Cruise Excursion British Pounds Only and Shared Excursion

[teaka5]

I book my excursions outside of the cruise line.  I am on a British Isles Princess Regal cruise and looking at a Stonehenge tour out of Portland, England.  The name of the company is Kingdom Tours.  They want cash only in British pounds on the day of tour.  I find this unusual.  Anyone have experience with this tour company?  Anyone needing extra people on a Stonehenge tour for September 30th out of Portland, England?  Thanks, everyone.

[puppycanducruise]

Some small operators want cash only, they're not set up to take credit cards.  I don't think it's unusual.

[Isklaar]

I don't think it's odd that they want payment in local currency, but you state they want cash only. That does seem odd as according to their website they take all major credit cards and PayPal. 

How did you make contact with them, are you definitely in contact with the legit company?

[Cotswold Eagle]

1 hour ago, teaka5 said:

Anyone needing extra people on a Stonehenge tour for September 30th out of Portland, England? 

This part of your question should be addressed to the Roll Call for your cruise.

[CruiserBruce]

From the "Rules" sticky at the top of the board:

 

Post Shore Excursion Shares In ROLL CALLS

Posts looking for members to "share" your excursion, or posts mentioning that a few more spaces in a van are available and you should contact so and so, are not allowed here or or on any of the other forums except the ROLL CALL forums.

[SPacificbound]

Not unusual at all with private tours.

[LHT28]

9 hours ago, teaka5 said:

 They want cash only in British pounds on the day of tour.  I find this unusual. 

What do you find unusual?

 They want cash  or they want GBP?

[Bloodgem]

From their website:

Tour Payment

We only request a small £100 per day tour deposit paid via online invoice that we will email the client. They can pay with a credit or debit card for groups of 8 people or less. This will also have a small admin charge of 3% to 5% added. The tour balance is then paid on the day of the actual tour itself upon meeting your guide first thing in cash British pounds only.

 

Have you paid a deposit?

 

I don't know what others think but personally £100 is not a small amount.

[gumshoe958]

They get excellent reviews but there are two red flags for me.

 

1) Insisting on cash only: why? Britain is rapidly going cashless and card and contactless payments are increasingly the norm. Even buskers carry card readers these days. Cash doesn’t always get declared to the taxman however …

 

2) An admin fee on top of the deposit: why? Charging a fee to pay by credit or debit card is now illegal in the UK but unspecified “admin fees” are a grey area.  
 

This company wouldn’t get a penny off me, however well reviewed its guides may be.

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by gumshoe958

[John Bull]

On 7/7/2023 at 11:27 AM, Bloodgem said:

From their website:

Tour Payment

We only request a small £100 per day tour deposit paid via online invoice that we will email the client. They can pay with a credit or debit card for groups of 8 people or less. This will also have a small admin charge of 3% to 5% added. The tour balance is then paid on the day of the actual tour itself upon meeting your guide first thing in cash British pounds only.

 

Have you paid a deposit?

 

I don't know what others think but personally £100 is not a small amount.

 

I have as many reservations about this operator as others who've posted.

I couldn't find them locally on Google, if it's https://www.kingdomprivatetours.com/ they offer private tours nationally - and since I've never heard of them and a lot of reviews mention the owner (?), I do wonder whether they're actually a booking agency rather than a tour operator.

Might that be the reason why they take a deposit plus booking fee, and the operator is paid in cash on-the-day by the client????

 

Payment on-the-day in cash is quite common for small local operators, but not for large national ones. Many won't even accept cash

No, an admin fee isn't usual for tour operators - or even for tour booking agencies tho it's common for event or concert agencies.

Agreed, a deposit of £100 isn't a small sum - but neither are the prices for their tours.

And when I clicked on a few tours, each one mentioned "entrance to attractions payable locally".

Whilst they certainly get some good reviews (which I would expect at those prices), they also get some absolute stinkers.

 

BTW, TripAdvisor is offering shared tours from Weymouth (5 miles from the port by ship's shuttlebus)  to Stonehenge & Salisbury for £99 pp excl admission.

 

JB 🤔

Edited July 10, 2023 by John Bull

[matamanoa]

Heard yesterday that Portland is being taken off itineraries as there is some unrest there at the moment involving refugees and Princess has deemed that stop too risky.  Heard this second hand so please confirm with your cruise line whether it is fact or fiction.

[gumshoe958]

22 minutes ago, matamanoa said:

Heard yesterday that Portland is being taken off itineraries as there is some unrest there at the moment involving refugees and Princess has deemed that stop too risky.  Heard this second hand so please confirm with your cruise line whether it is fact or fiction.

I’m not aware of any unrest whatsoever involving refugees. There have been protests against plans to house asylum seekers on a barge at Portland, as reported by the BBC.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-66137414.amp

[matamanoa]

The website to see this story is:  https://cruisehive.com/princess-cruise-ship-cancels-call-due-to-protests/106058

[Cotswold Eagle]

Two different stories may be getting conflated here. Yes, the Regal Princess decided to skip Portland at the weekend, due to planned protest and counter-protest (of course, protests are disruptive, but do not mean unrest, and there are no asylum seekers on the barge yet). 

 

Earlier in the year, the cruise calendar disappeared from the Portland Port website and replaced by the current message:

"All cruise calls are proceeding as scheduled at Portland Port. 

For more information about individual visits, please contact the cruise line involved."

 

Some reports suggest this was to make it harder for protesters to know when cruise ships would be in port, which would be obvious dates for disruption at the port for maximum publicity, as happened at the weekend. 

[John Bull]

2 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

Two different stories may be getting conflated here. Yes, the Regal Princess decided to skip Portland at the weekend, due to planned protest and counter-protest (of course, protests are disruptive, but do not mean unrest, and there are no asylum seekers on the barge yet). 

 

Earlier in the year, the cruise calendar disappeared from the Portland Port website and replaced by the current message:

"All cruise calls are proceeding as scheduled at Portland Port. 

For more information about individual visits, please contact the cruise line involved."

 

Some reports suggest this was to make it harder for protesters to know when cruise ships would be in port, which would be obvious dates for disruption at the port for maximum publicity, as happened at the weekend. 

 

Yes, its all a bit over-blown.

Portland isn't London or Paris or Detroit 😏

 

JB 🙂