Cost of shore trips on World Cruise

[Gugi]

Does anyone know the cost of Cunard organised trips on the QM2 World Cruise? I am particlularily interested in Rio de Janeiro but any information would be very useful:)

[Runners]

Does anyone know the cost of Cunard organised trips on the QM2 World Cruise? I am particlularily interested in Rio de Janeiro but any information would be very useful:)

A few examples of QM2 tours & prices for Rio.

 

The best of Rio, $149.00 per adult. 8 hrs. Included Sugar Loaf, Christ the Redeemer at the top of Corcovado Mt., a drive past Copacabana & Ipanema Beaches and also a luncheon.

 

Rio & Sugarloaf, 4 hrs, $69.00.

[RobertGraves]

The best of Rio, $149.00 per adult. 8 hrs. Included Sugar Loaf, Christ the Redeemer at the top of Corcovado Mt., a drive past Copacabana & Ipanema Beaches and also a luncheon.

 

We did the same excursion during QM2's World Cruise last year. I think the price was $10 cheaper then. :confused:

 

Wonderful excursion. Highly recommended.

[Gugi]

Many thanks for your replies. Since this is our once in a lifetime trip I think that the full day trip in Rio sounds wonderful. We will be visiting Cape Town as well but from looking on-line I am sure we can arrange our own trips there. The other ports of call will remain on hold until we get the itinerary from Cunard.:)

[Runners]

Sailing into Cape Town is breath-taking to say the least. While there we took the Hop-On Hop-Off bus, the red and the blue lines. The bus takes you to all the beaches and it takes you up to the cable car which takes you to the top of Table Mt.

[Gugi]

Thanks for that advice. I am trying so hard to see what is available in all our ports of call but it is a real minefield. As things look right now we will do the organised trip in Rio and do our own thing in Cape Town since we are there for an overnight. The other ports of call we will play by ear. I can't deny that the excitement is causing me a few sleepless nights and we don't depart till January!!!!!:)

[Traveling Moma]

We are also booked on the Jan.13th world cruise, New York to New York. I have just registered on this website as my sister is on it and leaving on the Queen Victoria in November. I read Gugui's other threads and I can't find them now. It was a group of people all doing the complete world cruise. I literally have just joined and would like to post as well as connect with some folks on the Jan.13th QM2 world cruise. We have been waiting to receive some info on the land excursions. I understand that some folks set up group private tours on this site? Any info would help, thanks.

[LiveWell]

We are also booked on the Jan.13th world cruise, New York to New York. I have just registered on this website as my sister is on it and leaving on the Queen Victoria in November. I read Gugui's other threads and I can't find them now. It was a group of people all doing the complete world cruise. I literally have just joined and would like to post as well as connect with some folks on the Jan.13th QM2 world cruise. We have been waiting to receive some info on the land excursions. I understand that some folks set up group private tours on this site? Any info would help, thanks.

 

 

If you go to the Roll Call thread - Cunard Roll Calls, QM2, World Cruise 2011 - you will find a friendly bunch who will be cruising at the same time as you. :)

[capnpugwash]

If there are a couple of you or more you should consider taking a taxi to do the tour of Rio, $150 per person is an immense amount, that is $300 per couple and I am sure that you could get a cab for the day for less than that. Use a licensed cab with the Name and Phone Number on the side and negotiate the price.

[southwestie]

If there are a couple of you or more you should consider taking a taxi to do the tour of Rio, $150 per person is an immense amount, that is $300 per couple and I am sure that you could get a cab for the day for less than that. Use a licensed cab with the Name and Phone Number on the side and negotiate the price.

 

 

I am sorry to disagree here, BUT in Rio, I would rather have a tour no matter what the cost, to take a cab in Rio could be nasty

[Traveling Moma]

Many thanks but I must be Crusiecritic challenged! I can't find the darn roll threads. I keep pulling up Gugi and his request for Rio tours!

[NomDePlume]

Many thanks but I must be Crusiecritic challenged! I can't find the darn roll threads. I keep pulling up Gugi and his request for Rio tours!

 

Your rollcall is here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1022731

 

Bon voyage...

[pnhmrk]

Sailing into Cape Town is breath-taking to say the least.

 

The sail into Rio is quite magnificent as well. Unfortunately, when we did it, it was still dark and we couldn't see very much :(

[pnhmrk]

If there are a couple of you or more you should consider taking a taxi to do the tour of Rio, $150 per person is an immense amount, that is $300 per couple and I am sure that you could get a cab for the day for less than that. Use a licensed cab with the Name and Phone Number on the side and negotiate the price.

 

Agree totally! (Especially the bit about making sure that you get a reputable taxi :) )

[bazzaw]

I have to admit to being a little baffled about to what I see as "penny pinching" sometimes in these cruising forums - and particularly so in this Cunard forum. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with penny pinching itself and/or at the appropriate time :p.. It just seems to me that considering that Cunard is probably one of the most expensive cruiselines around, and people going on a World Cruise on one of their ships are doing something really special that only a very small percentage of the worlds population will ever get a chance to do and finally that our time in these ports is very limited and therefore valuable - to argue on cost grounds about shore tours seems to me to be just a bit "penny pinching" . Certainly there are many that simply just don't like organised tours - and I respect their thoughts re that completely.

 

Hmm - oh well, I guess we are all individuals ( except for that bloke in the Monty Python film who said that he wasn't :p )

 

 

Barry

[pnhmrk]

to argue on cost grounds about shore tours seems to me to be just a bit "penny pinching"

 

If cost were the only reason for making your own arrangements rather than taking an organised tour then I would agree with you. HOWEVER there are so many other benefits in not taking an organised tour that the vastly reduced cost is only an afterthought.

[bazzaw]

HOWEVER there are so many other benefits in not taking an organised tour

 

Malcolm

 

I think that is an over simplification and a generalization regarding this. Benefits and disadvantages are firstly only perceptions - seen by some and not by others. Secondly the perceived benefits/disadvantages differ from port to port and situation to situation. Hence a benefit able to be obtained in an easily accessed European/North American port may become a disadvantage in an Asian, South American or African port.

 

Barry

[Gugi]

Barry, I have no doubt that if money was no object we would use Cunard's trips in every port but the reality is that this trip, for us, is a holiday of a lifetime and a trip that neither of us ever anticipated we could actually do within our means. Paying for the trip itself has seen a massive inroad into our savings but one which we consider money well spent. We are merely trying to find out as much as we can about shore trips so that when the time comes we will be more "au fait" with what is available from Cunard and what we can do on our own and we greatly appreciate the input from fellow CCs to help us to achieve that end. We will be living a dream and are so excited about the whole thing. Some of us have to be realistic but don't really want to be classed as penny pinchers.

 

Isobel

[bazzaw]

Isobel

 

I do know where you are coming from - we are doing 2xP&O half World cruises shortly - and this has also stretched our financial resources. We also appreciate that we are VERY fortunate to be able to do this, and never ever thought that we would be able to do so. .

 

The reason for my post was not to class anyone as penny pinchers - but merely to comment that I get the impression that "for some" it does boil down to this - and , especially in the Cunard forum, it surprises me a bit. On our way across to UK on Oriana, we have booked 9 shore tours. These are mostly in somewhat "exotic" ports eg Ho Chi Minh City, Mumbai, etc , where we would not dare to wander around on our own. But we have also booked a tour for Athens - because we realise that even it would be just a little alien to us (money, language) - and we only have one day there and probably never likely to return. So we need to maximise our time there. That alone for us is a reason to try to stretch our financials just a little bit more for it:p

 

Of course, in the case of the Cunard WC, there are a LOT of ports (not so many with P&0) - so that makes decision making even more difficult.

 

Barry

[William Dean]

But we have also booked a tour for Athens - because we realise that even it would be just a little alien to us (money, language) - and we only have one day there and probably never likely to return. So we need to maximise our time there. That alone for us is a reason to try to stretch our financials just a little bit more for it.

 

We did a Med cruise in about three years back. One port was Athens.

 

I hadn't been for very many years, and my wife had never been. We were in a position where money wasn't the crucial option. I wanted to see both Athens and Sounion.

 

We did it. Counting very brief stops, we saw:

 

The cruiser Averof - flying visit

Spa pool (natural) at a toilet stop

Five minutes in a fishing village

Decent time at Sounion

Temple of Zeus - time to walk around

Hadrian's Gate

Panathinaiko Stadium - stop outside and walk up to it.

All the way up Mount Lycabettus

Changing the Guard at the Presidential Palace (stop for photographs including one with the guard)

Syntagma Square

Drive through Plaka

Constitution Square

Good length of time at the Acropolis

 

And that is just what I can recall off the top of my head.

 

You cannot do the changing of the Guard in a coach.

And show me a tour that covers that lot in a day that Cunard offer. It actually cost the two of us a lot more than Cunard wanted - but there was a spare seat in the car and we'd have broken even had we filled it.

 

Oh, and the taxi was an air conditioned Mercedes, with a great driver who didn't smoke and did speak great English.

 

 

[pnhmrk]

I think that is an over simplification

 

Agreed. I could have gone on at length about the disadvantage of arriving at sights with a coach-load of other people, the length of time for everyone to get on and off the bus, stragglers, sights that you don't want to see, having to do things at someone else's pace, etc (another simplification) but I thought that It was much easier to simplify than to list everything.

 

and a generalization

 

Again I agree. On the entire WC we did about eight of Cunard's tours. Only one of which classed as other than poor (see my comments about the Nara tour in Japan in another thread). I am generalising when I say that tours are not worth the money but only just! (and I also comment that some tours are good - again see my comments on Nara).