Have you done a precruise land tour?

[sashas_mom]

We will be going from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg next year on the Crown and are considering the land tour package Princess offers before the cruise. We were wondering what you experience has been. Did you feel confined by the itinerary? How long are you in the buses? Were the hotels okay? We are deciding whether to do this or rent a car and do our own thing.

Thanks.

sasha'smom

[CruisenOne]

We will be going from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg next year on the Crown and are considering the land tour package Princess offers before the cruise. We were wondering what you experience has been. Did you feel confined by the itinerary? How long are you in the buses? Were the hotels okay? We are deciding whether to do this or rent a car and do our own thing.

 

 

Over the years we have done both: Pre-Cruise and Post-Cruise land tours.

 

Our experience with them has been very good.

 

Confined by the itinerary - No.

 

Length of time on buses - Varies by Tour.

 

Hotels - Can not recall any "bad" hotels.

 

Renting a car - Reluctant to do this.

Foreign traffic laws, not knowing the roads, etc.

 

Have a great cruise.

[Spikesgirl]

We did an extensive land tour (Bejing land tour and Yangtze cruise) last year with Princess and have to admit to being very pleased with the entirty of it. Our hotels were all top of the line and very centrally located. The part that we enjoyed the most was not having to worry about the variety of languages that we encountered along the way. At each stop, we had a local guide come on board who could explain the city and its history.

 

We did have a 3 1/2 hour ride, but the bus was relatively comfortable and the guides did their best to entertain us, but to also allow us to enjoy the quiet as well. We stopped once for a leg stretch/pooty break and the guides went into a convenience store and bought all these different treats for us to try out.

 

Depending upon the size of your group, it might be possible to alter your itinerary a little. Our group was only 11 people, so we had a lot of flexiblility. When we were in Beijing, extensive restoration work was being done upon the Summer Palace, so our guide asked if we'd prefer the Ming Tombs. As a group, we chose that instead and had a great visit there - who would hve known that they would have squished penny machines there?!

 

We felt no confinement by the itinery as it was everything that we had hoped to visit, but without the hassles of trying to arrange it for ourselves.

 

We will take another Princess land tour without hesitation.

 

Charlie

[TravelnAl]

Sasha'sMom,

 

We're booked on the Crown for 7/9/08. When are you going?

[lois1112]

Hi Eileen!:)

I did the post cruise tour with Princess when I did my Asia tour in November. I have nothing but good things to say about it. the hotels were very nice..the tour guides excellent. yes some times we did spend a long time on the bus...but you have to get from place to place.

e-mail me if you have any questions!

Lois

[tapper]

We would like to take the same Princess post-tours that you have taken. What time of the year is it best to take them from Beijing? Did you do any pre-cruise days in Bangkok? How was the weather when you were there? Thank you.

[sashas_mom]

Sasha'sMom' date='

 

We're booked on the Crown for 7/9/08. When are you going?[/quote']

 

Hi there..

 

what a nice surprise! We are going May 20, 2008, that's the sailing. If we do the criuse tour it will be 5/12. We'll never have a cc group like we had on the Coral...at least I can't imagine we ever will.

 

Nice to hear from you.

[fti]

We will be going from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg next year on the Crown and are considering the land tour package Princess offers before the cruise. We were wondering what you experience has been. Did you feel confined by the itinerary? How long are you in the buses? Were the hotels okay? We are deciding whether to do this or rent a car and do our own thing.

Thanks.

sasha'smom

 

Driving in most of Europe is VERY easy. Except for Britain, you drive on the same side of the road. Trains are another excellent option for independent travel. Having done an indepedent land tour in AK and having lived in Europe for years, I would recommend that you seriously consider doing a land tour on your own. More flexibility to stop and do/see what you want, on your own schedule, probably less expensive.

[Cactus]

We've taken pre-cruise and post cruise tours with Princess. All were very good. We've also done some on our on. We did the Baltic (w/Berlin) cruise last year, and used princess for the transfers and hotel in Copenhagen prior to the cruise (4 day pre-cruise) and also cruise air as they had a better price than I could find. When we arrived in Copenhagen there was a Princess rep waiting in the luggage pickup area for us. She was very fluent in English and we had a very nice conversation about the area before our luggage came on the carousel. She escorted us though immigration and customs - [that took the blink of an eye] and then to a waiting taxi where she gave the driver a ticket with where we were going and then told us all was taken care - enjoy. When we arrived at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel across from Tivoli, all was ready for us - no hassle at all. We were on the 17th floor facing Tivoli - excellent room. (Just watch out for the bikes!) We toured Copenhagen on our own day and night - it was a very safe city (with normal precautions) - I had done the research on the Internet - we visited all the tourist sites. We used the "trolley" tour transportation like you see in most tourist cities - e.g. get on and off the trolley looking vehicles all day at specific spots with multi-day discounts. We also did a water tour - many are available, just look around. When it was time for embarkation, we met in the lobby and were escorted to the ship, bypassing the lines and dropped off where long shore men immediately took our luggage. Yes, I agree, taking a tour through a cruise line is more expensive than doing it yourself - as I said, we've done both. But sometimes - especially in a foreign county where you do not speak the language, the extra piece of mind of having a person waiting for you, and there to answer questions removes the stress. By the way - our flight went through Paris - that has to be the worst airport in the world for getting information if your are an American - even when you try your best at speaking French.....Just my opinion...I don’t need to be ragged on. Because of construction our gate was moved, which added to confusion, we had to take a bus to the other end of the runway - we got there, but we are pretty experienced travelers, if you are new to the game it could have been stressful. The plane was parked quite a ways from the terminal and once you finally got off the bus, (they would not open the doors until the people ahead were already on the plane – safety I assume as we were on a taxi way area), you walked up stairs to the plane like you did in the 70's. Not what you’d expect from one of the busiest and supposedly more advanced airports in the world (and we flew AIR FRANCE!). We are doing a Safari (picture taking) in East Africa this year – I made SURE we are not connecting through Paris!

[mdamron]

Before I get going want to say that we did a post-cruise Alaska tour (bus and train) a couple of years ago and it was great !

 

Just a caution to check baggage restrictions if doing European airlines. European airline baggage restrictions are often more stringent than domestic US and even international on US carrier.

 

We are just about to go on a Ring of Kerry Ireland precruise prior to sailing out of Southampton (London), and Aer Lingus (Ireland to London flight) has a one 44# bag per passenger restriction. Anything over that is a significant extra charge.

 

Originally thought would have a problem on the tour as the Princess has arranged the tour through Globus and Globus website states a one 50# bag restriction, but we have been assured that since this is a Princess tour and not a normal Globus tour, that this restriction will not apply.

 

This situation is that we are arriving and leaving tour out of different airports and then flying to another airport to board ship. Checked and found out that London airports have (or had - don't know if this is still allowed) baggage storage facilities, so if were flying into Heathrow or Gatwick, could have left a bag there and tried to retrieve it before boarding the ship.

 

We are trying to get down to 3 bags from our normal 4, and will pay the Aer Lingus additional charge. We know we do not travel light, but part of a vacation for us is to not have to worry about clothes and laundry.

 

Another thread talked about Princess/Globus tour (I think it was Tuscany) where only one bag was allowed on the tour, but excess baggage was shipped ahead to the ship - so needed to pack accordingly.

 

I have also seen somewhere that this can be an issue with Australia tours.

 

Good luck and enjoy the tour ! Just plan ahead.

[sashas_mom]

I really appreciate your imput. Looks like we are going to give it a try. I just think sitting on a bus and watching the world go by will be much easier than figuring out where to go, where to stay and how to get there. My husband is beginning to consider it.

 

mdamron: You will love Ireland. The ring of Kerry is gorgeous. We lived in Ireland for a few years, years ago, and I still have the fondest memories of it and the people there. We loved the people in Ireland. Have a wonderful cruise.

 

We are still open to comments, so please keep them coming. It's very helpful.

sasha'smom