Back to Back Shore Excursions Possible or Impossible?

[spenecer]

If I sign up for 2 NCL Shore Excursions in the same port (so they are back to back), is it possible to attend both shore excursions?  Do shore excursions run late?  I have a snorkel trip booked for 11:45 in Curacao, but there is a city center tour for 1.5 hours right before it that I could also take, but if the city center tour runs late then I won't make the snorkel trip (which I'm more interested in).  I have Shore Excursion Credit and the City Center Tour would be 'free' after my credit, but I don't want to take it if it makes me miss the snorkel trip.  Also, what happens if you missed an excursion?  Does NCL keep your money? 

Edited January 8, 2023 by spenecer

[raitch]

It’s very possible your first tour would run late because they wait for people to get off the ship and join them before heading out.  What is the start & end time for the first tour?

[European_CruiseGirl]

I personally would not do this if they are truly almost back to back. You usually need to be at the meeting point for an excursion in minimum 30mins before the excursion starts. 
 

The only way I would feel comfortable doing this is if the first excursion was for example like 9:30-11 and the second one would start only after 1 or preferably 2. 

Edited January 8, 2023 by European_CruiseGirl

[Homosassa]

You lose your money if you miss the excursion.

 

It is also possible that if your are prebooking the excursions on the NCL website, the two bookings will not be permitted because of the lack of time between the two excursions.

[MagnoliaBlossom]

I’ve done it many years ago, but the two had a big time gap in between.

 

here’s my suggestion.   Don’t do the city tour through NCL.  Find a cabbie, or local tour guy and tell him you must be back by whatever time.  He should be able to accommodate you.  Easier to do a quick tour with a couple people than a bus load.

[PATRLR]

I suspect the city excursion is NOT something that would sell out, therefore I would ask at the excursion desk once you are onboard.  They will have best insight into how both excursions operate and if what you want is do-able, or not.

I've done multiple excursions in the same port but I've had a couple hours in between them.

[spenecer]

21 minutes ago, raitch said:

It’s very possible your first tour would run late because they wait for people to get off the ship and join them before heading out.  What is the start & end time for the first tour?

So this is actually Bonaire (though I have the same question for Curacao with different tours).  The first tour is 1 hour and supposed to start at 7:45 AM (so 7:45 - 8:45).  The second snorkel excursion is supposed to start at 9AM so there is only 15 minutes between the two excursions.

[European_CruiseGirl]

Just now, spenecer said:

So this is actually Bonaire (though I have the same question for Curacao with different tours).  The first tour is 1 hour and supposed to start at 7:45 AM (so 7:45 - 8:45).  The second snorkel excursion is supposed to start at 9AM so there is only 15 minutes between the two excursions.

No this is definitely not doable. You need to be at the snorkel excursion meeting point in minimum 30 mins before that excursion starts so already at 8:30.

[spenecer]

13 minutes ago, Homosassa said:

You lose your money if you miss the excursion.

 

It is also possible that if your are prebooking the excursions on the NCL website, the two bookings will not be permitted because of the lack of time between the two excursions.

Right now, I have booked the snorkel already on the NCL website and it is showing that the city tour is still available to me.  The others from the day have vanished since they conflict.  But there is only 15 minutes between the two tours so I'm uncertain if it would be feasible to try.

 

[raitch]

1 minute ago, spenecer said:

So this is actually Bonaire (though I have the same question for Curacao with different tours).  The first tour is 1 hour and supposed to start at 7:45 AM (so 7:45 - 8:45).  The second snorkel excursion is supposed to start at 9AM so there is only 15 minutes between the two excursions.

Oh no way will this work.  Don’t do it.

[European_CruiseGirl]

13 minutes ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

I’ve done it many years ago, but the two had a big time gap in between.

 

here’s my suggestion.   Don’t do the city tour through NCL.  Find a cabbie, or local tour guy and tell him you must be back by whatever time.  He should be able to accommodate you.  Easier to do a quick tour with a couple people than a bus load.

I would definitely do this if you absolutely want to tour the city too. Just use your $50 towards the snorkeling excursion and you won’t lose anything moneywise.

Edited January 8, 2023 by European_CruiseGirl

[sailorusvi]

I use to live in the islands (USVI), worked on snorkel boats and occasionally dealt with cruise ships and here is my opinion.

 

If the snorkel trip is first, then it maybe possible.  Boats run on tight schedules as they often have another trip afterwards, so they rarely run late. Depending on the pickup location of city tour is in the general location of the snorkel trip location it could work.

 

City tours try to run on tight schedules also, but traffic and people not returning on time comes into play, so they are more likely to run late. I would not risk it if the city tour is first.

 

Not sure about this location, but in the USVI it wasn't difficult to find a last minute city tour. (just make sure you allow time to make it back to the ship.)

 

40 minutes ago, spenecer said:

So this is actually Bonaire (though I have the same question for Curacao with different tours).  The first tour is 1 hour and supposed to start at 7:45 AM (so 7:45 - 8:45).  The second snorkel excursion is supposed to start at 9AM so there is only 15 minutes between the two excursions.

 

 It "*might* be possible if both pickups/dropoffs are at the same dock, but that is a huge IF.  No way I would book excursions with that short of a time window.

Edited January 8, 2023 by sailorusvi

[wcook]

1 hour ago, spenecer said:

So this is actually Bonaire (though I have the same question for Curacao with different tours).  The first tour is 1 hour and supposed to start at 7:45 AM (so 7:45 - 8:45).  The second snorkel excursion is supposed to start at 9AM so there is only 15 minutes between the two excursions.

Are you sure the excursion starts at 7:45 and end at 8:45? Or does it just have a 7:45 meeting time. Which I would read as starting at 8:00 at the earliest, getting back at 9:00 at the earliest, but probably later. 

[spenecer]

8 hours ago, wcook said:

Are you sure the excursion starts at 7:45 and end at 8:45? Or does it just have a 7:45 meeting time. Which I would read as starting at 8:00 at the earliest, getting back at 9:00 at the earliest, but probably later. 

The NCL website says 7:45 as the time available to choose for the excursion.  I don't know what that translates to in terms of when the excursion actually starts.  The website also says that the excursion will take an hour.

[Buford T Justiice]

With a tour starting at 7:45, your tickets delivered to your cabin will probably say meet at 7:30 on the Pier; likewise your snorkel excursion will say meet on the pier at 8:30 or 8:45.

[Something fun!]

I have done back to back excursions in a few ports.  In one, Barbados specifically, I did a snorkel/beach excursion followed up by a cave excursion. I believe there was only 15-30 minutes in between. It turned out that both were run by the same vendor, and the NCL shorex staff communicated directly with the vendor on what I was doing both prior and via walkie-talkie that day.

 

I have had no problems with same day excursions with an hour in between.  That is a safe time gap for me, also with the understanding that in rare circumstances a situation could arise where I would not make it in time for my next booking.

 

Communicating with the shorex staff is key.  In a different situation, they advised fairly about a chance that I may not make it back in time from a tour in the BVIs to then make a catamaran excursion. I believe it was only 15 minutes in between.  Basically, choose my priority or risk paying for both and not making it for the afternoon excursion. I ended up just booking the first excursion, which was my priority, and took my chances on getting on the 2nd tour last minute.  It turned out that I made it back to the pier with extra time to get on the 2nd excursion, but it was a popular snorkel trip and was sold out at that point.

 

In your specific case, I would only book the snorkel excursion at this point.  Then talk to the shorex staff on the ship and see if there is any realistic way to do both.  In frequent instances, tour times are changed or canceled.

 

I'm Platinum and a shore excursion junkie fwiw.

 

 

[kitkat343]

If the snorkel tour is your priority, do you have enough time to tour the city privately afterwards?  We normally only do private excursions, but a month before our trip NCL cut out the morning of Antigua for environmental reasons.  This knocked out our ability to snorkel with the stingrays with a  private company, so we had to do a NCL tour.  I hired a private tour guide to meet us where the stingray tour ends, will skip the NCL transport back to the pier and will tour privately with our driver.  If you really want to do the city tour, but the snorkeling is your priority, I'd recommend that.

 

Something Fun's advise to wait to book the city tour until you speak to the ship is good too.  If they can't make it work, then you can book a private excursion.

Edited January 12, 2023 by kitkat343

[eileeshb]

For Bonaire the snorkel excursions depart from right beside the ship, or at least they did for the excursion I did last year. But the city tour will involve a hike down the pier to get to/from the bus so that adds another few minutes to the excursion duration on your city tour. 

[Peachypooh]

On 1/8/2023 at 8:39 AM, spenecer said:

So this is actually Bonaire (though I have the same question for Curacao with different tours).  The first tour is 1 hour and supposed to start at 7:45 AM (so 7:45 - 8:45).  The second snorkel excursion is supposed to start at 9AM so there is only 15 minutes between the two excursions.

I did the city tuk tuk tour in Bonaire. It started and ended right by the pier. The guide drove us through town in an open air vehicle stopping at various places of interest and talking about the history of it etc. It started and ended pretty much on time. Is the snorkel excursion at a local resort or on a boat. We did a snorkel excursion in Bonaire on a visit another time and the driver of the bus stayed pretty much on time. In fact some people were a few minutes late and started running after the bus waving and we had to get the driver to stop and let them on.