Sold out shore excursions

[funredhead]

Will shore excursions that are sold out online prior to the cruise have availability onboard?

[orville99]

Just now, funredhead said:

Will shore excursions that are sold out online prior to the cruise have availability onboard?

Historically, yes - they used to hold back a % of the excursion slots for people to book once on board. Post restart, who knows...

[PolicromaSol]

It's also worth it to keep checking. They often have several of the same kind of excursion with minor differences. 

[funredhead]

Thank you so much!  Everyone here is so helpful. 

[DallasGuy75219]

Unless the excursion has a finite capacity (like the hot air balloon on CocoCay; there's only one and it can only go up and down so many times during a port call), they sometimes will add additional departure times (e.g., an additional bus or boat or whatever the activity is) if an excursion is almost or completely sold out by embarkation day.

 

I've seen that before.... was able to book onboard because they added a departure time that didn't exist when trying to pre-book.

Edited February 1, 2023 by DallasGuy75219

[mets07]

I would add that it can happen that an excursion sells out prior to getting on board and then no additional slots or times are added/available. We once had an excursion we wanted where I could add myself but not my husband. There was only one slot left. 

 

When we got on board, we went immediately to the Excursions "desk," however all they could do was put one of us on a waiting list. We did that but they had no cancellations and did not add another departure time for the same excursion. So, it can happen.

 

Best wishes that you get whatever excursions you are interested in....

[moposh]

I did see that an excursion that was sold out opened up again.

 

You can email RC Shore Excursion and ask if any slots will open up.  They can put you on a waiting list.

[jean87510]

Had this happen on an Alaskan cruise last May for a night time excursion in Haines.  Spots opened up the night before.  We had added our names to a waiting list when we boarded at the shore excursion desk.  I actually saw it on my phone when looking at alternate excursions and went down to shore excursion desk.  They had just left me a message on my phone and were able to add us.  Now I will say there were a lot of openings then as we had a lot of people last May 2022 coughing so I suspect that the openings at that time were due to the virus.  

[Yinster]

18 hours ago, funredhead said:

Will shore excursions that are sold out online prior to the cruise have availability onboard?

It depends on the shore excursions. Sometimes if it's a bus tour then maybe as they could hire more buses. But if it's a limited tour then probably noti

 

 

I will add in the discussion to keep your eyes on the excursions if it's sold out because sometimes people back out of the reservation so there might space after all. Go to the shore excursions desk and they can advise you.

 

[crusnbee]

Was on Explorer in August, and half of our group was able to get a specific excursion, the other half was not. It was sold out. I went to the excursion desk on boarding day and they were able to get the rest of our group in. It was the last three tickets, they said.

CJ