Ship Excursions vs Independent Tours

There has been difference of opinions on whether to book excursions via the ship or once you get off and utilize a number of tour operators at Port. The ship as we know makes a tremendous amount of profit with excursions. They scare or warn (if you prefer) to alert us that the ship will only wait if you are on one of their scheduled adventures. I have taken independent tours and even patronized a cab to take me around. I have also utilized ship arranged excursions. I have found that you can save at least half if you don't utilize the ships booking. One recent example is the Cape Kennedy tour. Without going into specifics at this writing. If interested, compare the price of the ship tour against going on your own. What a savings. I know all cruise lines do the same. My inquiry is to solicit the opinion of other "cruisers" Thanks in advance.

You're likely to get pretty much the same answers here, as you will to the same question you posed over on the Carnival board. On most of the mainstream cruise lines, the shore excursions are more pricey, but they tout their guarantees to get you back to the ship on time (or have the ship wait for you).

For us, it's a matter of where a particular shore adventure falls within our comfort zone. Our general rule is: the further away from the ship, and the later the tour runs, the more likely that we'll book a cruise-line shore excursion. But, we will usually do our homework in advance, checking out private tours here on the "Ports-of-Call" board, as well as TripAdvisor -- before we make up our minds. So far, that approach has worked well for us.

Thanks for your input. I am taking Carnival hence my question on the forum. I did not realize there was a general forum to post. Thanks again. Happy travels!

Just a correction. Cruise lines do not guarantee they will wait if one of their tours is late returning. They will TRY to wait and will get you to the next port so you can re-board the ship. In that case transportation, hotel and meals would be covered by the cruise line.

For us, it's a matter of where a particular shore adventure falls within our comfort zone. Our general rule is: the further away from the ship, and the later the tour runs, the more likely that we'll book a cruise-line shore excursion. But, we will usually do our homework in advance, checking out private tours here on the "Ports-of-Call" board, as well as TripAdvisor -- before we make up our minds. So far, that approach has worked well for us.

We are also more likely to take a ships excursion if the tour site is farther away from the ship. We also plan to start the tour as early as possible and plan to be back to the ship an hour before all aboard time. That was we do not have to worry.

We will not take a shore excursion that includes lunch because your large group enters all at once and they are likely to be serving a prepared ahead lunch. You will also spend a lot of time waiting for the slower eaters and stragglers. Here is an example- We took a private walking tour in Tangiers. The tour guide took us to a regular restaurant where you ordered off the menu. DH and I did not want to eat so the tour guide made sure everyone in the group was taken care of and then he walked us about 2 blocks away, knocked on someone's door and had them open the synagogue for us. We were back in plenty of time to sit on the veranda of the restaurant and watch the action below. Shortly later we passed a large screened in room where we saw hundreds of people from the ship eating at picnic tables. The cost of our tour was a small fraction of the ship excursion.

If you are on an independent tour you can customize what you are doing. If you don't want to waste time shopping you can say so, or limit the time before you get off.

Just a correction. Cruise lines do not guarantee they will wait if one of their tours is late returning. They will TRY to wait and will get you to the next port so you can re-board the ship. In that case transportation, hotel and meals would be covered by the cruise line.

Thank you -- that's a good distinction, and I stand corrected.:o Ultimately, it is the Captain's decision to stay or go -- and that can be driven by a number of considerations: tides, weather, etc.

We've actually had the ship wait for us once. We were on an X shore excursion from Tortola to Jost Van Dyke. The time got away from the tour operator, and we were 30 minutes late, returning to the ship. When we pulled up to the dock, Solstice's stacks were already steaming, and the head of the Shore Excursion office was waiting to personally escort us all back onboard. They literally pulled the gangway in, after us! :cool:

As long as you do your research on your ports, there's seldom a reason to need ANY excursion at all! But, learning something about where you'll visit is key! You can't expect to step off the ship into a place you know NOTHING about, and have a successful day.

That's where the ship's excursions come in...most folks booking them don't want to do the "leg work"...they just want to be entertained....and there's nothing wrong with that!

But, if you spend a bit of time prior to your trip doing a bit of reading, you can save a bundle, do what YOU want, and have a great day!

As long as you do your research on your ports, there's seldom a reason to need ANY excursion at all! But, learning something about where you'll visit is key! You can't expect to step off the ship into a place you know NOTHING about, and have a successful day.

 

That's where the ship's excursions come in...most folks booking them don't want to do the "leg work"...they just want to be entertained....and there's nothing wrong with that!

 

But, if you spend a bit of time prior to your trip doing a bit of reading, you can save a bundle, do what YOU want, and have a great day!

You are so right, cb! And, some ports warrant more research than others. For instance, our first cruise to Bermuda (last fall) was a 3-day port stop. I bought the latest edition of the Moon Handbook for Bermuda, and read it cover-to-cover, before we left. We were able to see a great deal of the island, armed only with that book, a good map, and a 3-day bus/ferry pass. Had so much fun that we're going back, this month! :cool:

Time, place, and distance ... all things I'll echo. As someone who has been stranded in the middle of Belize with 45 minutes until the last tender ... it's not a fun experience.

For longer tours of Caribbean islands I almost always stay with ship tours unless there is plent of breathing room before the ship leaves. Weather, clogged roads, etc. can all make travel difficult. In general I know that tour operators base their livelihood on keeping customers happy, but things happen. I'm more comfortable with longer and more ranging private tours in Europe simply because there is more infrastructure.

There is no right or wrong regarding cruise line excursions/ private tours, or independent travel. Each should choose whatever best suits their needs and level of comfort. DW and I have traveled extensively all over the world (for about forty years) and seldom take any kind of tour since we prefer to be by ourselves and do our own thing. But that is not best for everyone so our days of "preaching" are over :)

Hank

We rarely ever do a ship excursion, and always book a private excursion. We don't like traveling on a bus with 30 other people so we pass on most ship excursions.:)

We haven't traveled enough to feel comfortable doing our own excursions outside of ports where we can just walk around. Maybe in a cruise or two, I'll feel savvy enough to deal if we get in a tight spot returning.

On our first few cruises, we exclusively used the excursions booked through the cruise line. We had a few experiences where we felt that the tour wasted so much of our time waiting on stragglers that we began to feel a bit cheated. We began to use taxis and to return to the ship much earlier to avoid any mishap with a traffic jam or car break-down meaning we would miss the ship. We decided to start checking our private excursions through CC and TripAdvisor and we haven't looked back. We still build in additional time with the tour guide to make sure we arrive back with time to spare.

We haven't done a ship excursion in years for many of the reasons already stated. We'd only do one if logistics made getting back to the ship in time for what we wanted to do iffy, or possibly if we had a lot of non-refundable OBC to use up.

Even then, we'd prefer one that mostly just provides transportation to a site, not a guided tour with 50 other people.

We do a combo of private excursions and DIY, finding much better value and quality this way.

When booking through the ship ... They pick you up from the ship, take you to have fun, and return you to the ship ... with no advance planning or worries on your part. :D

LuLu

I think it was said well that it depends on how much research one is willing to do before the trip. I remember on a port in Alaska, our family rented a car to enjoy about the same excursion the ships were providing. About lunch time, we stopped at a local restaurant to enjoy a nice relaxing somewhat quiet lunch. As we were finishing up, we noticed the employees pulling out and stacking lunch boxes getting ready for the crowd of two cruise line tour buses. It was standing room only when they showed up. Ignoring the cost savings, sometimes the research is well worth it.

Burt

You don't always save money by booking independently, but you will likely get much more personalized service. When visiting Probolingo this fall we booked a private tour. As we got off the tender those on the ship's tour were milling about and being assigned to buses. Our guide was there at dock holding a sign with our names. We hopped into the SUV and were on our way in no time. While making our way up the mountain. We ended up passing the bus that held the first tender of people. Since we were in an SUV and not a big tour bus we were able to make it much further up the mountain where we finally transferred to the required Jeep 4x4. The ship's tour folks rode for a lot more miles in the back of a jostling 4x4. At the Sea of Sands we were some of the first ship people to make it there and had a much more peaceful pony ride and then had a much easier time up the stairs as they weren't crowded.

Just as we made our way to the bottom of the stairs you could see the hoards of ship people making it across. The last ship people didn't make it back to the ship till many hours after we had returned.

We usually do independent tours. We save some money, but more importantly they are usually much less crowded and we get to see more.

Just came home from Australia. On our RCI cruise we actually booked a train excursion in NZ for $229. each. When we were in Wellington we went to the tourist office and booked the train ride for $90. USD. Then cancelled the RCI excursion. We met lots of people who did the same. The only difference was a box lunch and a $5. ride to the railway station. Different train, but a longer route.

We are often AMAZED at what people are willing to pay cruise lines for European tours, hotels, and transfers. I think the cruise line take advantage of people's inexperience and assumptions that language will be a huge issue.

Some people do not want to be bothered with having to deal with vendors and doing independent excursions or even doing research to enjoy ports on their own. Cruise lines offer worry free excursions for those people. We rarely do cruise line excursions, but they make sense at times. We were tendered in Nynashamn last summer and found that the cruise line's tour of the Vasa combo with Stockholm on your own actually made sense for us. It gave us what we wanted, which was transportation to the city and the ability to skip the lines at the Vasa while still having over three hours on our own in Stockholm. That may have been our second cruise line excursion in our last six cruises, but it made sense. I like to look at all options and sometimes the ship's excursions or transportation makes sense.

We like to take ship's excursions when we first visit a port. We choose the less expensive excursions usually.

We have had many good ships' excursions over the years.

Also, when we are familiar with a port and feel safe, we do our own excursions in places like Curacao and Aruba.

It's important to read about each port for a decision. For instance, we were glad we took a ship's excursion the last time we were in St. Thomas as the traffic was so busy with 6 ships docked that day. So if a port is apt to be crowded, we like an excursion away from the port area.

I've almost always done private excursions on the relatively few cruises I've done. When considering a private excursion I made sure I researched the company thoroughly through Cruisecritic and other websites like Tripadvisor. Only when I was confident in that company did I book the private excursion.

I have done two Mediterranean cruises, which are port intensive and are all about seeing the sights rather than hanging out at a beach. For those two Med cruises I booked private excursions after thoroughly researching through Cruisecritic, and I'm glad I did. We did private tours in Athens and in Turkey (to the Roman ruins at Ephesus) and had a wonderful time, especially as compared to the people who did the ship excursions.

For Athens we had a small group of about 14, (which included a couple of children). We had a comfortable small Mercedes bus and a guide. As we were completing our wonderful tour of the Parthenon, as we were coming down, the ship's excursions arrived. It seemed like there were several hundred of them who arrived by large busloads. Needless to say, those folks didn't experience the same quality of tour that we did. And, when you crunch the numbers, our tour was CHEAPER!

Same kind of thing when we visited Ephesus. We arrived earlier than the busloads from the ship's excursions.

On my upcoming cruise in June I've booked a snorkeling excursion and a scuba excursion (I am a certified scuba diver). I did both through the cruise line because the prices were not significantly different and I felt that the security of using the ship-sponsored excursion -- getting me back to the ship on time -- was well worth the price.

Enjoy your cruise and your excursion(s)!

... And in setting up our Med cruise excursions it was easy to put them together through the Roll Call. The Roll Call is one of this web sight's greatest benefits/tools for the cruise.

Finally, those who have said that the choice also depends on time, distance, etc., are right on, too.

Lots of considerations; research is the key if you're willing to do it.