Nebr.cruiser

You will probably have time to make it, but it will be tight. We also found the place to pick up the tour difficult to find. We enjoyed the day, but many of the above comments are also true. The snorkeling was not good at all; unfortunately true for most places in the Caribbean now. The seas was not rough the day we were there. Murky water at the wreck and other site and little sea life to see. The meal was ok, I enjoyed the rope swinging myself, both watching and doing, and didn't notice it rocking the boat, but I don't normally get sea sick. The worst thing about the tour was that the dancing got extremely raunchy--there were children on the boat and It made me uncomfortable. Also very loud music. Would we do it again? Maybe.

We've only sailed out of Galveston once, very early December. The first and last days were very cool and it didn't really warm up much until we hit the islands. Probably pretty common in the winter months.

Either that or I just use the bar of soap. Works fine. Now, you may have to ask for one.

I saw one of those ducks ono ur last cruise; didn't know what to do with it so just left it. It seems kind of silly to me, but to each their own.

You will need to do a lot of research--the port of call boards on these forums and your roll call will help--but I think you should easily be able to do most tours in that price range. It was quite a bit less when we last toured in the Med, but that was some time ago. Private (just you) tours will of course be more expensive than groups of 6-15 or so. Guidebooks and other online research can narrow down what you want to see as well. We never take ship tours unless absolutely necessary because of logistics, ie a difficult port where it might be iffy to get back to the ship in time.

We are planning to cruise to New Zealand next year--anytime from late January into March and are looking at different cruise lines. They all seem to show a different itinerary as to ports. Most do cruising the Fiords. Some also show cruising the Bay of Islands. We don't particularly care which ship or departure port. Budget matters since we also want to spend 2-3 weeks touring Australia. What are the must see ports? We want to see as much as possible, of course, mostly interested in scenic beauty and I really want to go to Hobbit Town. I've noticed some of the shorter cruises leave out Tauranga, Napier, Wellington. And some leave out Aukland. Most seem to have Dunedin and Christ Church. Some have Picton. We will probably only do this once, so don't want to miss anything truly spectacular.

I have seen mention of this tour company here. Has anyone used them and can report back? They sound great, but we would need an English-speaking guide.