Guided Tour of Kennedy Space Center

[maysill88]

Does anyone know what company Royal contracts with to provide the guided tour excursion at the Kennedy Space Center?  We took that excursion in April this year and had a great time with tour guide Rex. I can't remember the name of his company; think it had "sun" in the title but that's all I remember. 

 

I am asking because we have family going on pretty much the same cruise in November, and they are interested in the guided tour.  The only excursion to Kennedy is the shuttle (tour on your own).  If I could figure out what company we were with in April, then perhaps they could book the tour directly with the company. Any help is appreciated.

 

Of course they could go without a guide, but that is not what we are looking for. The tour guide gave us so much extra information about everything we were seeing and organized the whole day very well so that we got to see and do a lot.

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

We had the guided tour RSVP'ed with the ship (Wonder) for our November cruise.  About a month ago I got an email from Royal advising they had dropped the guided part of the tour (no reason), but you could still do the self guided part with airport drop off.  I was wondering if I could buy a guided tour also and was going to check the KSC site directly, but just haven't done it yet.  

[maysill88]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:35 PM, ATSEAMYLIFE said:

We had the guided tour RSVP'ed with the ship (Wonder) for our November cruise.  About a month ago I got an email from Royal advising they had dropped the guided part of the tour (no reason), but you could still do the self guided part with airport drop off.  I was wondering if I could buy a guided tour also and was going to check the KSC site directly, but just haven't done it yet.  

 

I did some more searching and found the following blog post that seems to explain why we cannot get the guided tour through RCCL anymore.  As for booking a guide directly from KSC, all I could find on their website is guides for groups of at least 15 people, but I could be wrong.

 

QUOTED FROM A BLOG:  "

I can give you ALL the details! I was on this tour on July 3 while it was guided. We had been on site for about 30 minutes (max) when a security guard literally interrupted our guide mid sentence and physically pulled him away from our group. Come to find out, the operators of the visitor complex (Delaware North) decided that only their tour guides could provide guided services, and did not inform any of the tour companies of this decision. The security staff was extremely rude and ejected all of the group because we had violated their rules by having an unauthorized tour guide, no exceptions to allow us to tour on our own.

Everyone from the tour guide, the tour operator, and Royal were all blindsided by this. They even had a scheduled time for a bus exclusively for our group to go out to the Apollo/Saturn center, but we were unable to do so. They literally had armed guards walk us out and got really nasty with us, and were glaring at us as we waited for our bus to return. Nobody in the group acted out of line or violated any moral/legal/or ethical standards, other than the fact we used a valid ticket to enter the complex with an unauthorized tour guide. The tour guide and tour operator had been doing this tour for Royal for years. While we were in the middle of this they stopped at least one other tour company.

I would normally say it is worth a visit, but I don't want any money to go to that company. I had done this exact tour from Royal last November and loved it, so I wanted to try it again. But if you do go, I believe there are buses operated by the Center to take people out to the Apollo/Saturn center. I am not sure the visit is worth it without that, but the Atlantis Shuttle Center is pretty amazing and could make it worthwhile. One of the biggest values I found out of the excursion was the tour guide providing history of the space program and the area on the way there and the commentary/guided tour through the center.

If you do go and you encounter Rex either on the bus or at the center distributing your prepaid tickets be really nice to him- he literally had the vast majority of his income evaporate in front of our group of 47 that morning."

[ATSEAMYLIFE]

I figured it was some type of dispute with the tour operator.  Hopefully, they will find another tour operator soon.   

[RandomUser123]

I will be on October 29th Anthem of the Seas cruise out of Cape Liberty which will stop in Port Canaveral however the ship does not arrive until noon. Seeing that KSC closes at 5PM and factoring in we are going want to have lunch on the ship before getting off I am wondering if there will be enough time to try and go there. My thinking is probably not and we will instead after lunch just hang out at cocoa beach for a few hours. 

[maysill88]

1 hour ago, RandomUser123 said:

I will be on October 29th Anthem of the Seas cruise out of Cape Liberty which will stop in Port Canaveral however the ship does not arrive until noon. Seeing that KSC closes at 5PM and factoring in we are going want to have lunch on the ship before getting off I am wondering if there will be enough time to try and go there. My thinking is probably not and we will instead after lunch just hang out at cocoa beach for a few hours. 

Based on my one visit to KSC in April, I would not bother going there if your ship arrives at noon.  There would not be enough time to visit all of the different buildings and see all the exhibits, see an IMAX show, do the shuttle launch simulator ride, peruse the gift shop, etc.  It's best saved for when you're in port the whole day.