Private vehicle excursion with guide

[Kiwi Brenda]

First Princess and Mediterranean cruise April-May 2023 with my husband, sister and her partner. Wondering if anyone has experience using these private vehicle with guide excursions via Princess? Seems good value for four of us and getting to see the sights we want without the “shopping available” on other ship excursions. Any insights/experience’s would be appreciated. 

[harfield]

Private excursions are the way to go. You are not hearded around like sheep, much more personal and usually half the price. We always do private excursions. The only thing you need to do is make sure you are back to the ship well in advanc before it sails. Never had a problem.

[ROXIETHEHORSE]

I was wondering the same for our October 2023 cruise stop in Istanbul. We went ahead and booked it, so I guess we’ll find out!

[donaldsc]

5 hours ago, harfield said:

Private excursions are the way to go. You are not hearded around like sheep, much more personal and usually half the price. We always do private excursions. The only thing you need to do is make sure you are back to the ship well in advanc before it sails. Never had a problem.

 

I am not sure but I would guess that if the OP books one of the private vehicle tours offered by Princess it should be considered a ship tour so the ship should wait for you or get you to the next port.  If you do a independent private tour the ship will not wait but I would not worry about this issue.  We always do independent private tours and have never even come close to missing the ship.

 

DON

[dog]

Also consider the booking terms- some charge full amount if you cancel.

[Coral]

I haven't but recently looked at pricing and it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be after pricing out some private excursions in Europe.

[HaveDogWillTravel]

7 hours ago, donaldsc said:

 

I am not sure but I would guess that if the OP books one of the private vehicle tours offered by Princess it should be considered a ship tour so the ship should wait for you or get you to the next port.  If you do a independent private tour the ship will not wait but I would not worry about this issue.  We always do independent private tours and have never even come close to missing the ship.

 

DON

We rarely use ship tours as well. We either walk, use public transit/Lyft, book a private guide or rent a car.
 

However last week in Vancouver we learned an important lesson.

We rented a car and drove the sea to sky highway. (Beautiful BTW and highly recommended) We started our sightseeing a little past the sea to sky Gondola at Eagle Run near Squamish and worked our way back towards Vancouver sightseeing.  The Enterprise folks warned us about rush hour traffic coming back into Vancouver so we started back a little before 2 well within the window to avoid the worst of it. At this point we were 45 minutes from Vancouver. Google maps and Waze showed clear roads. 
 

Well at around noon unbeknownst to us (who listens to traffic radio on vacation?  We will from now on! Would have saved us a lot of trouble) someone drove the wrong way on the south bound lanes of the highway causing a major pile up with major injuries. We came up to the parking lot that the highway had become and after a bit  we turned on traffic radio and heard the highway was expected to be closed until 9 pm. I still couldn’t believe the maps didn’t show this major accident!  
 

Looking at the map we saw VERY few options to get to the ONLY other road that would get us into Vancouver. And all of those options were entirely gridlocked. All said and done it took 3 hours to make that 45 min drive. Canadians are very courteous and folks were letting people in even though we all moved at a walking speed. It was all really civilized, no honking or yelling or any of that.  Several times we were literally just parked for 10 or more minutes. We had a late sail away (10 pm) so we weren’t too worried about missing the ship but moving forward  I am definitely going to check how many alternate routes back are available before heading out next time. I’ll be particularly cautious if we have an earlier sail away. 

[Mike45LC]

Have Dog, I am glad you made it back to the ship on time.  How stressful!

 

To the OP:  In Europe, I tend to book "small group tours" instead of private cars.  But when I first started cruising, in the Caribbean, I would put together a small group of two or three couples and we would hire a van-taxi and tell the driver where we wanted to go.  I had researched the ports in advance and I knew exactly what I wanted to see. 

 

That was so much better than the Island Tour excursions in part because we were not in sync with the tour buses.  A tour bus pulls up at an attraction and 25 middle aged ladies crowd into the two stall ladies' room.  Then they all want to shop.  And this is repeated at every attraction -- power of mass suggestion!

 

My van-taxi pulls up at a different time and we miss the rush on the Water Closet.  We can do a lot more with the small group!