Oceania - Med ports - OLife best for included excursions?

[MandyGirl]

Of the following ports with Oceania, which would be the best three (3) to utilize the excursion OLife promo for versus booking something separately (or for a charge with Oceania)?   Girls' trip for six next summer and figure the tender ports worth considering for the three:

Kotor, Montenegro (tender)

Dubrovnik, Croatia Corfu

Greece Taormina (Sicily), Italy (tender)

Amalfi/Positano, Italy (tender)

Monte Carlo, Monaco (tender)

Saint-Tropez, France (tender)

Toulon, France

 

Already planning private tour in Rome since docked there.
 

Thank you in advance!

[ORV]

We docked in Kotor. I'd recommend some reading in the ports of call section. 

[Sny]

A few years ago, we did an O tour in Kotor.  It was dreadful!!!!  A long bus drive, on switchbacks on a VERY narrow road...  meal/snack provided at stop was a piece of dry bread, small piece of cheese and tiny glass of something.  Tour guide talked nonstop about history, over and over again.  We needed earplugs and motion sickness meds.

 

[Mura]

It's best to read the tour descriptions before deciding.  To begin with you can calculate the listed cost and see if it would
"pay" as one of your "free" tours.  But you also get a good idea of what the tour involves.

 

In Kotor we did a ship's tour (last year) up the mountain and it was one of the best ship's tours we've ever had.  The views were fabulous although I wouldn't want to have been driving down the hill while the bus was coming up!  Lots of backing up was involved.  Somehow the buses took precedence!

 

In looking back at Sny's post it looks like Sny did the same tour we did but had a very different reaction!  The snack we had on the way was better than what Sny received as well.  Also we had an excellent guide ... these things can be unpredictable!

 

It may have helped that for once we got the front seats so we had an incomparable view of the ride ... I'm not sure I'd have been happy if we were sitting in the back, as we usually are.

 

Mura

 

[jaga04]

It's hard to answer your question without knowing the specific tours (not sure if they're the exact same in each port each time) and what you like to do.  Even in most of the smaller ports, there are some choices within the should-see places.  For example, we wanted to visit Nice, so we did that from Monte Carlo, on an O tour that we really liked.  That meant we didn't get as much time in MC, so we saw the casino, but not the palace.  I got outvoted, as I was with gamblers.  Also, some of the tours have things added like food or wine, lots or little walking, that may or may not appeal to you.  We found that some of the tours were what we'd like, but were only a half day, when we wanted to be in a place for the whole day, so we did private tours.  Also, given port heavy cruises, we work in beach days or light days, so we're not overly exhausted.  On our recent cruises that stopped in some of your ports, we found the O tours and guides to be very good to excellent.  Given that there are 6 of you, if you want to do more than the 3 included tours, I would book privately rather than add O tours.  You're likely to have a better tour for less money per person.  Unless 4+ O tours sound great to you, as that's easier.  As said above, read about each port.  For some, you may not want to do a tour, as there are things to do where you can walk easily from the ship, or where a shuttle bus or taxi drops you.  In Dubrovnik, we walked the wall around/above the city and had a great time, but there were tours that looked interesting.  I view each cruise like a puzzle to explore and piece together, spending lots of time, but we'd probably have a great time no matter what we did!  Enjoy!

[tropicalkerry2002]

I agree with trying private tours...especially if this is your first time to Europe! Having a group of 6 already is perfect, and you can usually go up to 8 if you want to decrease the cost pp even more. Just post the tour on your roll call...have you joined your roll call?

IMO, there is so much to see (especially from the last 4 ports listed), and a private guide will get you there and back to the ship in time for sailing. I have just done the included tours on my last couple of cruises because 1) we have been to the Med so many times that I have seen the places before, and 2) they were ports I wasn't too concerned about(in Mexico).

I find that the included tours are often half day tours, so if you want to see as much as possible, get a private guide.

I would not miss Eze and St. Paul de Vence from Monte Carlo, or San Tropez if that works out better.

Also I would see if you can do Provence from Toulon.  That is my favourite place on earth, but we have always docked at Marseille and gone from there.

There are several great guides in the this area...I could recommend some if you like. Just let me know!

 

[Issyalex]

On 10/23/2019 at 10:37 AM, MandyGirl said:

Of the following ports with Oceania, which would be the best three (3) to utilize the excursion OLife promo for versus booking something separately (or for a charge with Oceania)?   Girls' trip for six next summer and figure the tender ports worth considering for the three:

Kotor, Montenegro (tender)

Dubrovnik, Croatia Corfu

Greece Taormina (Sicily), Italy (tender)

Amalfi/Positano, Italy (tender)

Monte Carlo, Monaco (tender)

Saint-Tropez, France (tender)

Toulon, France

 

Already planning private tour in Rome since docked there.
 

Thank you in advance!

Book a local private tour for Kotor.

They should supply a free shuttle bus that will take you into Dubrovnik, which is a small town and easy to walk around.

Amalfi coast depends on where she tenders. I’d do a tour here, if only for the drive up/down the Amalfi coast as the road is on the Cliff edge. 

Monte Carlo is easy to walk around and you can catch the train to Monaco if you want.

Taormina, and Toulon I’ve not been too. 

[Sny]

Mura is right about the bus tour in Kotor.  The front seats would have been way better.  And a good guide could have made a big difference.  In general, I find the guides on private tours to be far better than those on O tours.  We've had guides on O who did pretty generic tours for that locations, seemingly never haven read the tour description that O provided us.  

[Mura]

Thanks Sny.  I am one who also tends to prefer private tours while DH likes the ease of ship's tours, so we tend to do a combination of both, especially since oLife came into play.  While I still prefer our independent tours with a small group, we've had good experiences in general with ship's tours.  Just as you can have a poor guide on a ship's tour, so can you have that experience on a private tour.  But I would say the odds are better to have an excellent guide when on a private tour.

 

And we've had excellent guides on some ship's tours as well.  You just don't know in advance!

 

[GeorgesGal]

This past September we visited Kotor for the third or fourth time.  This time we hired a guide, ToursbyMilo.com, and had a lovely four hour tour - turned into almost five hours - with overviews of the Bay of Kotor, a few very ancient towns, including Budva where we had lunch on our own.  We also took the launch from shore to the lovely  church on the tiny islet that you pass on the way into and out of the fjord approaching Kotor for an additional small fee.  I think it was 6 USD.  There were only four of us in his car.  Our cost for the tour was 180 USD for the four of us, not including the aforementioned 6 USD.