Should we book excursions before we leave?

[azladydi]

We are on the Celebrity Solstice departing December 2.  I am disappointed in the excursion options with celebrity.  Can we just get off the ship and book or should I book before we leave with viator or cruise one?  Also, any comments about the Taipei Gorge train?  Does the cruise line get better seats?  Thanks for your help.

Edited November 21, 2019 by azladydi
Left out word

[Aus Traveller]

24 minutes ago, azladydi said:

We are on the Celebrity Solstice departing December 2.  I am disappointed in the excursion options with celebrity.  Can we just get off the ship and book or should I book before we leave with viator or cruise one?  Also, any comments about the Taipei Gorge train?  Does the cruise line get better seats?  Thanks for your help.

I assume you mean the Taieri Gorge trip from Dunedin. If you want to go on this trip, you need to pre-book either through the ship or independently on line. The cruiseline doesn't get better seats: when we went on a Princess shore excursion, they had the whole train. Food and drink were served.

 

if you want to go independently you will have to go on line and see if the NZ Railways is selling tickets for a train trip on the day you will be in port. Sometimes they are not available. If there are two ships in port, you wouldn't have much chance.

 

The ships dock in Port Chalmers so you would have to get transport to Dunedin where the train leaves from. The train used by the ship usually leaves from the wharf right beside the ship, but this would not available for private passengers.

 

If it is any consolation to you, we were underwhelmed by the Taieri Gorge trip. If you can't get tickets, there are other interesting things to do in Dunedin. 🙂

[mr walker]

Our preference is to always have our tours booked ahead of the cruise. People will say that you can get better/cheaper tours at the dock, but we don't want to waste limited port time, in a place we may never visit again, trying to find a tour in amongst a throng of people doing likewise.

We more and more are using ' private' tours rather than the ship arranged ones, not so much for the cost that many talk of, but for the smaller number of people on the tour, and what tours are offered also.

For example, on our NZ cruise in Jan we did the following, all booked on-line well ahead of the cruise:

 

Port	Tour	Operator
Napier	Zealandier WOW Shore Excursion Black Rose Limo	Black Rose
Wellington	Shore Trips & Tours Rover LOTR 1/2 day tour 13:30 - 5:00	Rover
Akaroa	Shore Trips & Tours 4WD Scenic Nature Tour 12:00-4:00	Pohatu Penguins
Dunedin	Tourworks - Mainland Peninsula Tour 9:00am	Tourworks

We thoroughly enjoyed all of these & they were all small group tours. These were very different to what the ship was offering.

 

We have not done the train in Dunedin, so can't comment.

 

[possum52]

We really enjoyed the Taieri Gorge train trip. We booked a tour ourselves which included the train and a tour of Dunedin. We were picked up at the Port Chalmers terminal by coach and taken to the Dunedin Railway Station to board the train and afterwards picked up from the train to do the tour of the city before being returned to Port Chalmers. The cost was a fraction of the price of the ship organised trip. We used Good Company Tours and booked online.

 

Leigh

[valantine80]

We have also done the Taieri Gorge train trip with Good Company tours where they pick you up and return you to the port with a short tour of Dunedin as well. We quite enjoyed it with a stop on the train trip where the locals sell some knitted goods etc.

They use a different train from the one used by the cruise ship which departs from the port.

 

Pam