Excursions- which are best booked with cruise line vs independent

[texbecca]

We’re cruising the British Isles with HA in May 2024. I hadn’t planned on researching and booking excursions until we returned from a cruise we’re taking next month. (New England/Canada with HA) But, I see several of the excursions are already sold out! I’m not too panicked because I know we’ll be able to find excursions on Viator. But it’s made me realize I need to start looking now.
We’ve got HA credits for two excursions. Which port excursions are best taken with the cruise line as opposed to booking independently? Thanks!

Edited August 26, 2023 by texbecca

[gnome12]

23 minutes ago, texbecca said:

We’re cruising the British Isles with HA in May 2024. I hadn’t planned on researching and booking excursions until we returned from a cruise we’re taking next month. (New England/Canada with HA) But, I see several of the excursions are already sold out! I’m not too panicked because I know we’ll be able to find excursions on Viator. But it’s made me realize I need to start looking now.
We’ve got HA credits for two excursions. Which port excursions are best taken with the cruise line as opposed to booking independently? Thanks!

Might I suggest that in order to provide assistance, people need to know what ports you are sailing to. 
 

Also, Viator is just a third party booking service. It is generally better to book with the people actually providing the tours. 

[edinburgher]

26 minutes ago, texbecca said:

Which port excursions are best taken with the cruise line as opposed to booking independently?

And your ports are?

[texbecca]

Sorry I forgot to include the ports! 🤪

Edinburgh

Inverness

Stornoway

Portree

Belfast

Dublin

Liverpool

Holyhead

Cork

Bruges/Brussels

[CruiserBruce]

Another no vote on Viator. Many negative comments around Cruise Critic about them.

 

Common recommendation.... find a recommended tour company and book with them.

[edinburgher]

11 hours ago, texbecca said:

Sorry I forgot to include the ports! 🤪

Edinburgh

For Edinburgh, you will first need to look to see where you will be docking or tendering as there are a few possibilities. Go to

https://www.cruiseforth.com/ to "find your ship" and one of the other sections of that site will give you information on how to get into Edinburgh city centre from that location.

 

Many past threads about the city which you would find helpful to read. To find them, use the CC SEARCH tool. All your ports are in the British Isles/Western Med  Ports forum,including Brugge, so go to the general BI/WM  forum (not an individual thread) and insert the name of one of your ports in the empty search box under your username, hit the little spy glass and all past threads including that word will appear ready for you to read. Repeat the process with the names of your other ports. Lots of useful info can be found doing this.

 

There is of course also  a multitude of info on all your destinations on the likes of Tripadvisor and others   Google will help you  find them.  And look at the shorex for ideas even if you don't want to book one.

Edited August 27, 2023 by edinburgher

[sleepingcat]

12 hours ago, texbecca said:

Edinburgh

Inverness

Stornoway

Portree

Belfast

Dublin

Liverpool

Holyhead

Cork

Bruges/Brussels

You dont say if you ve been to Europe before or not, but in case not, I suggest that  for all the places you list , imho the best way to visit most of them would be by walking around and/or using local transport, including the ho/ho buses.  there are lots of historic buildings , parks and museums easily accessible.  

 

Probably better accessible  with a tour would be for example the Giants Causeway (Belfast), or Loch Ness (Inverness). a lot depends on your interests. 

 

Also be aware in your planning that the places where ships actually dock are not always the place listed. For example,  Edinburgh info above; Dublin, its Dun Laoghaire (I can never spell it), for Bruges its Zeebrugge. Whereas for some others eg Liverpool, you can walk off the ship and start exploring. So really to answer your question, you ll first need to look at where you actually dock at each port call, as advised by Edinburgher. And its also the case there is lots of info for each port in posts left by previous visitors. 

Have fun doing the research, I m sure you will...

 

and a final note, depending how well you know the British Isles, May is not really the summer yet, the weather will be changeable and probably not that warm. think jackets and layers.... 

 

 

[Harters]

14 minutes ago, sleepingcat said:

Liverpool, you can walk off the ship and start exploring.

Plenty to see and do around the waterfront that would keep most folk occupied for a day. I wouldnt bother with any organised tour here. Just go for a walk round the sights of our region's second city. 

[eileeshb]

Check on the schedule for Cork as you may dock in Cobh or in the commercial dock at the city. Cobh suffers a major bottleneck with the tour buses when a large ship comes in and only has pier capacity for a single ship at a time, if there’s a second ship one of them will be docked in the commercial port. 
Cobh was the last stop for the Titantic before the iceberg so there is a small museum there in addition to the big one in Belfast where she was built. If you are planning to do the Jameson distillery in Middleton or Blarney Castle  then you may be as well off taking the ship excursion unless you’re travelling with a few others and could make a private minibus financially viable. 
be warned that the ring of Kerry, Killarney, Dingle or the cliffs of moher will means hours in the bus so try to stick to things within county cork if you don’t want to be spending 3+ hours in buses. 

[Langoustine]

Viator is a huge rip-off of your money.

[pappy1022]

Viator is just a middleman and that just adds cost and another layer of communications in the event of issues. I much prefer private tours vs ship tours but it is more expensive. You can make it more appealing by getting another couple or 2 to share the tour and the cost. The way I look at it, I will probably be in a city/town once in my lifetime and I want to get the most out of that day. Private tours are the only way to accomplish that. I’ve had good and bad ship tours. I’ve only had good and great private tours.

[John Bull]

Inverness. You don't port in Inverness, you port in Invergordon, on the Cromarty Firth, about 25 miles away.

Invergordon is an uninteresting little place, best known for its repair yards for North Sea oil rigs (you'll see them as you sail in), You won't want to waste a day there.

You can take a train to Inverness - station is a 10-minute walk from the cruise berth, Inverness station is central, journey time something under an hour, return fare £17. But the train schedule is rather limiting, especially for a cruiser.

But better to pre-book a van or bus tour to places like Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle, or to Culloden battle site and the Cairngorm Mountains, or to the wild & woolly northern highlands. 

There are only a few tour operators operating out of Invergordon - check them out by typing Invergordon in the little search box top right of this page,  Scroll from "this topic" to "this forum", click on the little spyglass alongside the search box and give the magic a few moments to work.

 

Liverpool The cruise berth is close to the city centre.  Rejuvenated  Albert Dock is a 15 minute walk. Perhaps take a Beatles tour. Or a Busybus (see below) tour to north Wales

 

Holyhead Consider the train to Conwy and its excellent castle. Journey time about an hour, return fare £17.  Limited frequency because not all trains stop at Conwy, but you have the alternative of  taking a more-frequent train one mile past Conwy to Llandudno Junction then back to Conwy by either a pleasant one-mile walk, or a 5-minute taxi hop, or a train if conveniently-timed. 

Conwy is one of the very few stations in the UK which are "request" stops - going you need to tell the guard when you board that you want to get off at Conwy, for the return from Conwy you need to hold your hand out as the train approaches, much like at a bus-stop. That doesn't work on trains which aren't scheduled to stop at Conwy. If that concerns you, return via Llandudno Junction station. https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/

Or take the Busybus tour of North Wales. They're specifically for cruisers, so if your ship's timing changes they'll change to suit. Well-recommended by cruisers, they do book-out..  https://www.busybus.co.uk/sightseeing-day-tour-to-north-wales-from-holyhead-cruise-terminal/

They also offer a similar north Wales tour and other options from Liverpool cruise pier, so if you want to take that north Wales tour but also want to take the train to Conwy or do something else from Holyhead you can book from Liverpool. https://www.busybus.co.uk/sightseeing-day-tour-to-north-wales-from-liverpool-cruise-terminal/

 

Bruges/Brussels. You port in Zeebrugge, about 8 miles from the charming & historic cobbled city of Bruges. A variety of options for travel to Bruges, use that search box on this page.

There are other worthwhile places from Zeebrugge, but Bruges is the clear winner.

But I suggest you ignore Brussels - it's an hour by train and it's a business city with the administrative headquarters of the EU. IMHO unsuited to sight-seeing

 

Most of your ports are suited to independently-booked tours (check your RollCall for fellow-cruisers seeking sharers). Or for DIY, but that needs good research.

 

I'll disagree about Viator (or other booking agencies) being a rip-off. They get discounted rates, so their prices are usually the same or only a little higher than booking direct.  And since most reviews relate to the tour rather than the booking agency they're irrelevant to a tour that you're considering

But I certainly agree that it's better to book direct  - agencies know little more than the limited details on their website, that extra link in the chain can mean mis-communication, and tours are not usually  cruise-specific - getting passengers back to their hotel an hour late is unlikely to be problematic, getting cruisers back to their ship an hour late can really screw them up 😮.

We've used Viator just once - for a day-trip Hong Kong into mainland China. This involved a group visa so the operator required payment with advance booking. Since we knew nothing of the operator we felt our money was safer with Viator. It worked out well - Viator reminded us of the pick-up by text and hotel's telephone, and the tour was great.

 

JB 🙂

 

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by John Bull

[SueMo]

I would make one of my HAL excursions Stornaway, simply because when I researched ports of call for a similar cruise itinerary earlier this year, I found very few private options there.  

Check out https://www.portofcork.ie/cruise-schedule/ to see where your ship docks.  If it is in Ringsakiddy, I would probably book a HAL excursion there as there isn't anything to do near that particular dock.

In Invergordon, check out https://www.thistleexcursions.co.uk or https://www.wowscotlandtours.com/scotland-shore-excursions/invergordon-tours/.  We've used both companies, and they were both excellent tours.

In Portree, avoid Wullie's Day Tour.  It was expensive, and the absolute worst experience we've ever had on a private tour (he showed up late, our private excursion for two ended up being a small group of six so we had no say in where we were going or what we were doing, and the profanity was over the top.)

If you want a Beatle's tour in Liverpool, https://www.cavernclub.com/# has the Magical Mystery Tour bus that is affordable and within easy walking distance of the ship.