amyj23

Thanks to all of you for your feedback and suggestions. After I read what you said, I researched and realized how gorgeous this island is. I finally settled on a private tour of the island. I'm really looking forward to it!

I somehow missed all the comments about where this thread belonged until today. Yeah, it makes zero sense that it's listed under the Mediterranean. I wish someone could explain that one to me. Well anyway, all of you who responded to this gave me loads of great advice. So hopefully it won't matter that no one will find it unless they purposely search for the right keywords!

All great advice/info Edinburgher! I have been busy the last few weeks and suspended planning, but this will aid me once I pick up planning again! 😃

Thanks, Edinburgher! I have plenty of time to plan an alternate activity. I will use your suggestions above!

Thanks for taking the time to give all the suggestions and advice, JB! Will check that other thread out, too!

Thank you JB! That’s really helpful. That would take a bit to walk down. This was the description the tour operator told me “The cruise port is on the other side of the marina, so if you come by taxi is close but if you come walking it would be 15min approximately.” The address on the company’s website is this, but not sure if this is the exact location of where the catamaran will be: Avenida Do Mar, Funchal, 9000, PT. After reading your post, I’m leaning towards not going. Unless I could fill the catamaran with others from my cruise. But no one is responding to my FB post, so there’s probably little hope for that at this point. (Sorry about this formatting. Lol. I’m on my phone and can’t get it off.)

I’m aware. CC is thin with Canary Island threads and it seemed most fell in this forum. Not sure why Portugal doesn’t have a spot somewhere.

We are totally aware of doing tours independently of the cruise ship. We are seasoned cruisers and routinely book independent tours. This is a snorkel excursion and there isn’t one offered by the cruise line or I’d actually consider it. The only thing close to it is on a speed boat that’s rough and my husband’s back and my neck can’t handle it. Yes, we’re aware we can’t leave until the ship clears. That was why I posted this. I knew we wouldn’t be able to get off the ship until probably at least 30 min after we pull in. And if we did this excursion there isn’t a worry about getting back late because it ends several hours before we have to be back on board. The tour operator can only be so flexible, because if they have non-cruise passengers on it, it’s not fair to make them wait on account of us. (I see what you mean now, no, this isn’t a private tour. I just meant it’s a company not affiliated with RCL.) If he fills up with folks from our ship, then I wouldn’t even be worried. Because we’d all (forgive the pun) be in the same boat. But no one on our FB group is responding to whether anyone else has booked it. Your final advice is my plan B. To do some tour around the island. The island looks gorgeous. But I really wanted to sneak a snorkel excursion in to this vacation and this is the first island I found one. We’re doing island tours already on Lanzarote and Tenerife. I wanted to do something on the water for this one. I was hoping there’d by someone who has been to Funchal and could give me an idea of how far it is from ship to leaving the port. There really isn’t a lot of info on these boards about the Canary Islands. This has been a tough cruise to plan for! Thank you for taking the time to respond! 😃

Hello! We are arriving into Funchal on RCL at 9am on our cruise, and we are considering an excursion that's at 10am (independent of the ship) and requires a 9:30am check in. I have communicated with the tour operator, and they told me it's a 15 min walk, or we could catch a cab. I have never sailed to this port nor have we sailed RCL. I assumed it could be 9:30am before we even are able to get off the ship. Can someone tell me about their experience with distance from ship to a taxi at this particular port? The operator said they could be flexible and let us arrive 15 min prior. I don't know whether I'm trying too hard to make this work. We really want to do this excursion. Even if the tour operator agrees to refund our money if we miss it, I don't want to have to decide on the fly on another excursion. Anyone with advice, I'd love to hear it! 😃

I was so glad to find this post! Last year when I searched CC for Lanzarote tours, I couldn't find much. The private tour is a little pricey for the two of us, but I'm pretty sure I've found an equivalent small group tour tailored for cruise passengers from the same company! The other company I was looking at wasn't giving me the warm and fuzzies because all of the reviews were from Germans, and one person (who wasn't German) complained that her English tour ended up being in German. LOL. Anyway, your review was so helpful. Thank you!

I know. I saw that within a few minutes and edited my post.

We vacationed in Halifax in July and the Bicycle Thief restaurant on the water was a highlight. We all had delicious meals, and a great view. If you like craft beer, within walking distance is Garrison Brewing. The beer was awesome. EDIT: Didn't realize how old this post was! Leaving my comment in case someone else is looking for ideas. 😃

Glad to help! 🙂

Sorry! I forgot to report back. So here's the deal. In order to "up" our coverage for that trip, I had to sort of buy a separate policy. It was expensive -- about $400 -- but it was going to cover any delays of 3 hours or more and other higher coverages. For reference, it was a 17 day trip going to four countries. So a lot of moving parts. Turns out, our trip went off absolutely flawlessly so we didn't need to make a claim. 😂 But I had such peace of mind! So what I've learned is, the annual policy is awesome for all our smaller trips, trips to family, etc. Ones that don't need a lot of coverage. But for trips like the one we just took to Europe, we'll have to pay separate. This year, we're insured to the hilt and haven't had any issues. (I really hope that doesn't jinx anything LOL). And we're in good health with no major health conditions either... Anyway, your plan is good to read carefully through the coverages. But if you need help, I've had great luck with their customer service!

I’m glad you brought up the extra coverage. We have a huge trip coming up next week and I keep trying to contact them outside of their open hours. I’m trying to upgrade the policy we have to cover shorter delays (the annual policy only covers 12+ hour delays, I want the 3 hour delay coverage — we often get messed up on our flights coming back from Europe!). When I tried to fool around with the optional coverages, it would show me prices. Again, their website isn’t great. Yes, their Covid policies were super generous and easy to do! Shockingly so considering their website is usually so crappy. I’ll definitely let you know if we have to make any claims. Fingers crossed 🤞🏼 that we don’t!!! Lol