Shore Excursions Group and other third party excursion operators

[TNCruisers0930]

Hi,

I'd like to know if anyone has experience with Shore Excursions Group, Venture Ashore, or Resort Pass? Specifically, we are looking at the Gaucho Fiesta  excursion in Buenos Aires the day before our cruise departs. Thanks!

[cruisemom42]

First, with regard to Venture Ashore there have been some pretty cautionary postings recently, including this one:

 

 

In general, it is usually thought to be much better to try to find a true local vendor as opposed to going through a middleman (as most of these listed are). It helps in the case of a last-minute need for communications and it supports local businesses. (If you book a local vendor through a consolidator, the consolidator takes a chunk and the local agency makes less....)

 

[TNCruisers0930]

6 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

First, with regard to Venture Ashore there have been some pretty cautionary postings recently, including this one:

 

 

In general, it is usually thought to be much better to try to find a true local vendor as opposed to going through a middleman (as most of these listed are). It helps in the case of a last-minute need for communications and it supports local businesses. (If you book a local vendor through a consolidator, the consolidator takes a chunk and the local agency makes less....)

 

How would one go about finding a local vendor? I don't want to wait until we get there and scramble to find something.

[cruisemom42]

2 minutes ago, TNCruisers0930 said:

How would one go about finding a local vendor? I don't want to wait until we get there and scramble to find something.

 

If you go to the main listing of all the Cruise Critic forums, you will find that there are dedicated forums for certain regions/ports of call. These have invaluable information about sightseeing in the ports for those regions, usually including recommendations for private tour vendors that people have used.

 

For Buenos Aires, you can look here:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/47-south-america/

 

You could also look on the roll call for your specific cruise (also listed on the main page) to see if others are planning private tours and might be looking for additional passengers to make up the numbers.

 

[donaldsc]

53 minutes ago, TNCruisers0930 said:

How would one go about finding a local vendor? I don't want to wait until we get there and scramble to find something.

 

Sometimes the tour consolidator companies actually list the name of the company that is doing the tour.  Also you can often do some detective work by comparing consolidator tour descriptions with the descriptions on the actual tour company sites.  

 

Consolidator sites are useful and most of the time they do work - until they don't.  The biggest problem with the consolidator sites is the inability to  contact the tour company directly.  If you have a question about the tour and you have booked on Viator - you call or text Viator and then Viator contacts the tour company on your behalf.  The tour company may or may not actually get back to Viator who then may or may not get back to you.  Often the Viator operator who has never done any travel may misunderstand your question or problem so you have to go through this whole cycle again.  

 

If I book directly with the tour company not only does the tour company get to keep all my money but the communications are much easier.  

 

The exception to the tour consolidator problem is ToursbyLocals.  The people who are doing the tours list their names and tour descriptions directly on ToursbyLocals and you communicate directly with then actual person who is doing the tour so you can easily fine tune your tour to do exactly what you want.  I have never had a bad ToursbyLocals tour and I have done a lot of them. I believe that GetYourGuide operates in the same mode but I am not sure.

 

Hope this helps.

 

DON

[GeezerCouple]

We have had excellent experiences starting with plain Google, with something like, "private tour of the Vatican" or such.  Then we look at what shows up.  Some are clearly not for us... they are explicitly large groups (of strangers, put together by the vendor).  We want something for just us (or in some cases, a few others, arranged by us).

 

Then we email a few likely possibilities, and if they don't have email contact, that's a disqualifier for us anyway.  We want a way to contact them!  We'll ask if they could arrange a tour that includes, say, art history, or whatever (and also anything we do *not* want to spend time on, etc.).

And then we end with a question something like, "given what we've mentioned, is there anything else you think we'd enjoy including?'

The responses (or lack thereof!) tell us a *LOT*.

We've found some terrific guides, usually directly with the guide him/herself.  Our guide for the Vatican and a prior day in more general "Rome", had done a Ph.D. thesis mostly using the Vatican library, so he was familiar with a lot of background there (and some back routes and corridors!).

 

We also use CC, as suggested.  We found a terrific small excursion company in the Caribbean, because something about a CC report piqued our interest.  We wrote asking about some specifics, and they put together an amazing day for us.  We then used them again on a return visit.

 

It's the ability to communicate directly, and make *your* interests known, etc., that can make all the difference.

 

GC

[SPacificbound]

8 hours ago, TNCruisers0930 said:

Hi,

I'd like to know if anyone has experience with Shore Excursions Group, Venture Ashore, or Resort Pass? Specifically, we are looking at the Gaucho Fiesta  excursion in Buenos Aires the day before our cruise departs. Thanks!

In Buenos I booked through Tours By Locals. I've booked through Tours By Locals in many places around the globe.  https://www.toursbylocals.com/

Edited May 28, 2023 by SPacificbound
added to content

[SPacificbound]

Separately from your tour question, have you checked out Iguazu Falls?

 

A quick flight from BA, and they are amazing.

 

The falls are between Argentina and Brazil. We chose to do just the Argentina side which is fantastic.

 

https://iguazuargentina.com/en/

 

 

 

 

 

[TNCruisers0930]

We did look at the falls. Decided not to, mostly because we have lots of waterfalls where we live. Thanks!