Another pricing increase - Excursions

[Schoifmom]

I know that we all noticed the unannounced pricing increase in the Fun Shops, but has anyone noticed the pricing increase in excursions?  I have the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion booked for next year and it is now $20 pp more than what I booked it for.  I have a couple of other excursions "favorited" in the website, and those have gone up significantly from when I first looked at them.  Unfortunately, for Alaska, the excursions we want are often not available outside of Carnival 😞 

[MichiganFisherman]

Alaska is already expensive for tours and this makes it worse. Your Tracey Arm tour can be priceless if your weather and clarity was like ours on August .

 

 

[mz-s]

Unless Carnival is increasing their commission rate - which is believable but would probably be relatively equal across the board with all excursions - it's just as likely that these are price hikes instituted by the tour operators and Carnival is just passing that on to the consumer.

[Island Dog]

Unless the line is the only one offering the excursion, we always book independent tours or explore on our own. Much cheaper and almost always a better experience. 

[Itried4498]

14 hours ago, mz-s said:

Unless Carnival is increasing their commission rate - which is believable but would probably be relatively equal across the board with all excursions - it's just as likely that these are price hikes instituted by the tour operators and Carnival is just passing that on to the consumer.

 

No, Carnival sets the price you pay for an excursion.  A popular Enseanda tour, for example, is $5 more on Princess and $15 more on Royal.  It's literally the exact same excursion.  Maybe Carnival gets a better rate than Royal, but I can almost guarantee you the tour company isn't collecting $5 more per person from Princess. 

 

Excursions are way overpriced, anyway.  They're convenient, but you pay big for convenience - a savvy traveler could replicate the experience for a fraction of the price.  A family of four, for example, could pay $60 instead of $150 - and take the exact same tour (on the same bus) as the cruisers - if they walked 10-15 minutes into town.

[Sailin_Pirate]

23 minutes ago, Itried4498 said:

 

No, Carnival sets the price you pay for an excursion.  A popular Enseanda tour, for example, is $5 more on Princess and $15 more on Royal.  It's literally the exact same excursion.  Maybe Carnival gets a better rate than Royal, but I can almost guarantee you the tour company isn't collecting $5 more per person from Princess. 

 

Excursions are way overpriced, anyway.  They're convenient, but you pay big for convenience - a savvy traveler could replicate the experience for a fraction of the price.  A family of four, for example, could pay $60 instead of $150 - and take the exact same tour (on the same bus) as the cruisers - if they walked 10-15 minutes into town.

HAHA a Carnival cruiser walking 10-15minutes  (kidding) , but we do have a thread here with people whining about not being able to have entree 3-infinite free though.

 

I have only used Covid OBC for excursions , other than that it's cheaper to book directly and are usually better. (less people etc.)

[ShakyBeef]

If you are booking a Carnival Shore Excursion and you have the Carnival FunPoints Mastercard, you get the 10% reFUNd if you book pre-cruise.  This seems to be a little-known benefit of this credit card, so I thought I'd mention it here for those who may not know and for those who may have forgotten.  Ten percent off the more expensive excursions can be a nice chunk of change.

 

From Barclay's credit card website:

 

Get a 10% reFUNd when you book a Carnival shore excursion on Carnival.com prior to your cruise.  

Shore excursions may be booked online prior to sailing up until the Pre-Sail cut-off time of 11:30pm ET, the evening prior to the cruise departure. A statement credit will be posted to the account within 1-2 business days and will appear on the account billing statement within 1 billing cycle. Please note, if a statement credit is going to be more than $2,499, it will require a few extra days to post to the cardmember's account.

 

Cardmembers who use their Carnival World Mastercard to purchase a Carnival shore excursion on carnival.com prior to their cruise will receive a 10% discount on the shore excursion package (taxes and fees are not included in the discount). The discount will be awarded in the form of a statement credit and will appear on the statement within 1 billing cycle.  

Shore excursions may be booked online prior to sailing up until the Pre-Sail cut-off time of 11:30pm ET, the evening prior to the cruise departure. A statement credit will be posted to the account within 1-2 business days and will appear on the account billing statement within 1 billing cycle. Please note, if a statement credit is going to be more than $2,499, it will require a few extra days to post to the cardmember's account.

 

 

[Hoosierpop]

It is shocking that prices for things are going up with the high overall inflation. 

[Joebucks]

Can we post a sticky thread to let everyone in on the secret of high inflation?

[d12j28]

You guys are all gonna go overboard when stamps go up .03 in January! 

[JT1962]

Not surprised at anything regarding price increases these days. The excursion vendors are having to pay more for salaries, wages, food (if provided), etc. 

 

As far as Alaska, I have found there is not as much price difference on cruise line excursions vs independent excursions as there is in the Caribbean. The main difference in Alaska is the independent excursions are usually smaller groups and may last longer than those booked through the ship. 
 

Specific to the Tracy Arm Small Boat Excursion, it is only available through the cruise line since you board directly from the ship. The only alternative is to use Adventure Bound roundtrip from Juneau, but you need to be docked in Juneau from at least 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM for that to be an option. Most Carnival ships are not in Juneau that long.