The Princess excursion premium can be pretty ridiculous

[Mississippian]

I'm not a fan of ship tours, as I don't like getting on a giant bus, and I find them overpriced. They do have the advantage that if the ship doesn't make the port call they are refunded, and they will make every effort to hold the ship for you if your tour is late (but that is by no means certain). As for cost, well, they are pretty outrageous.

 

I just booked a Golden Circle mini-bus tour in Reykjavik for $97 which is non-refundable within 24 hours of the tour. The same tour from Princess, on a giant bus, is $295. Perhaps the most ridiculous price difference I've seen is for a Fly Over Iceland attraction that is sort of like the Soaring ride at EPCOT, maybe a little better. Princess is charging $155. I paid $36. Like the Troll tour, I have a 24-hour cancellation window, so there is some risk, but I think there is a better than 25% chance we will make the port call.

 

Sometimes Princess does offer simple ride-there-and-get-off tours that are pretty good value, simply because they are easy to book, but I'm just not going to pay three or four times as much for an experience that isn't nearly as good as what I can get on my own. I know this is nothing new, but the Fly Over Iceland price difference just kind of knocked me down.

[pauon]

ok

[Arizona Wildcat]

I certainly agree that ALL cruiselines charge premiums that are often double.  The Fly Over tour  last year had multiple variations at prices from $25 to almost $100.  The big issue for tours in Iceland is transportation.   A short taxi ride can be $50 with wait times of 1 hour or more. So that needs to be factored in any comparison.

Iceland has the problem of being completely overwhelmed by tourism.  Having several million tourists visit an island with under 400K people is making for challenges. Both locals and tourists.

[1025cruise]

People book independent excursions all the time. This is discussed regularly on the ports of call boards.

[Mississippian]

1 minute ago, 1025cruise said:

People book independent excursions all the time. This is discussed regularly on the ports of call boards.

I agree. The Fly Over Iceland thing is just beyond belief, though.

[FancyPants21]

I am on a Norway cruise on Sky next week and all the tours are just plain ridiculously expensive. We have booked none.

 

However, we are on Sky again this November to the Canaries and almost all the tours look very sensibly priced. I expect to pay a bit more if I book through the cruise line so I don't have an issue with a bit more but Norway is often 3 times the price of the same tour booked privately.

[nattie]

I have actually found Princess pricing to be better than other cruiselines. Granted, I have only compared pricing on Caribbean/Bahamas vacations where Princess offers a lot of good options at fair prices, even compared to indepndent tours.

For our Europe cruise last year I ended up with almost all private indepndent tours as they were better suited for us (an priced well too). For Japan this year I am struglling to find alternative independent tours, so I have Pricess tours booked at every port for now. And for Alaska we diid all Princess tours in every port and did not regret them at all.

I think everyone does their own cost/value ratios. Overall, Princess really stepped their game lately in destinations they visit often (Caribbean, Alaska come to mind) in terms of better and "off the beaten path" offerings, especially compared with NCL. 

[erber]

2 hours ago, Mississippian said:

 

 

I just booked a Golden Circle mini-bus tour in Reykjavik for $97 which is non-refundable within 24 hours of the tour. The same tour from Princess, on a giant bus, is $295.

We did do the Princess Golden Circle tour last summer. It was less than $295, maybe $245 last year. It included admission to all the locations we visited as well as a really fantastic lunch at Gulfoss falls. We booked it for the security of getting back to the ship/the ship not leaving without us. We do book most ports independently, but we were worried about a mishap on an 8 hour tour that would cause a problem returning to the ship in a timely manner. The only other time we have booked a ship tour was to see penguins at Bluff Cove in the Falklands and we did that because that was the only way to see that specific location. 

[MacMadame]

After researching at CC, I decided to only book Princess tours if they were to areas that were far from the port or combo tours (i.e., you'd have to book 2 independent tours and figure out how to get between them to get the same experience). Which turns out to be all but 2 ports on our cruise. 🤣 🤣 🤣