Celebrity Shore Excursions

[Harley167]

I am looking for advise. I have always booked excursions through the ship we were on. As they scare me wiht "we will leave port without you"....But we are doin g a Mediterranean Cruise and cost is significantly less using private tours such as Viator /Rome in Limo.Any thoughts appreciated.

[Rick&Jeannie]

And therein lies the rub!  Would you be able to easily get to the next port on your own should something happen?  I'd say that the percentage of times that private tours get back late is pretty low...but it *can* happen.  Does the tour company *guarantee* that should you miss the boat they will get you to the next port?  Not many do, though I *have* seen a few.

 

The price of non-ship tours are *always* less than the ship tours.  The cruise line is simply booking you into a block of reserved spots with that same tour company and marking up the price.

 

Funny story...we were in Athens, Greece and we had booked a private tour.  We were being held up by traffic on our return.  We were *really* sweating it!  Then, we look over and see one of the ship's tour buses heading back as well.  All we had to do was stay ahead of that bus and we knew we were good! 😄

Edited March 16 by Rick&Jeannie

[leaveitallbehind]

I cannot comment on Viator as we have never used them, preferring to book direct with the operator.  And each travel region of the world is a little different with decisions on ship based versus independent tours.  That being said, we haven't used a ship based tour in 30 years as we prefer to do things on our own or with local tour operators.  Far less costly and in our experience, the local operators are well versed in ship arrival and departure times and have never placed us in a position of concern. I realize anything can happen, but we enjoy smaller personal experiences versus larger group, often bus based tours.  Others may contradict this, but this is just our experience.

Edited March 16 by leaveitallbehind

[SbbquilterUT]

We enjoy smaller group tours or exploring on our own, unless the tour is going fairly far from the port where I am a bit more cautious.  I look over ideas at online sites then work with the local company directly.  

[mahdnc]

42 minutes ago, Harley167 said:

I am looking for advise. I have always booked excursions through the ship we were on. As they scare me wiht "we will leave port without you"....But we are doin g a Mediterranean Cruise and cost is significantly less using private tours such as Viator /Rome in Limo.Any thoughts appreciated.

 

Your Med cruse is a good opportunity to make use private tours at your ports.  You will have less people with you. The tour can be tailored to what you want to see.  The tour will be more time efficient allowing you to cover more sights.  And your tour may be cheaper than doing it through Celebrity depending on your group size..

 

My advice is to check out the Europe Ports of Call forum (link) to ask/get specific recommendations for guide/drivers.  We used RomeCabs when our ship stopped at Civitavecchia and were pretty pleased.  But there are other great ones out there.  My preference is to try to book with the guides directly to avoid paying the markup associated with ToursByLocals and Viator.  When we stayed in Rome before our transatlantic cruise in Nov 2022, we hired a private guide with an archeology education and work resume' to tour my wife and I through the Roman Forum and Ostia Antica because we had more time.

[jwlane]

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

[mauimary]

We have used Rome in Limo  many times. Fabulous company to work with. They have a stellar reputation to uphold and that means getting you back to the ship in plenty of time. We have now done 4 trips down the Amalfi Coast alone. We never worry when we are with them.  We have always been back at least an hour ahead of time. They are in constant contact with the other vehicles regarding traffic. On several occasions the Celebrity buses were a ways behind them. 
We have never heard of anyone left behind.  
When you see the Analfi Coast you will be so glad you are not on one of those buses!  
 

If you go down to the Port Boards/Europe/Italy there is a whole thread on Rome In Limo  alone.  They are enormously popular. Write to them and they are very good at answering questions promptly. 

Edited March 16 by mauimary
Addition.

[TMLAalum]

14 minutes ago, jwlane said:

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

If booking a non-Celebrity tour, go with a company that guarantees they will get you to the next port if they cannot get you back before the ship departs. For example, we used this company out of Naples: Shore Excursions Private Tours Naples Amalfi Coast Sorrento (aptours.it)

Luckily, I do not have any actual instances of being left behind on a private excursion to share!

[mahdnc]

54 minutes ago, jwlane said:

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

 

I have three things-got-exciting-but-we-didn't-miss-our-ship stories.

 

1. Horizon, Mar 29 2005, Puerto Limon (cannot remember the port times)

My family of 4 including our two young children decided to hire a taxi driver to take us to a zip line that was about 40 minutes away from port.  In the middle of the activity, my wife crashed into a zipline platform and severely gashed her lower leg that would later require two layers of sutures.  It was late in the afternoon at the time.  While my wife was being worked on by the guides to stop the bleeding on the zipline platform, I was already thinking about what we would have to do if we missed the ship (Roatan, Honduras was the next port of call). 

 

 

Our ziplining was aborted because of the accident but we were out in the middle of no where in the Costa Rican jungle and couldn't just get back to the parking lot in a couple minutes.  It would take several ziplines to get back near the parking lot (my wife had to ride in tandem with one of the guides).  It was a slow process partly because of the kids.  We finally got back to the parking lot where our taxi was waiting.  The driver drive through downtown Puerto Limon like we were in the French Connection movie.  We ran/hobbled down the pier just before the gangway was taken up.  Whew.

 

 

2. Constellation, Oct 23 2022, Toulon France (9:30am - 5:00pm)

We (party of 4) hired a private driver/guide to take us to Aix-en-Provence which is about an hour away from the pier in Toulon.  In the early afternoon on our way to Cassis, the passenger rear tire on our van blew out while we were on a going at a high rate of speed on the highway in the middle of nowhere.  Fortunately the driver was able to control the van and pull it over to the shoulder.

 

 

Amazingly, the driver did not know how to change a tire and neither one of us in our party were really able to help him (that is a long story in of itself).  It probably was around 2pm and so we had time BUT the driver (after consulting YouTube) could not physically change out the tire and we were stranded.  Our driver tried to call for a taxi, but they were over an hour away.  Uber was over an hour away as well.  We were lucky: a good Samaritan stopped to help us and he got the tire changed.  We were probably stranded by the road side for at least an hour and by the time we were back on the road, we were all frazzled.  We asked the driver to take us directly back to the ship because we were just done.  We got back with an hour to spare.

 

 

By the way, the blown tire was horribly bald and was not roadworthy.

 

 

 

3. Solstice, Dec 28 2023, Phu My, Vietnam (7:00am - 5:00pm)

We had just concluded a very nice private tour of Ho Chi Minh City and I was walking on the gangway to board Solstice at about 4pm when my phone rang.  One of the members in our roll call was on their private tour and they were stuck in a massive traffic jam about 7 km away from the pier.  The pier is 1.3 hours away from Ho Chi Minh City by car, so it could have been worse.  This person asked me to let the ship know about their situation which I did.  Fortunately they were able to make it back to the ship 20 minutes before it was scheduled to leave at 5pm.  As it turned out, Solstice did not leave the pier until close to 7pm because a large number of Celebrity shore excursion buses (like around 20 of them!) were extremely late getting back to the ship.

 

Edited March 16 by mahdnc

[leaveitallbehind]

30 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

I have three things-got-exciting-but-we-didn't-miss-our-ship stories.

 

1. Horizon, Mar 29 2005, Puerto Limon (cannot remember the port times)

My family of 4 including our two young children decided to hire a taxi driver to take us to a zip line that was about 40 minutes away from port.  In the middle of the activity, my wife crashed into a zipline platform and severely gashed her lower leg that would later require two layers of sutures.  It was late in the afternoon at the time.  While my wife was being worked on by the guides to stop the bleeding on the zipline platform, I was already thinking about what we would have to do if we missed the ship (Roatan, Honduras was the next port of call). 

 

 

Our ziplining was aborted because of the accident but we were out in the middle of no where in the Costa Rican jungle and couldn't just get back to the parking lot in a couple minutes.  It would take several ziplines to get back near the parking lot (my wife had to ride in tandem with one of the guides).  It was a slow process partly because of the kids.  We finally got back to the parking lot where our taxi was waiting.  The driver drive through downtown Puerto Limon like we were in the French Connection movie.  We ran/hobbled down the pier just before the gangway was taken up.  Whew.

 

 

2. Constellation, Oct 23 2022, Toulon France (9:30am - 5:00pm)

We (party of 4) hired a private driver/guide to take us to Aix-en-Provence which is about an hour away from the pier in Toulon.  In the early afternoon on our way to Cassis, the passenger rear tire on our van blew out while we were on a going at a high rate of speed on the highway in the middle of nowhere.  Fortunately the driver was able to control the van and pull it over to the shoulder.

 

Always take the port agent phone number with you.

[markeb]

5 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Always take the port agent phone number with you.

 

That'll do the "I turn the phone off and lock it in the safe" crowd a lot of good...

Edited March 16 by markeb

[markeb]

1 hour ago, jwlane said:

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

 

Not us. It was actually Royal, but they clearly weren't on a ship's excursion. We were on the second day of an overnight stay in Reykjavik. We were probably 30-45 minutes late departing already when a car came rushing up and what was clearly a 12 or so year old boy came running up to the still down gangway (everything else was in already). Apparently the family had sent him ahead to try to stop the ship from leaving them. Didn't work. The rest of the group drove up in a taxi 15 minutes or so later as we left the pier. 

 

This was after we'd watched a couple of other groups come driving into the parking lot and running with bags of shopping to the ship. They did make it, barely.

 

Next stop was back in the UK two days later... 

[mauimary]

Wow thise are quite the stories.  The only time we were late was a Celebrity Excursion in Costa Rica. As soon as our bus and two others drove up the gangway went up.  Ours was due to crazy heavy traffic. 

[leaveitallbehind]

We have seen several pier runners and others who were left behind.  But there is no way of knowing that they were late due to an independent excursion. 

 

We saw a young woman in a bathing suit pushing a stroller with a young child run down the pier in Bermuda as her NCL ship was pulling away from the pier.  Who knows what caused her to be late?  Maybe just lost track of time at the local beach at the Dockyard. And, no, the ship did not come back.

 

Another couple missed our ship in Cozumel and were brought out to us about a mile from the pier in a small boat and were able to board then.  Turned out they were at a bar nearby and lost track of the time while drinking. 

 

So you never know the reasons and can't always assume it was due to an independent excursion.

Edited March 16 by leaveitallbehind

[leaveitallbehind]

1 hour ago, markeb said:

 

That'll do the "I turn the phone off and lock it in the safe" crowd a lot of good...

Well that's a whole other story if they leave their phone on board while they are off the ship.  No way I would ever do that.  Your phone could become your lifeline on shore.

Edited March 16 by leaveitallbehind

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

4 hours ago, jwlane said:

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

 

This was not on Celebrity - and it did not happen to me, but I was told it directly from a HAL shore excursions crew member on a whale watching tour I was on and THEN heard a podcast (I think it was RadioLab) where the exact situation was recounted by someone who worked on the excursion, so it was not just cruise crew-member speak.

 

It involved one of the helicopter trips for dog sledding on a glacier in Alaska. There were 2 HAL ships in port with people on excursions as well as people from both ships who had booked privately. Well, as can happen in Alaska, weather moved in and the helicopters were not able to get back up to them. All the guests had to sleep in the mushers' camp overnight and the ships had to sail. When the helicopters were able to get back to them, those on the HAL excursions were either put on a train or a boat to catch up with their respective ships - and HAL fully covered paying the mushers' camp for the food and lodging as well as the transportation back to the ships. Those on independent excursions were stuck dealing with the company to cover payment and figuring out how to get back to their ship - especially the one on the boat since HAL specifically chartered the boat for those on their excursions (I suspect the ones needing the train could have used that...it just would depend on how long settling things with the independent company took).

 

I was also on a Southbound Alaska cruise on RCCL the following summer. I was with a running group, and about half opted for the train from Anchorage while the rest of us were on a bus. The bus got there no issues. I didn't know until dinner that the train had just gotten there. Turns out there was an accident on the one road between Anchorage and Seward that was life-flight extraction bad and shut the road down for several hours. RCCL held all busses that had not yet left. They were able to stop the train near an exit and got as many passengers from busses already on the road onto the train as they could. The captain announced that we would be departing once the final bus arrived and thus missing Hubbard Glacier (I'd have rather we skipped Icy Strait Point). He went ahead and did Muster with those of us on board and all who arrived once the road reopened were directed to the theater after dropping their things in their cabin and he did a Muster minus the ship-wide alarm for them. (We were very grateful for that as he would have been within his rights to require all of us to do a traditional Muster.) Well, in ISP I was taking the shuttle into Houna and met a couple who had done private transportation to Seward and were stuck in the mess. Their driver figured out they were behind the final bus and worked to get them in front of it. They pulled in just before the final bus and said that the gates closed immediately as that bus pulled in. They both said they had learned especially with things far from the port to stick with the ship-based things.

[NMTraveller]

5 hours ago, jwlane said:

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

We actually came close.  But it was on a Celebrity excursion where the bus broke down...

[mauimary]

2 hours ago, leaveitallbehind said:

 

Another couple missed our ship in Cozumel and were brought out to us about a mile from the pier in a small boat and were able to board then.  Turned out they were at a bar nearby and lost track of the time while drinking. 

 

So you never know the reasons and can't always assume it was due to an independent excursion.

Did this happen on a Celebrity Ship. Have never heard of this being allowed or  done before. 

[the penguins]

5 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

Your Med cruse is a good opportunity to make use private tours at your ports.  You will have less people with you. The tour can be tailored to what you want to see.  The tour will be more time efficient allowing you to cover more sights.  And your tour may be cheaper than doing it through Celebrity depending on your group size..

 

My advice is to check out the Europe Ports of Call forum (link) to ask/get specific recommendations for guide/drivers.  We used RomeCabs when our ship stopped at Civitavecchia and were pretty pleased.  But there are other great ones out there.  My preference is to try to book with the guides directly to avoid paying the markup associated with ToursByLocals and Viator.  When we stayed in Rome before our transatlantic cruise in Nov 2022, we hired a private guide with an archeology education and work resume' to tour my wife and I through the Roman Forum and Ostia Antica because we had more time.

Our preferred choice is Toursbylocals. You deal direct with the guide, pay via the head office in Canada, full refund if the ship doesn't dock or your are refused disembarkation, you can pay extra for "cancel for any reason insurance"  (if you take this option and don't cancel the premium is credited to your account to use on a future booking, if you miss the ship TBL will pay to get you to the next port. We choose a guide with a vehicle that holds  6 to 8 and share with one other couple ( we like the space).

[leaveitallbehind]

No it was RCCL.  And it surprised us as well.  But we were about a mile off the pier when a small boat came rapidly along side from the docks adjacent to the pier, and as it approached the ship slowed and crew from the open gangway assisted the couple onto the ship.  I believe the port agent must have called to tell the Captain that a boat would be approaching because the crew seemed ready when they arrived. 

 

To add, a guy next to us on the upper deck was leaning over to watch this unfold when his sunglasses fell off his head and landed in the boat.  The guy picked them up and after he got on board found his way up to where we were to return them.  That is how we learned that they were drinking at a bar and lost track of the time.  Apparently they paid the small boat owner to take them out to the ship. 

 

I know it sounds unbelievable but I can't - and wouldn't - make this stuff up!  I also have a video of it somewhere on a memory stick.

Edited March 16 by leaveitallbehind

[the penguins]

5 hours ago, jwlane said:

Can anyone relate actual instances of being left behind while on a non-Celebrity excursion?

Not quite the same but on Royal on the day after that the Cruise Director had said that it was very rare to leave anyone a group missed the ship. I say "group" it was actually the ship's orchestra. The crew were taking bets if they would be sacked on the spot or allowed back on board at the next port. They were let back on as the ship needed them for the show and as we disembarked the next day we never did hear what happened.

[mahdnc]

1 minute ago, the penguins said:

Our preferred choice is Toursbylocals. You deal direct with the guide, pay via the head office in Canada, full refund if the ship doesn't dock or your are refused disembarkation, you can pay extra for "cancel for any reason insurance"  (if you take this option and don't cancel the premium is credited to your account to use on a future booking, if you miss the ship TBL will pay to get you to the next port. We choose a guide with a vehicle that holds  6 to 8 and share with one other couple ( we like the space).

 

That's a good choice as well and we have booked through them for our Dec Asia cruise/Africa trip and we have booked a couple TBLs for next year's Trans-Pacific sailing.

 

Many of the private guides that we have hired outside of TBL do not require any up front payment.  TBL charges the guide 30% so some/all of that fee is passed on to the customer (versus hiring the same guide outside of TBL) although you have pointed out what that buys you.

[the penguins]

4 hours ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Always take the port agent phone number with you.

Agreed - you can always borrow a phone.

[mauimary]

Just now, the penguins said:

Not quite the same but on Royal on the day after that the Cruise Director had said that it was very rare to leave anyone a group missed the ship. I say "group" it was actually the ship's orchestra. The crew were taking bets if they would be sacked on the spot or allowed back on board at the next port. They were let back on as the ship needed them for the show and as we disembarked the next day we never did hear what happened.

We just listened to the Cruise Directors talk on the Celebrity Beyond.  She answered all kinds of questions on what goes on behind the scenes.  She talked about this and Cruise staff that miss the ship are in a huge amt of trouble and essentially  loose their jobs.   

[the penguins]

4 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

That's a good choice as well and we have booked through them for our Dec Asia cruise/Africa trip and we have booked a couple TBLs for next year's Trans-Pacific sailing.

 

Many of the private guides that we have hired outside of TBL do not require any up front payment.  TBL charges the guide 30% so some/all of that fee is passed on to the customer (versus hiring the same guide outside of TBL) although you have pointed out what that buys you.

I like the upfront payment part it sort of guarantees the booking. Guides through TBL also only get paid after they have done the tour.