Excursions for 11 night southern caribbean cruise

[Archie4]

:)According to my Ship Mate app we have 3 months 20days and 19 hours to our cruise and our thoughts are shifting to excursions. Any advice would be greatly recieved by this cruise novice!!!

Have been told that ones organised by Royal Caribbean can be a bit pricey and its best to do them direct with tour operators in the various ports. Is it as simple as booking in port?? I bet its not!!!

[Archie4]

ooppps forgot to say on Explorer if that matters for all things excursionary!!!!

[roenoe]

Join the thread for our group and join the meet and mingle.

[cb at sea]

You first need to decide WHAT things you want to do in each port, THEN you can decide if you should book a ship's excursion, private excursion, or do it on your own. A guidebook will be your best resource.

Some things can certainly be booked when you get off the ship, but you REALLY need to have some sort of idea what you want to do!

[Nebr.cruiser]

We almost always do private excursions anymore, or just get off and do our own thing. Check the ports on these boards and you will see many suggestions for things to do and recommendations for great guides/tours.

 

This has always worked well for us. Sometimes you can get together with 4-6 others on your roll call for a tour or sometimes the tour operator will take just you or will have a group already in place.

 

We also sometimes, but more rarely, just pick up tours at the dock. This is a little more iffy, but we've never had a truly bad experience, some just better than others.

 

Ship's tours are more expensive, less flexible and often more crowded. We have been on several that were less than stellar. But, they do guarantee that you won't miss the ship if the tour is late.

 

Independent tour operators are very aware of the ship's schedule and do not want the bad publicity that would come from having irate customers who missed the ship.

 

We always try to leave at least a couple of hours leeway between when we are to be back on the ship and when the tour ends, for safety, but we've never had any close calls.

 

In some ports, just getting off the ship and walking around or to a nearby beach or attraction works just fine.

 

We generally only do ship excursions if we have a very tight deadline for the tour we want, the area is non-tourist friendly or slightly less safe or or doesn't have much tour infrastructure, or we have lots of OBC to use up.

[Sequim88]

We are becoming more and more fans of DIY touring. Only exception is if there is long travel (such as Le Havre to Paris or Livorno to Florence) where unexpcted road conditions could delay getting back.

 

On St. Maarten we did parasailing with St. Maarten Parasailing at the marina - first water taxi stop. Excellent operation. I asked why they were not a regular excurion option and the owner said they would have to charge tripple - once more for required insurance to protect RCI and another cut for RCI.

 

At St. Kitts we bypassed the "official" taxi dispatcher people in the gateway building and headed for the independents in the courtyard. Got a super deal from a fellow named Bernie who took the siz of us to Brumstone Hill Fort, the Batik factory and then all the way down to Cockleshell Beach where he arranged discount on chairs. Then after 3 hours there back to ship with stop at the sugar cane guy and his monkey. Caution, steer clear of the monkey guys and their scam in the port courtyard are.

 

At Barbados we just grabbed a cab and headed for a beach. Last port and we were so burned out all we wanted to do was relax.

 

We did do shop excursions to the Baths at Virgin Gorda and a cooking thing at Dominica that was too expensive but very tastey and a beautiful location in the hills.