Extremely Disappointed With Celebrity Excursions

I pre-booked two excursions using Celebrity's website prior to my current Panama cruise. Two out of three of the excursions were cancelled, one prior to departure and one a day before the port arrival in Colon Panama. The one excursion which was not cancelled in Puntarenas CR spent nearly 4 hours on a crowded bus with extremely tight leg room.

I will never use a Celebrity sponsored excursion if I even decide to book another cruise with Celebrity. On prior trips I never had this poor of an experience on ship sponsored excursions and have had good experiences using non-ship sponsored excursions recommended by fellow Tripadvisor and Cruise Critic travelers.

Without knowing why the excursions were cancelled there is no way to comment constructively.

My question regarding the third one is, did you discuss this with the Shorex staff after your return? Did you fill out a shorex evaluation card and was there a response?

As a general rule, I have found any and all cruise line excursions extremely poor quality and lacking while being extremely over priced. I feel for you and your losing out on excursions. When traveling to places we've never been before or another country, it seems like the best way to 'visit/sightsee' is through the cruise line.

A strength of Cruise Critic is the knowledge passed on by past cruisers and the ability through its Roll Calls to improve the experience. Most cruisers who organise private excursions concentrate on small parties whilst cruise lines concentrate on getting as many people as possible on an excursion for as much money as the market will stand. After 7 cruises with Celebrity I have only done one ships excursion but have organised many and participated in other private ones. I will never do a ships excursion unless there is no alternative, but there are those who are more than happy to use the ships trips. If they weren't there would be significant price drops and smaller trips. Market forces I am afraid

We seem to always use the cruise line excursion. Our last cruise down to Panama our friends had a long excursion that took them to the Pacific Ocean. As they had booked with Celebrity the ship was late leaving Panama by 1-1/2 hours.

Sometimes excursions cancelled before a sailing is because the vendor had changed/modified itinerary or time. We've had two on our upcoming cruise cancelled. When I called to inquire, the times had changed so Celebrity cancelled and we rebooked at another time. We had originally booked during a sale and they re-booked at the sale price even though the sale was long since over. We generally only book excursions with X if we have a lot of OBC to use up, or if we're in a port where we don't speak the language and are going a distance that would be iffy getting back to the ship on time.

We generally only book excursions with X if we have a lot of OBC to use up, or if we're in a port where we don't speak the language and are going a distance that would be iffy getting back to the ship on time.

Agree, there are times where booking a Celebrity excursion can make sense. We often consider them for tendering ports too. In Santorini we booked their first tour of the day. Not only did we miss the massive crowds on the island later in the day we then had time in the afternoon back on the ship enjoying looking at the caldera whilst others were queuing in the hot sun or contemplating a walk through donkey muck!

Our expectations of Celebrity tours are realistic. We expect a safe and fairly comfortable coach. A tour guide fluent in English and knowledgeable about the area and an itinerary that does as advertised in the correct time scale. We know we will be part of a large group, have no input into the itinerary and there will be as useless shopping stop! We do generally appreciate the benefits of a private or small group tour!

Our experiences with Celebrity have generally been good. We did have an issue with a tour in Tahiti which was not as advertised (they did refund) and the last minute cancellation of a boat trip (not yet open for the season) where they offered us an alternative (which was acceptable). I think it is not coincidence that one of these trips was on a TP and the other the first cruise of the season. As others have said, the let down can be by a third party.

In the OPs situation it would be the last minute cancellation which would annoy me the most....Did Celebrity offer you any alternatives? Were they willing to help you look at private tours as an alternative (internet access)? Things do happen beyond Celebrity’s control but in circumstances like this I would expect them to support the guest in some way....Re the coach, in my experience lack of leg room is common, even on minibuses on private tours if they have booked every seat.

OP, it would be interesting to hear back from you about how Celebrity offered to help/ compensate you for your inconvenience if at all.

Agree, there are times where booking a Celebrity excursion can make sense. We often consider them for tendering ports too. In Santorini we booked their first tour of the day. Not only did we miss the massive crowds on the island later in the day we then had time in the afternoon back on the ship enjoying looking at the caldera whilst others were queuing in the hot sun or contemplating a walk through donkey muck!

Celebrity continue to trot out that old argument to use their excursion in Santorini, and it's a load of donkey-poo, quite frankly.

We visited in 2014; we booked the fast boat from the harbour round to Oia, avoiding queues for both donkeys and cable car - and avoiding the poo-covered path. Queues for the tender for the 'non-celebrity excursion people' were not excessive, presumably because Celebrity had conned so many people that the only sensible option is theirs. The package included a bus back to Thera. No problem, no queues, no issue.

If we need a "proper" excursion with guide, we always book smaller groups formed from people on the Roll Call, typically 8-12 people.

Stuart

Op, sorry you had an uncomfortable expereince but you state that previous ship-sponsored excursions were satisfactory. I am surprised you are swearing off Celebrity excursions based on this one bad coach trip. I hope you expreessed your displeasure to the staff on your return the the ship. Documentation (a photo of the poor seating space) always helps.

We always book our excursions thru the ship, but I stay away from any excursion that includes any type of bus transport. Did one once upon a time, and it was spent mostly on the bus.

We have booked horseback riding, snorkels, sunset sails, local spirits tours and swim with <dolphins/sharks/whatevers> and had great experiences.

I'm convinced that your shore excursions make or break your cruise, so I book the ones I think we'll truly enjoy. They tend to be pricier than the bus tours, but I just plan on that expense when I'm planning for our cruise.

Just to offer a contrasting opinion, only in our earliest years of cruising did we book excursions through the ship. But for many years now we have never booked anything through the ship preferring to do things in port on our own or through privately booked excursions. Our experience with this has been very positive with better times on shore at far better values.

And yes we fully realize the risks associated with this should we be late back to port, etc. But to date that has never happened as we always build time into anything we do to be sure of our return. We also have found that private operators are very reliable as they are in competition for business with the ship sponsored companies and the quality and dependability of their service is critical to their success.

We book celebrity excursions when:

a) The tour we want to take is long and the port stop is short...e.g. Belize visiting some of the ruins (yes, the 2nd/3rd bus were late!)

b) We are in a small port where Celebrity has booked all of the boats/cars/etc (Iceland)

c) We have an abundance of non refundable OBC and we can find some excursion that at least looks interesting

d) one person of our party wants to do something that's on a tour and the other's don't....for one person (timid traveller), the tour can be relatively cost effective and feel safer.

e) Celebrity provides a shuttle service to the center of town or a site...which saves us hiring taxis (Istanbul...grand bazaar)

f) (does not yet apply to us) If we needed assistance of some sort...walking/etc.

We have found over the years that in many ports one can get a guide for two at less than you pay Celebrity for the pleasure of sitting on that large bus or being in a large group. In almost every port, a group of 4 can save money, see the area better and be more comfortable on a private tour. Note: In most cases (not all), if you have two or more travelling, it's cheaper to arrange a private car or take a taxi from the port to the airport or vice versa....and you save the wait for the bus to fill.

The Celebrity excursions do fit some situations......but IMHO, there are better ways to see and experience many ports.

Without knowing why the excursions were cancelled there is no way to comment constructively.

 

My question regarding the third one is, did you discuss this with the Shorex staff after your return? Did you fill out a shorex evaluation card and was there a response?

When I was displeased I did all of the above and got pretty much nowhere on our first X cruise years ago. Was so disgusted I didn't sail with X for five years. Worst example which came later when we came back to X was a dire safety issue in Egypt and the shorex staff response was: "That's the job of the local provider."

Will say that DH put the safety issue on his computer survey and was called by corporate in less than an hour. And our safety concern was merited: a tourist bus overturned on the same road a month after we got home and 30 people were killed.

My wife and I have done a number of things. We have done the cruise line tours (disclosure...none on Celebrity yet), and have not been disappointed, but of course were typically on buses with large numbers of people. We found great value in meeting people on our Roll Call who were looking for a couple extra people just to defray some costs. The benefits were obvious...we made some new friends (we still stay in touch!), the "group" was just about 6-8 for 2 different excursions, and did not fill a whole van. The drivers/guides were more like friends who were excited to show us their country. On another stop in Cozumel, we arranged well in advance a trip with a local taxi company that I researched on TripAdvisor, and decided to book a private 5-hour tour. Reviews were as advertised, service was as advertised - were were well cared for and saw everything we wanted to see - and back to the ship at least 1.5 hours ahead of sail away.

We will still consider ship-sponsored tours where time is short and the itinerary is long (as others suggest), or where what you want to do seems hard to arrange privately. We are looking at a few ship sponsored excursions on our 11/30/2018 Silhouette sailing...:cool: