not allowed to book Carnival Victory trips in advance.

[dnbnor]

we are joining Carnival Victory at Barbados on 28th April 2010 and have been told by Carnival's London office that, as we are not joining the ship in St Juan, we are not allowed to book trips in advance. As it is my honeymoon and I would like everything to be as perfect as possible, I am concerned that by the time we join in Barbados there will be no places free. The trips we want to do are :- St Kitts- Skysafari Zip Line, San Juan -Bioluminescense kayaking and Dominica- river tubing. I can't decide whether to leave it until I join the ship or try to find independant tour operators and book before we leave. Has any other UK passenger had this dilemma please?

[Denicewu]

All those places have good info on the port of call forums and we have personally booked independent in them all for our March trip even though we board in San Juan and could book on the web page. Just do some online research and it is much cheaper too. Congrats on your wedding

[Bru92]

we are joining Carnival Victory at Barbados on 28th April 2010 and have been told by Carnival's London office that, as we are not joining the ship in St Juan, we are not allowed to book trips in advance. As it is my honeymoon and I would like everything to be as perfect as possible, I am concerned that by the time we join in Barbados there will be no places free. The trips we want to do are :- St Kitts- Skysafari Zip Line, San Juan -Bioluminescense kayaking and Dominica- river tubing. I can't decide whether to leave it until I join the ship or try to find independant tour operators and book before we leave. Has any other UK passenger had this dilemma please?

 

I just got off the Victory. We boarded in San Juan not Bridgetown but had the same problem with only a few shore excursions available online and in advance for our sailing date.

 

Once onboard, we had the shore excursion information in the cabin and were able to book via the interactive television. Tickets were delivered to our stateroom. We had no problems getting what we wanted even though we did not rush to book.

 

As you mention, independent tours are also an option and widely reviewed on the ports of call pages.

 

Congratulations on the honeymoon.

 

Mike in Ohio

[Bru92]

If you have not found the thread ...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=980056

 

It will tell you a lot about the Victory and has some very good pictures.

 

Mike

[tntheresa]

I always book independantly of the cruise and save lots of money.

[sunseeker09]

We booked independent tours or just got a taxi when we got there. Those were the best 5 days of 6 ports. Our only disappointing day was actually with our one and only Carnival tour, on St. Lucia. Do check the "ports..." boards. Lots of of tour companies come highly recommended for all of Victory's ports.

[setra]

Hi,

 

We are going on the same trip on Wednesday 10th, staying in Barbados for a week before we go.

 

I had a call from the Virgin rep (I presume this is who you are booked with) and she gave me our Carnival reference which is different to the Virgin reference.

 

With this you can do your funpass on line before you travel and I think you can also pre-book excursions. She did also tell me that they were working on this to be able to pre-book them through Virgin before departure.

 

When you do your funpass this will also give you a link to documents showing which cabin number you are in and also which dining time you have.

 

I don't see why you couldn't get this reference number now especially as it's your honeymoon.

 

Hope this helps - if you are staying in Barbados as well before we have booked a catermeran cruise with Silver Moon cruises - looks fantastic might be of interest to you.

 

:)

[Tenga1899]

I've heard positive reviews of river tubing here in Dominica from my classmates but haven't gone myself. There are a lot of local "tour guides" here that are perfectly safe to use, all of us crazy Yanks here in medical school keep them pretty busy and honest. Even if you can't go through Carnival, you shouldn't have too much trouble setting up the tubing trip here. As for the island, only use vehicles who's vehicle tags start with "H" and if you are prone to motion sickness at all, prep yourself, the roads here can be a bit of an adventure all of their own! :D

[Will&Hel]

we are joining Carnival Victory at Barbados on 28th April 2010 and have been told by Carnival's London office that, as we are not joining the ship in St Juan, we are not allowed to book trips in advance. As it is my honeymoon and I would like everything to be as perfect as possible, I am concerned that by the time we join in Barbados there will be no places free. The trips we want to do are :- St Kitts- Skysafari Zip Line, San Juan -Bioluminescense kayaking and Dominica- river tubing. I can't decide whether to leave it until I join the ship or try to find independant tour operators and book before we leave. Has any other UK passenger had this dilemma please?

 

Hi we sailed on Freedom last year and booked all our excursions independently using info/guidance from some expereinced cruisers on CC, the info on Ports of call and friends we had met on the Roll Call - they all turned out great

 

Is there a Roll call for your cruise? you might get some advice there or join up with others booking independently (stupid suggestion its yr honeymoon:rolleyes:)

[recyclelady]

We had the same problem a couple of years ago on the Destiny, when it was doing the Barbados to Barbados run. The trouble is that when you board in Barbados you are on the last half of the cruise for most people. When it gets to San Juan the vast majority of the cruisers get off and a new cruise begins.....but you still have a few more days until Barbados.

 

We never really felt like we "belonged" to either cruise!

 

And we had the same problem with booking excursions.

 

When we got on board, we made really good friends with the guy who ran the excursion desk. We told him which excursions (now totally booked!) we wanted and he was nice enough to even leave us word in our cabin when there had been a cancellation.

 

I'd probaby never do a cruise out of Barbados again.

[klm2]

It looks like Carnival might miss out on my excursion money as well. I figure it was time to try out some independants anyway.

[panamatiger]

we are joining Carnival Victory at Barbados on 28th April 2010 I can't decide whether to leave it until I join the ship or try to find independant tour operators and book before we leave. Has any other UK passenger had this dilemma please?

 

Hi there:

We are doing the sailing with you out of San Juan on the 25th. We'll be snorkeling in Barbados while you're boarding. We booked our excusions privately with the help and recommendations from members here on these boards.

Congratulations on your honeymoon and wedding

 

panamatiger

[disneydude2000]

Hey all,

this problem has been solved now if you email the below address which tour you would like to do :D

BarbadosSailings@carnival.com