Excursion... Book thru Princess or not?

[rollsf16]

We've been on 3 cruises and are about 50-50 if it is our first time in that port. I've gotten such good info off this site that we are more prone to not book directly throught the cruise line anymore. All the experience on this board really helps to avoid the "average" to "below average" excursions and really get out and enjoy the best the port has to offer.

[melissasneu]

We do both,booking about 80% on our own. Here are some sources I've found particularly helpful when searching out what to do and who to use:

*Cruise Critic-especially the ports of call area and cruise reviews from other passengers

*the cruise lines website to see what they offer so I know the kind of things that are available

*http://www.cruisemates.com has message boards and reviews that are helpful

*http://www.fodors.com

*http://www.frommers.com (they have message boards here that are helpful too)

*local travel and tourism departments for the areas you are visiting can give you the names,websites,and sometimes coupons for local operators

*general searches on the net

when you do all of these for the same port you will start to see that a good operator and tour will come up over and over again.From here you compare prices and times to what the ship offers and then make a decision.

Good Luck!

 

Melissa

[sunluva7]

... I cannot help but believe that if we had been on a tour not purchased through the ship we might have been left to fend for ourselves.

 

My current thoughts are that Princess does high quality tours that I may have to pay a couple of bucks more to take than another excursion. However, that couple of bucks may end up saving me from a bad experience with cruising. So, unless I know I can get easily home on my own from whatever port I am visiting, I am going to take the Princess cruise tours exclusively.

We also had a bad experience with an independent snorkel trip we reserved from home.

We missed the tour because our ship (Carnival) arrived late into Belize and took excessively long for the ship to clear before allowing passengers off. Fortunately, the company agreed to refund our money. Next time, I would think carefully before booking another independent excursion.

[crisp1]

Personnally, I do not like having to be on someone else's schedule and find that doing things on my own and not waiting for 50 people to walk, go to the bathroom, etc. is better for me. Call me impatient! We have found that we enjoy doing things on our own much, much better. The Carribbean is particularly easy to do on your own. Most people speak English! If it is your first cruise, go ahead and book the excursion, otherwise try doing it on your own!

I couldn't agree more. Nothing worse than following a 'herd' around. In Dominica we found a terrific cabbie that not only took us to all the same sights as the ships tour but to other great places like 'It's Nice to be Nice', we got to spend as much/little time as we wanted. In Montego Bay, after a boring ships tour we grabbed a cab and went on an adventure! This time in San Juan after the cruise instead of sitting in the airport or taking the usual post cruise tours, we have our own private guide to explore the island. Wow! There are times, however, that sticking with the ships tours are a good idea. The ports of call board is terrific!

[LarryF]

Three of our favorite tours on the western caribbean were with Captain Marvins (http://www.captainmarivins.com) for snorkeling and swimming with the stingrays in Grand Cayman. The island tour and Dunns River falls in Jamaica with Peat Taylors tour; and lastly a great cave tubing tour in Belize with Reggies Cave Tubing tour. You can do a search on Google and find Reggies tour and Peat Taylors tour. Every tour was less crowded, cost less, much more personalized and longer! We have always been able to get off the ship in plenty of time to make these tours and never once in danger of getting back to the ship on time!

[Guest Host Tink]

I always go with the excursions through the ship, I will probably pay more, but I can be sure that I'll make it back to the ship before it leaves!

[chefdeedee]

In belize we had no choice but to book cave tubing thru the ship - due to the limited time frame we were in port - will never book thru the ship again - there were over 500 people on our tour - it was an absolute zoo.

 

book independent if time allows.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Most of the ports, we just go on our own. I take along a tour book (fodors, insight, etc) and a good map. Sometimes we negotiate with a taxi driver for a tour -- we find out a lot about the town that way. Sometimes we just walk around. When we get tired or hungry, we can go back to the ship on our schedule.

[twocats]

We had the opposite situation as some of the previous posters. We booked a glacier helicopter tour privately in Juneau, home rather than use the Princess tour. Our ship was over 2 hours late getting into port so Princess cancelled most of the tours, one of which was the helicopter ride. We were able to reach the private company by cell phone and explain our problem. They were wonderful, they watched for the ship to come into port, had a van ready to pick 4 of us up and flew us out to the glacier. It was paid for as a gift by our children and I couldn't imagine going home without doing the trip. Lots of upset people on the ship, but we were so glad to have booked an independent trip.

On our upcoming trip we have booked 3 independant, 1 Princess tour. The 3 are at ports where we will be in port all day so there is no chance we might be late back. I wouldn't take a chance on short days.

[sunluva7]

Has anyone done Princess' post-cruise excursions in FLL? We did a Carnival post-cruise Miami tour last year which worked out very well for us. This August, we have a 6:30 p.m. flight out of FLL, have a monster SUV reserved for 6 and our luggage, but wanted to check out other options. We were looking at the Princess post-cruise (CB) Everglades tour. It's more expensive than the car rental but might be less of a hassle than renting. Anyone done any of these post-cruise tours in FLL? Are they worth it?

[custompcsys]

For our cruise on the Diamond in July, we booked strictly through Princess for one reason - if the excursion is late and its a Princess booked excursion, the ship waits. If its something you book privately, the ship sails with or without you if there is a problem. If I knew this was even a remote possibility, I wouldn't enjoy the excursion.

 

We have 6 family members on this cruise, all of us with different shore excursion interests. It may be a couple of bucks more, but to us it was worth the extra peace of mind.

[travelnnana]

You can save a lot of money and have a custom tailored tour if you do it on your own.

I would be very careful in the Mediterranean ports of Livorno (Florence) and Ctavecchia (Rome). The cities are very far from the port and there is a lot of traffic to and from - if you are on your own and are late - the ship will not wait for you. I read a horror story on this board a few years ago about someone who missed the ship in Citavecchia and had to fly to Athens to catch it - their own expense.

Toto2Kansas - we are going to Australia New Zealand next year - I would like to know who you used - maybe you would post on ports board - thank you

[Pam in CA]

I pretty much always book through Princess for a couple of reasons. Even though it's often a little more expensive, I think of it as insurance if for some reason you're delayed, the ship will always wait for a ship's tour. I've seen sailings delayed by hours for that reason. The other reason is that if I'm in a foreign country and am not familiar with the language or customs, I don't want to have to hassle with foreign currency or communications problems.

 

On our recent Royal Princess cruise, the Port specialist told folks, "If you go off on your own, be sure to bring a camera so you can take a picture of the ship sailing away." Lo and behold, some people went off on their own in Barcelona and guess what? They took pictures of the Royal as it sailed off. They caught up with the ship the next day in Cannes but it probably cost them a pretty penny plus some fast talking to get from Spain to France without a passport.

[Next]

Ditto on the previous advice.

 

If you are new to cruising, unfamilar with the port, there is great convenience and comfort in booking with the ship.

 

As you gain more knowledge and experience you can get more custom, private tours, travel on your schedule and typically save a few dollars.

 

Places like St. Thomas, St. Martaan, Grand Caymen, Cozumel are all pretty easy to get around and to find info. Jamaica is iffy, but tours like Pete Taylor have had nothing but good reviews.

[BrianandKaren]

I'm not sure where in the WC you are going, but we did the WC in November on the Star. We went to Majauhal (sp) and went into town did some shopping and took a bus/van that took us to a beach. If you ask around you can find where it is. In Cozumel, we rented a jeep and toured on our own, that was the best time. We made the mistake of taking a taxi to Dzul Ha and then back when we should have just rented the jeep to begin with. It cost $75 to rent the jeep for the day. The car rental is outside of the market where the taxis are. Grand Cayman was kind of a whim day. We walked around town and then decided to take a tour we saw someone holding a sign for a tour to goto Hell, the Turtle farm and a general tour of the island area for $20 a person CHEAP and a good tour. They are right there where the tenders drop you off at. We had planned on using Peat Taylor in Ocho Rios going to Dunn River Falls, but we had to goto Montego Bay instead. We hated it, but made the best of it on a kind of pushed local taxi driver. The tour was interesting and cheap, but we were back on the ship by 10 am enjoying the ship. Hope this helped.

[iancal]

Two things that I did not like about our recent Princess cruise were:

 

1. The constant pitch to take their excursions vs. independents on pain of death or at the very least missing the ship. Reminded me of how they used to sell life insurance.....'do you love your wife and kids" We have NEVER missed yet and had some wonderful excursions.

 

2. THe shopping 'consultant' who constantly pitiched 'recommended stores' but failed to mention that those same stores remit dollars to Princess EACH month for that recommendation. At the very least, they should disclose this clearly. Please tell that there is no conflict of interest no matter how positioned.

 

We usually do our own tours and we seldom shop at those tourist traps.

[vacationhappy]

We do both depending on the port. If you purchase insurance and you miss the boat for whatever reason, the insurance will cover your costs until you are able to meet up with the ship. I find it is just easier if you need a tour guide (like visiting Pompeii) to understand what you are seeing. But if it is boating or snorkeling or just beaching it, it is usually more economical to do it on your own. I also do not think the ship's tours are more expensive...in Europe, the private tours tend to be significantly more expensive unless you have at least 8 people.

[britsbest]

We usually just get a cab ask for a tour and then drop off at a beach, the driver will pick you up and only expects his fare on return to the ship. It worked well last year and we'll do the same this year except Jamaica when I feel it would be less hassle and possibly "safer" to use Princess.

[karenandgoose]

We like to stay with the Princess excursions simply because of the fact that if you are delayed for whatever reason the ship will wait for you.

 

We did do a private tour in Jamaica with Orville Taylor and it was one of the best and most inexpensive tours we've ever done. On the other hand, last year we booked a tour with another private company, which got rave reviews on the boards, in Montego Bay and they never showed!

 

From our experience most private tours are less expensive, more suited to what you want to do and less crowded, But, and this is a huge but, buyer beware. No matter what you read about the tour companies if it isn't ship sponsored you are taking it at your own risk

 

Karen

[spongerob]

Something else to consider, in addition to the comments about Livorno and Civitavecchia, is that the Grand-class ships are sometimes docking in container terminals rather than passenger terminals due to their size. The availability of local transportation can be limited, as can access to the terminal area. It helps to pay attention to other roll calls and cruise reviews if possible, to help make the decision that will work best for you.

[Pam in CA]

And something else to consider: if you are in a new place and rent a car, someone has to be driving and watching the road. There's no way the driver can see and appreciate everything around them. And if you're in a historical city or town, I think it's important to have a guide or someone who knows the area.

 

I do think it's different if you're in the Caribbean and going to ports that depend on cruises and tourism. There will be plenty of good independent tours to take you to a beach or wherever. If I'm in a city or country I'm not familiar with, don't know the language, and where tourism and cruises aren't significant to their economy, I'll stick to ships' tours.

 

"Stuff" happens -- buses break down, people lose track of time or get lost, etc. I've seen it happen and people left behind. Plus, if the tour isn't up to my expectation, I can tell the Tour Desk. This past Royal Princess cruise, we had a tour that included over four hours through the desert to Marrakesh by bus and four hours back. The A/C didn't work and we were dehydrated and very uncomfortable in the 100+ degrees inside the bus. Princess gave us a partial refund on our tour. On another tour, this one in Agadir, the guide kept us sitting and waiting for over 2 1/2 hours of a 5-hour tour. Again a complaint to the Tour Desk and again, a partial refund. Not only did we get healthy refunds but I was able to provide details on my comment card about how those tours weren't up to Princess standards. If we'd taken independent tours, who ya gonna call?

[FredS]

We use both. When we went around So. American a couple of years ago we used Port Compass in a couple of ports. In Rio whoever they contract with for tours never showed up at the hotel to pick us up for an all day tour. I made contact with Port Compass and they refunded our entire tour price. We used them also in a later port in a van with 8 of us. In essence it was a ride and not a tour. The driver drove and said about 5 words the complete trip which totaled about 4 hours. It was a ride out to see some penguins and a ride back. No narrative. At the penguins it was self quided. Port Compass come highly recommended; but it may depend on who they use for the actual tour. They are located in Florida, so sub-contract.

 

On our recent Royal trip we took the ships 12 hour trip to Marrakech, Moracco. We got back 15-20 mins before the ship sail. But no worry as it was a ships tour and they would have waited had we been late.

 

So depends on what you are doing and where you are going.

[mskopins]

We try to use the ships excursion services most of the time unless we get shut out. Last year on RCCL Voyager we took an excursion entitled "Deserted Island". It was advertised as a snorkel, lunch and tour the island. The snorkeling last about 15 minutes since they were late getting to the spot having to run on only one engine. Lunch consisted of a boloney sandwich and a bag of chips. And the deserted island was just that. Actully nothing more than a sandbar. It took 2 and half hours to get back to the dock on that one engine but the ship waited. All 35 of us went to the pursers desk and complained about the excursion. We all received a full refund for it and I understand that the vendor has been removed from the list. Sometimes it does help when you book through the ship.

[bjkTX]

On our first two Princess cruises we booked through Princess. But now that I'm more comfortable with the process and having learned so much on the boards from information provided by other cruisers, I am booking on my own for our Feb 06 Caribbean cruise.

[bonk]

I'd like info on the Princess floatplane tour in Ketchikan. Has anyone done this? Sounds like most of the people on these boards book on their own.