Question about shore ex list for HAL experts.

[mbe30]

I'm booked on the Noordam on February 27. The shore excursion list is up and available for me to book already. All of the ports except for St Thomas list almost every tour that appears in the shore excursion brochure. The tours for St Thomas, however, are very limited. There are many more tours listed in the brochure than appear on my list. I know that sometimes more tours appear on the list as the time draws nearer, but the list has not changed at all in the past couple of months. This is my first time on HAL, so I'm not sure if I can expect more tours to be added. Anyone have experience with this? I appreciate any input. Thanks!!

[MYMOTHERSCHILD]

MB, I find St Thomas incredibily overrun with tourists. Why not walk, take a trolley, or whatever is offered to get you out of port to a bus, or take a taxi to Red Hook ferry. From there, the ferry to St John. It may be "crowded" too, but if you walk the back streets you'll get a taste of what it used to be. Or take a taxi to Trunk Bay, a gorgeous beach. Much of the island is a National Park which I discovered when Cinnamon Bay Campground opened in the early 60's so, it's nostalgia that drives me to St. John.

MMC

[jayjaycan]

I have been told by HAL in the past that the brochure describes tours offered for past time frames. They have to re-negotiate with the tour operators and until they finalize these the tours are not available for booking on HAL's web site.

 

St Thomas is innundated with cruise ships and any excursion offered by any of them is available from locals at the pier.

 

Previous poster is right. Anything offered by the cruise ship you can do on your own

[CroozeAddict]

The shore excursion's available for our cruise in January have been recently updated and more have been added. I would wait 2-3 months and see if the same applies to your cruise.

[bUU]

I notice the same thing with our upcoming February cruise at St. Thomas, as well as with San Juan. I am also hoping for more to be added, however, if my Royal Caribbean experience is any guide, I'm not optimistic. They, too, had a very large list of excursions listed at both of those ports, and yet only offered a small percentage of them on our cruise, and that didn't change as we got closer to the embarkation date.

[Jemima]

Very few shore excursions fill really early. We don't even book our cruises until 2 to 4 months before sailing. We book ship shore excursions online in nearly every port and have so far always gotten the excursion and time requested. Right now we have one shore excursion booked for our late Oct. cruise and are still deciding on the other five ports.

We usually do the less expensive excursions. Some of the more expensive ones are more limited and may fill much more quickly. For example, Copper Canyon is open on our Sea of Cortez cruise, but I've heard it is/was closed for one of the other Oct. cruises.

[bUU]

I think you may have misunderstood the OP's issue: That is that there are a bunch of excursions that seem to be only rarely offered at all.

[Krazy Kruizers]

You have 5 1/2 months before your cruise. Plenty of time for HAL to add tours. Even if they don;t show up on HAL's website, when you get to your cabin there will be a shore excursion form which will list the tours available on your cruise.

Just keep checking about every 2 - 3 weeks.

[HeatherInFlorida]

For our upcoming cruise I kept an eye on the list of tours for quite awhile and several were added along the way. Right now we have a lengthy list for St. Thomas, but not all that are listed in the brochure.

 

While I know it's more expensive to book ship's tours, I like to do it if we're going any distance from the ship. They have a couple of nice tours over to St. John which is absolutely beautiful because it's preserved as a national park.

 

So just keep checking in and you'll see there will be more as you get nearer. I just booked our tours around the final payment date with no problem.

 

Have a great cruise!

[mbe30]

Thanks so much for all your help. In the past, I have taken excursions both through the cruise line, as well as through independent operators. I really like booking through the cruise line for convenience. I'll keep an eye out for more excursions to be added. If not, I'll just arrange tours on my own. Thanks again everyone!