juan, St. Thomas, Grand Turk, and Princess Cays). Many times we have stayed on the ship while it's in port. It's great to have more than half the passengers gone.

[CowPrincess]

We did "no excursions, no plans, no nothing" for our Southern Carib cruise. A vastly different approach for us -- normally we have plans for each port before we sail and often have tours arranged. For the Southern Carib one, it sounded like our stops were all "sand and sun", so that's what we figured we would do. Most relaxing cruise ever. ;)

[LHT28]

For the Caribbean cruises it is easy to do no planning

we did a 10 day cruise this winter where the only plan was to do a chocolate factory tour in Barbados...we had to pre book so that was the only port we planned something

The rest we just did what suited us

 

For Europe we do plan for the ports there

[jamessemaj]

The ship is the place for me. May get off, may not. Some ports I know it will be not, some I'll think about it.

[Winterstale]

Thanks everyone! Really appreciate all the input! I think we'll wing it on this trip for sure...:D

 

Longdart - I'm in STT quite a bit here and there - we charter in the BVI at least once a year.

[pris993]

Of course, we have over 50 cruises under our belt, been cruising since l982 or so. Years ago before the internet made it so easy to research destinations, we just booked and cruise without any information. We seldom book a tour, think we have booked only 5 tours in all the years we have cruised. We usually wing it.

 

Now days, I think about where I am going, generally plan one tour of sorts. For example, we are doing a 14 night Eastern Mediterranean cruise, out of Rome in October. We will be visiting Sicily Italy, Athens, other Greek ports, Turkey, Israel and stop in Naples before returning to Rome. We are planning to wing it in every port, (we have done this itinerary many times before) may book a tour of Amalfi coast at the end. We have friends in Israel we will contact and may visit after we arrive. On our way home, we are flying and stay in Paris. We plan to do a taxi drive one evening around the city to see the City of Lights on our own. When we are in Paris we love to walk and enjoy the city during the day... many wonderful neighborhoods.

 

Sometimes we stay aboard if we are in a port with a short stop, did this on our last Transatlantic in the spring, when we got to the Azores, it was Sunday, we where only there for a 1/2 day. We decided no point in getting off ... ship was anchored off shore, did not seem worth it to tender in, so we walked the main deck and enjoyed the day.

 

We don't feel compelled to fill every day, we would rather savor the experience both ashore and on board.

[celebrity]

It's that way every time we cruise. Next cruise will be different, making many plans for Italy and Greece!!!:cool:

 

Cruising the Caribbean vs the Med are totally different animals. Yes, you want to plan your port days to see all the sites.

With the cost of flying overseas, it would be a crime not to have a plan in place.

Have a great cruise!

[navybankerteacher]

We sail T/A from the Mediterranean again this fall - most ports are ones we've seen, so we usually wing it - possibly planning one excursion in advance, and just doing lwalk-abouts or possibly taking a train to a nearby site if the port does not offer much. So many people drive themselves so hard that they are exhausted.

[Hlitner]

Cruising the Caribbean vs the Med are totally different animals. Yes, you want to plan your port days to see all the sites.

With the cost of flying overseas, it would be a crime not to have a plan in place.

Have a great cruise!

 

Ahhhh, but dare we disagree. We have done an awful lot of cruising in Europe and the Med (as well as a lot of driving trips) and seldom concern ourselves with planning our port days. Over the years we have learned to know most of our options and just make up our minds within a few days of arrival or sometimes not until we actually walk off the ship. The one big exception is when we want to rent a car, which we must normally reserve in advance. But often, with a rental car, we do not know where we will go until I am behind the wheel and say to DW, "what do you want to do today?"

 

Now you might think this is nutz, but to us it makes perfect sense. We often make our decisions based on the weather. A good example might be Civitavecchia where we might be thinking about going to Rome, but then it turns out to be one of those awful hot/humid days that is all too common for Rome. At that point we might decide to do something totally different to avoid the heat in Rome.

 

Hank