windsurf excursions

[tennismom2]

does anyone have any comments on windsurf shore excursions? we will be on Oct 21 sailing and are not sure if we should book thru ship or private guide. Is the Florence on your own or Carcassone transport worth booking?

[eh2zed]

Windstar shore excursions are fairly typical of most cruise lines. You will have to decide whether or not you wish to do independents based on your criteria. We generally do independents wherever we can. Florence would no exception. You might get more info on the supplier you mention on the Port of Call/Mediterranean board

[LNWILD]

If you need to be back at the ship at a guaranteed time--book thru the ship. At least if you are first timers--If a repeater then you know what you'd like to see and can arrange at thye dock or with the concierge. You can also find shore excursions on line-not associated with the cruise ine.

[6rugrats]

It's very easy to just do Florence on your own. Get a cab at the dock to the train station and take the train to Florence. The fare is inexpensive and it's easy to do. You may find your cab driver will offer you a private tour of both Pisa and Florence; our driver did, and at a better price then the ship's tour, but we wanted to go on our own. Train schedules can be found on the internet and you can plan what sites you want to see. You would probably have time to do both Florence and Pisa if you wanted to.

 

We don't do the ship's excursions, finding them generally overpriced.

[CruisinHalibuts]

does anyone have any comments on windsurf shore excursions? we will be on Oct 21 sailing and are not sure if we should book thru ship or private guide. Is the Florence on your own or Carcassone transport worth booking?

 

 

We just sailed on Windsurf this past June and I had the same question. We elected to book our Pisa/Florence tour through a guide vs. the ship excursion. Wow-it was worth every penny.

 

We used Bob's Limo tours of Rome and our guide/driver was waiting for us in his Benz van when we walked off the ship.

 

The major difference is in Florence.

 

1) The driver can literally drive down into Florence which saves a lot of walking because I understand that the buses don't drive down into the portion of Florence where all the sites are located. He literally drove us to each site, gave us some history and we were off on our own for a set amount of time.

 

2) Statue of David-our tour included museum entrance to see the Statue of David. No waiting in line. According to the ship excursion description, you don't see the REAL Statue of David but a replica. This alone was enough to make us book a tour on our own.

 

We returned to the ship in plenty of time to do a bit of wine shopping in Livorno.