Ships own tours at Mediterranean cruise ports?

[Esilef]

We are traveling from Australia to Spain in September. 27 hours of travelling.

 

Are we best to go on the Royal Caribbean cruise tours or arrange our own?

 

Going on the vision of the seas 12 nighters western Mediterranean cruise with overnight in Venice.

[Florida_cruisers]

We always arrange our own: flexibility and cost are two advantages.

[Redrobo]

We are traveling from Australia to Spain in September. 27 hours of travelling.

 

Are we best to go on the Royal Caribbean cruise tours or arrange our own?

 

Going on the vision of the seas 12 nighters western Mediterranean cruise with overnight in Venice.

 

Visit the roll call and find if any have been organised by others cruising with you.

[Cigar King]

I base it on how far away the attraction is I am going to see, If it's more than an hour or so, I'm likely to take the ships tour, if not, I'll do my own.

 

The advantage to the ship tour is they will wait a little while for you if you are late. On your own is just that.

[robin13]

I have done a Med tour twice and have always booked on my own. The cruise lines are so expensive so I get on the roll call and see if anyone wants to join in. Usually the tours that I arranged were for 8 people and the price would be around $50-$75 per person compared to over $125 per person with the cruise line.

[Brewster]

We were on the Med Jewel of the Seas cruise last July. We booked all of our tours except one independently. For me, the independent tours were better (smaller parties, cheaper, more customized etc). A good place to research is Trip Advisor. We also used Viatour (which happens to be owned by Trip Advisor).

[ONECRUISER]

I base it on how far away the attraction is I am going to see, If it's more than an hour or so, I'm likely to take the ships tour, if not, I'll do my own.

 

The advantage to the ship tour is they will wait a little while for you if you are late. On your own is just that.

Agree. I'm more cautious taking independent tours traveling further away or tours that would finish too close to sailing... As other said stay on your sailings Roll Call...

[gatour]

Arrange your own will probably be less expensive and offers you more flexibility. For us it depends on several factors have we been to a place before, are the tours we a contemplating an all day tour, where you leave right after the ship docks and return just before the ship sails.

 

For example, the first time we visited St Martin, we took a ship sponsored tour. But from then on we just hired a taxi to take us.

 

Last year we took a Med cruise with some of my in-laws. I booked all of our excursions through Royal. However my wife's cousins booked private tours. For me it was easier to just have to worry about what I wanted to see. Instead of having to doing research on various tour operators at each port along with having to research the sites.