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Will we be able to do privately booked shore excursions in June?


puppymama1
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We had an Alaska trip booked for June, 2020 which was of course cancelled.. We are rebooked for June, 2021 and I am undecided about what to do regarding shore excursions.  We usually book our own small group excursions, and had everything planned for the cancelled cruise.. I would like to do the same thing if we actually get to cruise next June, but everything I am reading now says the only way they will allow cruising to happen is if passengers are only allowed to leave the ship on an excursion booked through the cruise line.  Should we book Princess' excursions now and then cancel them and hope to rebook on our own next year if we are allowed to do so?  I don't want to wait too long and get shut out of the excursions we want, but I don't want to spend a lot of money upfront that I have to hope I can get refunded if we aren't allowed to do our own excursions... Would love to hear other opinions and what other 2021 Alaska cruisers are doing.. thanks!

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We are hopefully cruising next August and booked 2 private excursions.  One is prepaid with the promise of a refund if we don't cruise or cannot do private excursions.  The other one does not require any payment until January and it is only a down payment with the same promise.

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Cruising on HAL in July 2021. If arriving by ship, the excursions we want in 2 ports are only available thru the ship. So we had booked them in January plus 1 at Hubbard Glacier. The Juneau whale watching excursion we booked independently.

 

Recently HAL offered Alaskan excursions at a 20% discount. Canceled and re-booked the 3 HAL excursions. We also booked a HAL whale watching excursion (same original cost and times as independent one but on a larger boat) in case only ship excursions are allowed. Can cancel either of the whale watching excursions and get full refund. Even though the HAL excursion is now less than the independent one, we're hoping we're allowed to go on the smaller boat. Ordinarily we wouldn't double book an excursion; we're considering the miniscule amount of lost interest as an insurance fee.

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I understand where you are coming from completely!  We also like to book with private vendors and DIY as opposed to ship tours. 
 

What I have done is rebook with tour companies that are only completely refundable.  But, I did book an excursion with Princess—the train in Skagway.  There is one person in our party who has never been to Alaska and really wants to ride the train. So I went ahead and booked that excursion for him.  

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The million dollar question of the day.  LOL  I have noticed excursions from RCL for next year are less expensive than what the same excursions were previous years directly from the vendor.  So that may be RCL's way of getting excursions booked through them.

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4 hours ago, TiiiSailor said:

The million dollar question of the day.  LOL  I have noticed excursions from RCL for next year are less expensive than what the same excursions were previous years directly from the vendor.  So that may be RCL's way of getting excursions booked through them.

 

It isn't the cost of the excursion but the quality of the excursion.  Many of the cruise ship excursions wouldn't have been worth it even if they were free.  In fact,  we won one cruise ship excursion at a drawing and it was free but still was not worth it.  The only time I would ever take a cruise ship excursion is if it was unique and I felt that I had to take it the it was a small port and the cruise company had bought up all the excursions in town.  

 

DON

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1 hour ago, donaldsc said:

 

It isn't the cost of the excursion but the quality of the excursion.  Many of the cruise ship excursions wouldn't have been worth it even if they were free.  In fact,  we won one cruise ship excursion at a drawing and it was free but still was not worth it.  The only time I would ever take a cruise ship excursion is if it was unique and I felt that I had to take it the it was a small port and the cruise company had bought up all the excursions in town.  

 

DON

Or it was a logistic problem of the particular port to get to where you ultimately wanted to go.

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We had booked (and paid at least a deposit) with 2 small independent whale watching boats on different days for 2020, then postponed to 2021. We are about to postpone (have been told can do this) again to 2022. I shall again ask the companies if can postpone with them to 2022, and I trust this will happen.  If, then, one can only have excursions with the cruise line, I shall ask those companies if they can work on becoming an official cruise line supplier, and transfer my booking with them via that.  Why shouldn't they? The cruise line doesn't own excursion boats. 

 

To be honest it isn't a lot of $ spent, and if the above does not happen, they have no income for 2 years, so I probably wouldn't ask for it back.

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This is something we're watching too. Pre-COVID we had figured we would book as many of our excusions independently as possible for our June 2021 cruise. But current rules are that you have to stay "within your cruise bubble" and use only the cruise's excursions. Not sure how that will be affected by the fact that the Alaska excursions are US ports - watching and waiting!

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14 minutes ago, JSSpence said:

This is something we're watching too. Pre-COVID we had figured we would book as many of our excusions independently as possible for our June 2021 cruise. But current rules are that you have to stay "within your cruise bubble" and use only the cruise's excursions. Not sure how that will be affected by the fact that the Alaska excursions are US ports - watching and waiting!

There are no "current rules". There is only one or two small cruise operations in Europe starting up this way. Yes, cruise lines in the US may be required to do this, or they may not. 

 

Its just too soon to do anything other than speculate.

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I rebooked a 2020 Alaska cruise to Aug 2021.  It took a long time for me to get refunds for 2020 travel (not cruise), so I am being cautious.  Going to book with cruise line up to OBC that I have and then wait and see for the rest.  Would prefer private tour especially in Skagway, but going to book with the cruise line by early 2021 so that I don't get locked out of any excursions.

 

 

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On 10/16/2020 at 12:37 AM, donaldsc said:

 

It isn't the cost of the excursion but the quality of the excursion.  Many of the cruise ship excursions wouldn't have been worth it even if they were free.  In fact,  we won one cruise ship excursion at a drawing and it was free but still was not worth it.  The only time I would ever take a cruise ship excursion is if it was unique and I felt that I had to take it the it was a small port and the cruise company had bought up all the excursions in town.  

 

DON

Don,

The excursion I booked through RCL for next year was one I was about to book through the vendor.  Checked the time of the RCL excursion and it was exactly the same time, same description and pictures as the vendors.  RCL's excursion was $20 cheaper than purchasing from the actual company running the excursion.  I've taken a bunch of excursions booked directly through the vendor and had RCL passengers who booked through the ship on the same excursion who paid a higher price.  This time it's just the opposite.

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In my cruising group on the Book of Faces page for my Carnival cruise to Alaska, the admin posted this earlier today:

 

*****

 

Morning all. I would like to address you a few things. The rules in place now will not be what is in place for next year.
We have only been told some basics for now and will know more in about 2 weeks.
 
  1. Masks for boarding & embarking. this will be phased out over the next year. Mask will need to be worn in places that you cannot social distance. Cruise lines are working hard to change things up to avoid it. On lido no masks. They will have 3 shows a night with every other row.
  2. Temperature checks before boarding and random thru out the cruise. This will be phased out thru out the year but will stay around for boarding.
  3. A new health questionnaire will be filled out before boarding. Please be honest..
  4. Lots of hand sanitizing stations. These will be staying.
  5. Lido buffet will be served by crew( I am all for this) This will be staying around.
  6. Excursions. To start thru cruise lines. They will be adding many & are working with tour ops. This will also be phased out over the year. Islands are also working on "verified" excursions . They need a special license after they have passed a new health & safety course
  7. oops I forgot the important one. They will be giving the 15 minute Rapid Response test before boarding. IF its positive they send you to the medic area for another one that takes an hour. IF that is also positive you will not be allowed to board and everyone you came in with. They are working on a refund process for this and haven't released yet but you will not lose your money. This is also temporary.
I know everyone is frustrated and wants answers but until the CDC gives the approval we all have to wait. The good news is most of these should be phased out by the time we cruise. There is a lot of articles out there will opinions and speculation. Most of them are wrong.
As soon as Carnival sends me the factual requirements I will post them here.
*****
 
Don't know how accurate this is but thought I would share.  
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On 10/21/2020 at 3:27 AM, worldtraveller99 said:

Really good LadyMac72  thank you. For us it boils down to - will Canada let us in to start our cruise! ?

That is my question too. We also have a post cruise tour through the Canadian Rockies.  I'm assuming that if we can cruise from Vancouver then the cruise tour will be a go too.  To play it safe, we booked our flights through Celebrity even though we wanted to use miles for this trip.

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We're strategizing for a Baltic cruise summer 2021. RCCL says shore excursions can be cancelled without penalty. But does this mean a refund or a credit? I'm not finding that detail. Anyone with experience in this?
Thanks!

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2 minutes ago, Weinwalk said:

We're strategizing for a Baltic cruise summer 2021. RCCL says shore excursions can be cancelled without penalty. But does this mean a refund or a credit? I'm not finding that detail. Anyone with experience in this?
Thanks!

Probably better to ask this question on the RCI board, as it is a RC I specific policy question. Usually its a cash refund (to your credit card), but we are in different times.

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5 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Probably better to ask this question on the RCI board, as it is a RC I specific policy question. Usually its a cash refund (to your credit card), but we are in different times.

Oh, thanks! Appreciate the guidance!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I also am debating if I should book now or wait a couple months.   Our June 2020 was canceled and we (husband, son and his girlfriend) are booked for June 2021.   i had paid $2000 for a private boat excursion.   A friend and his wife were joining us.   I thought it would take forever to get that refunded but the company had it to me in two weeks.  We booked the White pass train excursion with Princess - oh my - it took so long to get that money back.   I am also waiting for a refund for a canceled tour for a South America cruise that we should be on again.    

I wish Princess would go back to allowing us to book excursions without paying upfront until final payment.   That would give them plenty of time to rebook them. How about a nonrefundable deposit?

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