Booking Excursions

[FSU Girl]

It looks like I can book excursions through the cruise already even though it doesn’t sail until August 2019. When I book these, are they something I pay for right away, or are they added to the onboard account and I pay at the end of the cruise? Is there an advantage or disadvantage to booking them so early?

 

I’ve never been to any of the locations on this cruise (Ireland and Iceland) and want to make sure I see and do a lot in each port. It’s a honeymoon cruise so I’m okay with spending a bit more than normal since it’s a special trip. Any recommendations on must-dos? Also, the boat is in Dublin for two full days. Would it be crazy to rent a car and drive around a bit or Irleand and maybe stay the night in a castle? Would we have to let the ship know we aren’t sleeping on board if we do this?

 

Sorry for all the questions this will be my first Celebrity cruise.

 

Thank you :)

[mahdnc]

You pay right away for the excursions you book on line ahead of time. If you have on board credit thru Celebrity, you can pay with that as an option. Sometimes Celebrity will run promotions where they are discounted before the cruise. You can take advantage of that or cancel and rebook if you had bought them already.

 

Pricing of the excursions are not static. They will change with time. Seems like, if anything, they go up with time. And so sometimes when a promotion period discount is offered, you'll sometimes find that it's not cheaper than what you had previously bought it for.

 

The biggest reason to book early is that a few of them sell out. You can always cancel up to a few days before the excursion so no disadvantage in buying early.

 

Of course you can usually book your excursions directly with companies and it will be cheaper, more time efficient and higher quality than booking thru Celebrity. The ones popularized thru Cruise Critic can sell out way ahead of time. There is a catamaran ride through a company at Barbados that is sold out a month ago for our stop there when Reflection calls on that port in Jan 2019.

 

I've never been to Ireland, but a castle stay on your honeymoon is not crazy. You should let the ship know that you will not be on board for the night. At a minimum, your sea pass cards will generate a warning to security if your cards are used to board that night. On our Great Barrier Reef cruise in January, we booked a hotel to stay ashore at a port that Solstice was there overnight. The ship's daily newsletter requested that all passengers doing that to notify Guest Relations (aka the front desk).

Edited March 3, 2018 by mahdnc

[gerelmx]

If you purchase the shorex in your cruise planner, your Credit Card will be charged immediately. Some shorex are so popular and have limited capacity.

[NantahalaCruiser]

If there is a ship's shore excursion that excites you, then book it now since you can always cancel it up to a few days prior to departure. In my experience, the on-board price is often 5% to 10% more expensive.

 

But check your roll call to see if any of your fellow cruisers have organized independent shore excursions - they are always smaller groups, often more interesting tours, and usually either same or cheaper.

 

An overnight on-shore would certainly add to your honeymoon. While I would agree that it is good practice to mention that you will be staying overnight on-shore, when we notified the Millennium staff about our overnight in Vietnam they were not even interested in making a notation of it. Since it was our own responsibility to make it back to the ship before it left port, they apparently did not care whether we were on-shore or on-board overnight.

 

Check out the Golden Circle Tour out of Reykjavik - we used Iceland Horizon and had a great time.

Edited March 4, 2018 by NantahalaCruiser

[NantahalaCruiser]

Also, here is a link to castle-hotels in Ireland - they list two near Dublin:

 

http://www.hotel-ireland.com/castles/

 

Your might also check on www.tripadvisor for other options.

[Luvcrusn]

In regards to staying overnight in Ireland in a castle and notifying the ship of your plans, in our experience in overnight ports we've been told it's not necessary to notify them. They advised us that when in port overnight, you can treat the ship as you would a land based hotel. If you wanted to stay out all night, you wouldn't need to notify a hotel of your plans. It can't hurt to let them know, but it wasn't either necessary or required.