Italian or English for excursions?

[newoncruise]

I am booked on a Costa cruise in September from Ijmuiden to Savona and made some reservations for excursions in English. As I read that English group tours are often canceled, I am wondering if I should change now to Italian instead to be sure that I will not be stranded at the end.

I understand well Italian and can follow a conversation or explanations of a guide. But my speaking skills are better in English than in Italian.

What would you suggest?

[Yukiie]

Have you looked into 3rd party tours?

 

For my upcoming Costa cruise I booked all the excursions privately. 

 

Although at least Costa doesn't charge for the excursions before you board (unlike most other cruise lines). 

 

 

[newoncruise]

There are hardly any options in Cherbourg and in Gibraltar and Tarragona we have only a short stay. I will visit the other places on my own. Therefore I depend on the offered excursions.

Edited July 13, 2023 by newoncruise

[At7Seas]

Although Costa always advises an early booking you also can book excursions aboard. More than once I re-booked aboard, among them both a slightly different tour and the originally booked excursion in another language. If you go after a cancellation directly to the tour office you make good chances, there are many guests aboard deciding in the last possible second what to do the next day.

[newoncruise]

Thank ypu for your answer. How many days before a planed tour do they cancel?

 

The tour in Cherbourg is on my second day. So not much chances to arrange for another tour.

[At7Seas]

26 minutes ago, newoncruise said:

The tour in Cherbourg is on my second day. So not much chances to arrange for another tour.

 

In that case you would usually get together with your excursion tickets a note when arriving aboard, definitely not late in the evening before the excursion starts. There is no fix rule, but Costa decides to cancel for having not enough participants for a good part on pre-cruise bookings. Only on long cruises they don’t cancel all excursions immediately by lack of bookings, but yours could be short enough to know everything on embarkation day. If by other reasons an excursion can’t happen you might get a cancellation before boarding already, while short notice cancellations are related to unplanned circumstances, as I had once with the cable car on the Teide, which simply didn’t operate because of too hard winds.