British isles Sept 10, Tours

Looking to use Viator instead of booking with Princess for tours. I noticed members mentioned using them, will they meet us at the port? We are going Sept 2017 British Isles.

Have you joined/checked your roll call? Other cruisers may have already set up tours that you can join. Go to the roll call section on the Boards main menu, then click on your cruise line, the ship, then look for a thread for your sailing date. Click on 'reply' on any message and join the conversation. Viator is mentioned frequently in roll call discussions on many cruises. I can't imagine any tour agency that wanted to stay in business NOT picking up people at the port.

I've used Viator a lot and they have never picked us up at the port. It's always been our responsibility to get to the meeting point on our own. You need to do the research to figure out what the best way is to get to the meeting point. The prices are usually much better than the cruise lines' and often cover a lot more but you pay for convenience with the cruise line. If you miss a tour with Viator, you do not get reimbursed (even when I had to cancel at the last minute and had a doctor's note).

All of the tours I've done with them throughout Europe have been really good (with the exception of a Chocolate Walking Tour in Switzerland that was cancelled at the last minute but that wasn't Viator's fault but the contractor's fault).

Thanks

I would also recommend joining your Roll Call. The thread for our sailing (in August) has lots of local tour company suggestions, most of whom will pick you up at the port. (Viator doesn't run tours itself: it's a middleman that will book you with a local company.)

Join our Roll Call! Lots of info already there.

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We just returned from the 6 June British Isles on the Caribbean Princess. Since we booked very late, all private tours on the roll call were already full. Called Viator and booked Belfast, Glasgow and Normandy through them. Tour operators met us at each port right outside the gate. Before I booked, Viator gave me the names of the three tour operators and I was able to check out their websites to compare website tour descriptions vs Viator tour descriptions. They were basically the same and so were the prices. For Belfast we had Odyssey Tours, for Glasgow we had Timberbush and Normandy we had Bayeux Shuttle. All three were excellent. For Cork we booked directly with eCoach full day and WOW Scotland for Invergordon. We were also met at the port gate for these two tours. Both of these tours were also excellent.

I used Viator for Dublin in May and was very pleased (as usual). When looking at a specific destination on their website/app, click on Shore Excursions. Those will be the ones that pick you up at the dock and drop you off.

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I thought the might set it up that way, Thanks for all the info!!

I identify all the tours we used on our May British Isles cruise. They all pick up just outside the port gates. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2513223

Other reviews do the same thing so maybe check out a few to get some ideas.