Excursions?

[Nightwind]

My apologies if this has been asked many times before, but the search isn't working and I don't have time to go through the entire forum. :)

 

I'm seriously considering Oceania for my next cruise, likely to the Baltic or perhaps an Eastern Med. In looking at the various cruises, it seems like Oceania offers entire packages of excursions rather than individual excursions? Or am I seeing things wrong? Some of the excursions look great and it seems like the packages are a good deal, financially. BUT there might be ports where we just want to do our own thing, particularly if we do the Med itinerary, where I have previously travelled rather extensively. I don't want to have to purchase a package if I'm not going to use half the excursions in the package!

 

So, is it possible to book excursions separately rather than in packages? Perhaps on the ship itself during the cruise? Any info would be appreciated...

 

Thanks in advance!

~Kathleen

[dwelsh]

Book either 90 days ahead on line or on board. Once you have your reservation # you can read details of all tours in detail on line.

[Druke I]

Yes, Oceania sells excursions separately as well as in packages.

 

We purchased separate excursions on Regatta into the Baltic, 8-05, and again on Nautica, 11-06, Istanbul to Singapore.

 

In both cases, we ordered them on-line, rather than waiting until we were on-board, and taking a chance that some might be sold out (capacity controlled).

[Nightwind]

Great! Thanks so much for the info! :D

 

~Kathleen

[Napi's Mom]

We did do some of the ships tours on our Nautica 11/15 cruise, BUT found them to be overpriced, and too many stops at places selling things! But since we had limited time on shore in those ports (sometimes as little as 5-6 hrs) we felt safest on a ships tour. In the other ports I got brave and decided to try to arrange tours, private ones, or taxi ones, which ALWAYS ended up cheaper than the ships' for often twice as much time. I'd never tried it before and was pleased at how well it worked. Online it's just a case of typing in "tourguides...in (whatever city)". Also read the recommendations of the people on this board. We all got together (Finally on the "Roll Call" board) and we set up 5 tours in 4 cities, involving some 16 members of this board some for one tour or another, (never all16), for considerably less than Oceanias' would have been. We had a full day in Athens on a Taxi tour, for less than the ships 3 1/2 hrs bustour, and went where WE wanted (We voted amongst ourselves) Paul from "Greek Taxi" had a mini bus,very comfortable, and was NOT a guide but informed us of a lot before we'd get to the site, and supplied guidebooks. In Egypt we did an overnight (THAT was an experience!) and 4 tours in Turkey with some of the best guides, where we wanted to go. It was a revelation how much better these tours ended up than previous experiences. These were NOT the expensive $1400 private trips the ship supplies, but ones cheaper than their rushed bus tours!