Amount to budget for tours

[charliem]

My wife and I are planning an Eastern Mediterranean cruise for 2016 and are putting together a budget for the trip. We will be stopping at Santorini Greece, Athens Greece, Istanbul Turkey, Kusadasi Turkey, Mykonos Greece and Naples Italy. We understand that excursions and tours cost will vary widely based on the services provided and our tastes but we need an idea of how much to budget per day per person. Since this will be our first European cruise we will be wanting to concentrate on seeing the more popular places rather than high priced specialty sites.

 

Any advice you can offer will be appreciated.

 

Charlie

[cruisemom42]

Unfortunately, in the Mediterranean nearly all of the ship tours are fairly expensive, ESPECIALLY the ones to the major sites. Some are all day and will include a lunch, which makes them pricier.

 

If you are motivated, you can figure out how to get around on your own. In some of the places you'll be visiting, it's not too difficult. Also, people on your roll call may be arranging private tours (generally cheaper and better than ship tours) that you can join.

 

I would highly suggest having a look at the very comprehensive guide by Rick Steves on the Mediterranean ports by cruise ship. He gives great info on when to DIY, when booking a tour makes more sense, etc. Also, read these boards (Italy, Greece, Other Mediterranean Ports [for Turkey]) for lots of good practical advice.

 

Also it's a good idea to start looking at your cruise line's website to see what tours appeal to you and what the price-range is (to avoid sticker shock).

[mapleleaves]

I second the idea of using travel books to learn about all the sights and activities available at each port. Borrow books from your library, then buy the one that is most appealing and bring it with you (study on the plane). You'll find that there is more available than what the ship is offering, and most things are easy as DIY.

We did a Med cruise 4 yrs ago and probably maybe spent $200. We used public transportation and did everything DIY. Between the books and tripadvisor we were able to see and do what we wanted.

[Keith1010]

For those places that you do tours I would budget at this point $200.00 per person per tour. Some will turn out to be less and others more.

 

One of the things about the Med is that it is port intensive and my view is not to book a tour at every port, otherwise if can become like work after several days. In some places full day tours are in order and in other places a part day tour works well.

 

Here are some thoughts on tours.

 

Santorini Greece - I would not do a tour and just enjoy the town on your own.

 

Istanbul - Since this is your first visit I would tour the city including the Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar and/or Spice Market and the underground Cistern.

 

Kusadasi - Ephesus

 

Athens. I would do a city tour that might include: Acropolis, and Panathenaic Stadium

 

Mykonos Greece - I would just do this on your own.

 

Naples Italy - Pompeii

 

If you just do a google search on each city you can get a lot of information from the internet.

 

You can also use trip adviser to see what the cost is for private tours just to get a feel for not only price but what is offered. Ships tours are more but there are many times particularly on a first visit that I would go with ships tours.

 

For me, we do a combination of ship tours, private tours and also go it on our own.

 

Keith

[LondonTowner]

It is easy to arrange it all yourself. We very rarely take a ship excursion as they are so overpriced. If your cruise isn't until 2016 you have plenty of tie to research and plan. We are going on a cruise in a couple of weeks time which we only booked a few weeks ago. All ports of call are sorted out, two of them were doing private tours with 4 other people we met on CC and the rest I have booked myself with local companies.

 

Not only does it work out cheaper, but you are in a small group and can often choose the itinerary. I normally start my research by looking at what the ship has to offer in each port. Sometimes I already know what we want to do. Some places we have taken a HOHO bus as that has been the easy option.

[agabbymama]

It has been a few years (2008) since my Med cruise, but I set $100 pp as my limit for various tours. I had planned a lot of DIY (as I had been to Italy and Greece before) but plans often went awry costing more than originally planned.

 

We shared transfer from Rome to ship for 30 EUR pp, shared a tour of Athens with fellow CCers from our Roll Call at 50 EUR pp, did a Ship's Tour from Livorno to San G and an old Castle/Winery for $99 pp, another ship's tour on Santorini at $99 pp and in Naples had planned to take the hydrofoil to Sorrento, but plans went awry. We ended up hiring a taxi for 100 EUR pp to Pompei & Sorrento. The tour from Naples was the most costly, but we both felt it was the best day of our 21 day trip. We had our own personal driver, stopping where we wanted to stop. Our driver treated us like his grandmother, he was very concerned that two older ladies would be travelling alone. He escorted us across busy streets, carried our packages, and was very considerate of our needs.

 

My tip is to plan your budget, but have an emergency stash for when the plans fall apart. We had budgeted $4500 for the total trip, but it soon escalated to $6000 pp for the whole trip. Just be prepared with a Plan A and a Plan B, then still be ready to just go with the flow when both A & B fall apart.

 

Have a great trip. The Med is an awesome destination!

[charliem]

I second the idea of using travel books to learn about all the sights and activities available at each port. Borrow books from your library, then buy the one that is most appealing and bring it with you (study on the plane). You'll find that there is more available than what the ship is offering, and most things are easy as DIY.

We did a Med cruise 4 yrs ago and probably maybe spent $200. We used public transportation and did everything DIY. Between the books and tripadvisor we were able to see and do what we wanted.

 

 

Is the $200 per person?

 

Thanks for taking time to reply.

 

Charlie

[charliem]

We would like to thank all of you for your replies and recommendations. Lots of good information on this forum, as usual.

 

Hope your travels this year are great.

 

Charlie

[mapleleaves]

Is the $200 per person?

 

Per person, but I think it's on the high side.

 

The only 2 ports in common with your itinerary were Athens and Mykonos. In Mykonos $0; we walked around the port then followed residential streets up the hill and came to wonderful views of the port, sea and an old windmill. We took a different route down and visited Little Venice and the windmills. In Athens $50;we took the train to the city, then walked to the Acropolis to spend 4-5 hrs. After that we walked thru the Plaka, bought pastries, watched the Changing of the Guard at the Parliament Bldgs.

We kept very busy every day in port, returning to the ship 30 minutes or so before the deadline. And we don't shop so no time was wasted in stores.

I borrowed several travel books from the library and brought along Ann Vipond's Mediterranean by Cruiseship in case I needed a back up plan. Rick Steves Med cruise book wasn't out yet :)). Tripadvisor was a great resource; if you look under Top Questions in any city forum you'll generally find info for cruisers. And locals who will help with more specific questions.

IMHO. research is really the key to a successful trip ... learn about ALL the possible options for sights and activities, then choose the ones that best support your interests.

Have fun planning !

[waterbug123]

We'll be on a Med cruise in July. When we do guided tours, we prefer private tours, but of course that comes at a cost. Much better in our opinion though, than a pricey ship-sponsored tour with 50+ people on a bus, and no ability to adjust the itinerary to our particular preferences, nor to have a really in depth conversation or individual Q&A with the guide.

 

We will spend a couple of days in Istanbul before the cruise. We arrive late afternoon and arranged a private dinner "tour" that evening for 4 couples. The guide will take us to both the European and Asian sides of the city and we'll make 4 stops for assorted food/beverage along the way. 95€/person, inclusive of food.

 

The next morning we are doing a 1/2 day tour of major sites. Yes, easy enough to do these sites on our own, but as we will have the rest of that afternoon and the next 2 days on our own, we opted for a private guided tour (again, for 4 couples), not just to lead us around to the major sites, but to tell us all the little tidbits about the city that we wouldn't get otherwise, and to get ideas and advice from a local for our remaining time there. 60€/person including lunch.

 

For our day in Naples (Salerno) 4 of us hired a private driver for a full day visit along the Amalfi Coast, 450€ for the day, so 112.50€/person.

 

We will do a relaxing beach visit and/or lunch on our own in Mykonos. One member of our group has traveled to Malta extensively on business and is very familiar with that area so with her suggestions we'll do that on our own as well. Likewise for our day in Sicily, except that none of us has been there so we'll be winging it, lol. Little to no cost on these days, other than public transportation/cabs, and of course whatever we spend on lunch and such.

[Luckynana]

We would like to thank all of you for your replies and recommendations. Lots of good information on this forum, as usual.

 

Hope your travels this year are great.

 

Charlie

 

Hi Charlie..we did a RCI Mediterranean cruise 4 years ago, and we went to all of your ports with the exception of Mykonos. I was new to CC, and our traveling buddies were concerned about any problems we might encounter with regard to private tours, i.e., missing our ship, etc., so we booked all of our excursions through RCI. It wound up costing us $1700.00 per couple. We booked a tour for every port except Santorini. I have to say that what we saw and ate and experienced were wonderful!!:)

 

We now are in the midst of planning our next Mediterranean cruise, and so far we have 2 private excursions already planned with our Roll Call group...with 16 months to go before we sail, we plan on many more DIY tours with our CC friends.:D. We will be getting more bang for our buck this way for more wonderful adventures!:)

 

Have a wonderful time on your cruise!!:D

[Hlitner]

A couple that takes cruise line excursions at every port can easily spend over $300 per port (per couple) if taking all day tours. Do those same things on your own and the cost might drop to under $100 per port and almost free at some ports. If you book private excursions (and share the cost with others) your cost can be significantly less then cruise line excursions. DW and I have not taken a cruise line excursion in the Med in our last 20 or so cruises and doubt if we would do one of those excursions unless we were too sick or senile to remember how much we hate those excursions :).

 

Hank

[gfkcruiser]

Check out tomsportguides.com. He has great advice for DIY touring.

[KiwiGal117]

We were on an Eastern Med cruise a couple of years ago. The day we were meant to be in Athens, there was a general strike so the ship redirected to Kefalonia instead. Those that booked cruise tours were reimbursed, but those that arranged private tours were out of luck. I' m not sure how the private tours generally work - if you don't have to prepay you would be fine. Just be aware of that risk. For us we just bought the cruise bus transfers into the various towns and wandered on our own. Inexpensive and we enjoyed the more mellow experience.

[Hlitner]

DW just reminded me that on our last Caribbean cruise (a 14 day cruise with 9 ports) we spent a total of ZERO dollars in all ports with the exception of what I paid for some fine Cognac in St Maarten. So for us, our port budget was zero. And this it a totally true story since we decided to simply spend most of the port days on our lovely ship (it is the best time to be aboard) since we had been to all the ports more times then we had been on that particular ship :).

 

But if we did our usual procedure of going to beaches in every port we would have spent no more then $600 (the cost to go to our favorite beaches by public transit or a taxi) plus some drinks. But cruising in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa is a whole different story and one must carefully analyze their itinerary and their "wants" to come up with a ball park budget.

Hank

Edited June 13, 2015 by Hlitner

[mrobstad]

I can only comment on one port--Naples. Try to join or start a group of 8 and use Rome in Limo. It's not quite a tour, but a driver who facilitates everything. You'll pay to enter Pompeii and you definitely need a guide, but everything would be divided by 8 so you could get away with a little over 110 € pp.

[chipmaster]

Tours are totally YMMV depending on how adventurous or how personal catered you want them.

 

The ship big bus affairs figure between 50-200 bucks / person. You can DIY for little more than 50-60 dollars for public transportation and cheap eats. Then there is the private tours that run 100-150 / person depending if you can fill your vehicle. Some ports easy do DIY, others scream of doing a private. Do your research and in some ports splurge, others maybe all you need to do is walk off the ship.

[Chloe1500]

I think this is a little difficult for others to answer. It all depends on what interests you. So, my suggestion is to research each port to identify the major sights and make choices on what you would like to see and do. Then, you can determine which method (or ask others here) makes the most sense on how to tour those sights whether on your own using public transport, organizing private car sharing tours with a driver or a private tour guide, or signing up for a ship excursion. Rick Steves covers all of the ports you will be visiting in his book Mediterranean Cruise Ports (mentioned by Cruisemom above) and offers advice on ways to see the major sights and which ports to DIY and which ones to take a tour. Have fun with the planning!

Edited June 14, 2015 by Chloe1500