Prices and Availability of Fred's Excursions

[twotravellersLondon]

Can anyone give us a guide to current excursion prices on Fred Olsen?

 

Pre-covid... a not too special excursion used to cost about £10 an hour + about £5 to £10 on top... and, if a meal was included, about another £20 on top of that. We remember paying about £35 per head for a half day city tour and about £85 for a full day trip with lunch.

 

Also what is the availability like? We've heard that some people have had problems trying to book excursions... even as soon as they went on sale. So it would be very helpful to hear other's recent experiences. 

[tring]

4 hours ago, twotravellersLondon said:

 

Can anyone give us a guide to current excursion prices on Fred Olsen?

 

Pre-covid... a not too special excursion used to cost about £10 an hour + about £5 to £10 on top... and, if a meal was included, about another £20 on top of that. We remember paying about £35 per head for a half day city tour and about £85 for a full day trip with lunch.

 

Also what is the availability like? We've heard that some people have had problems trying to book excursions... even as soon as they went on sale. So it would be very helpful to hear other's recent experiences. 

 

Does not seem to be any big movement on excursion prices at all, though I would always have said prices vary a lot according to the port locations, with Norway being far more expensive than you mention and other places being quite cheap, according to prices in the country visited.  Fred has pretty much kept his bar prices low as well and of course no extra "service charge" added to the bill for them which happens with US brands, so the price you pay is the price you see.  DH notices those prices more than me and must admit - showing him a recent price list for P&O, produced a comment, "Ouch", as he feels they are being hiked up, though in practice P&O bar prices are still very cheap compared to the likes of Cunard and the US brands of course.  We have only travelled on Fred and Princess since covid and did find the Princess "package" for drinks wifi, tips good at £30pppn (considering their prices), though we only took that as I was advised by people who had used Princess before that it was very worth while.  DH considers Fred's bar prices equivalent to a good class of pub up here - so clearly cheaper than London pub prices.  We do not normally buy the drinks pack on Fred because of that and his drinks pack has limitations of course.

 

Our three hour Falmouth guided walk around the peninsula was £25pp and actually took longer than that.  We were also very happy with an excursion to Tresco Abby Gardens when in Scilly - we worked out that if we had been able to leave the ship independently and were tendered to St Mary's, the ferry to Tresco and entrance to the gardens was about the same cost, yet we had the convenience of being taken direct to Tresco by a local boat, which picked us up from the ship.  The excursions for our March cruise to Amsterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp have just come on sale this morning, so if you know of anything particular which you would like to compare, please ask.  As we will be docked centrally in all of those, we will not be using tours.  I can comment on one Amsterdam tour which is a daytime canal cruise of 1.5 hours.  I clearly remember doing that independently on our first visit to Amsterdam about 15 years ago and the cost.  We walked into the centre and paid £12 for the boat ride from just in front of the train station, which I am sure will cost a lot more now.  Hence Fred's price of £29 with transport to/from the ship, sounds pretty good to me. 

 

Regards availability, there was problems on the seacations, when people were not allowed ashore independently and discussing that with the tours manager, she did say it was because of availability (particularly of tour guides) so there was a limit to what they could contract.  We went on a walking tour in Falmouth and our tour guide said the same, reason being that they had to be trained blue badge guides and many of them had got other jobs during covid, so a lot less guides available compare to pre-covid.  It is the same with taxis up here - need to book one now if want a specific time, especially if a busy time, compared to pre-covid when one would turn up within five minutes.  As I am sure you know some excursions have always been limited.  One I am thinking of is the Ice Fjord boat ride among the grounded ice bergs from Narsarsuaq.  Only local boats are licensed to do that and there are simply not many boats available in that part of Greenland.  We contacted the company before we went asking if we could book an independent trip, but I was told they were completely contracted out to Fred.  Although that trip did sell out quickly for when we went, Fred was able to get more availability, I think by staying a bit longer in port IIRC, so everyone who wanted to do that trip was able to do so.  Now, with the bigger ships, I do not know if that sort of thing will become a problem.  We always view excursions when first available and book any we think we will definitely want, though in practice we very rarely book trips.

 

[twotravellersLondon]

Many thanks for your comments on your experiences in recent months. It's good to have an insight from someone who has recently sailed.

[Coravel]

We invariably choose some of the excursions because when there is limited time in port there is less chance of missing something important.  On the other hand we have joined up with others to go on taxi rides with very informative drivers.  

[twotravellersLondon]

17 hours ago, Coravel said:

We invariably choose some of the excursions because when there is limited time in port there is less chance of missing something important.  On the other hand we have joined up with others to go on taxi rides with very informative drivers.  

 

Many thanks.

 

Can you give me a guide price for any of the organised excursions. We plan our cruise spending very carefully and, for us, the excursions are usually an important element?

[Coravel]

11 hours ago, twotravellersLondon said:

 

Many thanks.

 

Can you give me a guide price for any of the organised excursions. We plan our cruise spending very carefully and, for us, the excursions are usually an important element?

 When we went to the Canary Islands last November we were charged around £40 each to go on a scenic tour to Mt Teide whereas in Lanzarote we paid around £90 each for a much longer tour.   The weather was abysmal and we were glad we didn't have to scramble about for taxis.