Shore Excursions - thru cruise line or private?

[crop til ya drop]

Dh thinks we can book excursions w/ the same exact people that are doing the excursion for the cruise line. In other words, we would be on the same exact excursion as fellow cruisers from our ship, thus eliminating the worry of running late & missing the ship. He thinks we would have a cheaper price by doing this. Did all that make sense? LOL! Does anyone know anything about that? TIA!

[hajekfam]

You may be able to use the same agencies doing the excursions for the ship, but I doubt very highly that you will be with the people on the ship. On ship sponsored shore excursions, I have never seen anybody that did not book through the cruiseline. You are given stickers on board the ship by the ship staff (with the ships logo and group number) and board the buses together.

We book shore excursions on our own if there is plenty of time to give us good time cushion for traffic, breakdowns, and other problems. If the shore excursion length is cutting it close to the number of hours in port, we book from the cruiseline.

[wrp96]

There are 2 different issues to address. I've done both cruise line excursions and private excursions, and recommend both - for diffferent reasons.

 

Advantages to cruise line excursions:

 

- Convenience. It's one stop shopping, you know where to meet, you have some comfort that the tour company has been vetted by the cruise company.

 

- If you're late, they wait. This is a big factor for me. If it is a long excursion, I will go with the cruise line. I've literally been the last person back on the ship 3 times now - twice they've held the ship for the excursion I was on. If I had been on a private excursion, they definitely wouldn't have waited. Especially on a tender island, if the private excursion isn't going to get you back until the last minute, it may not be the best option.

 

Disadvantages to cruise line excursions:

 

- Usually they are more crowded than private excursions. A lot of times, the cruise line excursions will have say 50 people on their boats or buses, while a private excursion will only have say 20, depending on the operator. This isn't always the case, I went on a cruise line snorkel excursion in Aruba where there were only 18 people on board. We saw private excursions with double that amount on board - but this is rare. 5 days later in Grand Cayman on a cruise line excursion, we had 50 people aboard where the private boats only had 10.

 

- Usually they are more expensive than private excursions. You pay for the convenience of the cruise line booking you. I took a private tour in St. Lucia that lasted longer than any of the cruise line excursions and paid $20 less than through the cruise line - and only had 2 other people in the vehicle with me, plus we were provided food and drink the entire time unlike the cruise line excursions.

 

Advantages to private excursions:

 

- Usually less crowded. The afforementioned tour in St. Lucia is just one example. I took another private excursion in Barbados where there were only 10 of us on the catamaran - the ones through the ship had at least 40 people on board.

 

- Usually less expensive. In Grand Cayman, there are so many good private operators for Stingray City - and they all cost less than the cruise lines. A lot of the times with the private operators you are getting more personal service for less.

 

Disadvantages to private operators:

 

- If you're late, the ship won't wait. Unlike with the cruise excursions, if you are late, the ship will not wait for you. A traffic backup, a flat tire, an unexpected strike, bad weather, can all make you late getting back to port. Make sure to plan time to get back after your excursion, especially in a tender port. There is one thing though. Many of the operators rely on these boards for their business. One screw up and that person is going to come back and tell all. They don't want that, so most go out of their way to avoid that. Look through the recommendations on the Port of Call boards. Look for ones with consistent good reviews about their reliability.

 

- They are not always the cheapest. Do your research. The afforementioned private excursion in Barbados was wonderful, but was about $20 more than a similiar excursion on the cruiselines. To me it was worth every extra penny, but it may not be to you - especially if the reason for booking private was to save money.

 

- There are some excursions that are only offered through the cruiselines. And there are some ports where you can only get off on cruise line excursions. Panama Canal cruises are frequently among those, for example. Only people on cruise line excursions are allowed off at Gatun Lake (on most lines). In the past some people have booked private excursions expecting to be able to get off the ship, and then found out once they got there that they wouldn't be let off. I took a tour in Costa Rica that was scheduled for 12 hours - our ship was scheduled to be in Costa Rica only 12 hours including the time for docking and getting cleared by the local authorities - there is no way I would've been able to do that with a private guide. Also, in some places for some excursions, the cruiseline have exclusive contracts with the operators - so even if you could normally book it independently, once they find out you are on a cruise ship, they can't let you book.

[CaribbeanBound]

wrp98 said it all. Good job.

 

We have only ever taken the cruise excursion twice: once in Belize (and it's a good thing since we ran an hour late and they did hold the ship for us) and Dominican Republic (which wasn't necessary at all, but there was not enough good info on that port of call site to make a more educated decision).

 

http://www.lavasurfer.com/info/caribbean-secrets.html

These are our very detailed personal reviews, hints, and tips for ports of call that you will be visiting.

[CPT Trips]

Just one point where I differ slightly with wrp96. "- Convenience. It's one stop shopping, you know where to meet, you have some comfort that the tour company has been vetted by the cruise company."

If there is an issue - say no air conditioning on a bus "advertised" as being air condititioned, do not expect the cruise line to help (with a credit or refund) after the tour. The line you will get is, "the tour operator is an independennt contractor." That said, there is some degree of vetting and all the other securities noted.