Choosing Excursions?

[newcruiser09]

I've been on three previous cruises and they have always been shorter with just one or two ports so it's been pretty easy to choose excursions.

 

We have 5 port stops on our next cruise plus a pre-cruise stay in San Juan and I'm getting overwhelmed trying to sort out what to do on every island. I have downloaded Celebrity's pdf of excursions but it is over 100 pages so I don't want to print it and I can't seem to get it into Excel so I can make notes about what I want to do in each place. As of now, I'm not expecting to do an excursion at every stop, but want to make sure I don't miss anything great!

 

 

How have you sorted through a lot of information to determine what is best to do at each of your stops? Any tips would be appreciated!

[Keith1010]

One of the things we always keep in mind is to pace ourselves and while we do book excursions we don't do them in every port. We prioritize those that we are most interested in and also look at ports we prefer to do on our own.

 

Keith

[4774Papa]

I've been on three previous cruises and they have always been shorter with just one or two ports so it's been pretty easy to choose excursions.

 

We have 5 port stops on our next cruise plus a pre-cruise stay in San Juan and I'm getting overwhelmed trying to sort out what to do on every island. I have downloaded Celebrity's pdf of excursions but it is over 100 pages so I don't want to print it and I can't seem to get it into Excel so I can make notes about what I want to do in each place. As of now, I'm not expecting to do an excursion at every stop, but want to make sure I don't miss anything great!

 

 

How have you sorted through a lot of information to determine what is best to do at each of your stops? Any tips would be appreciated!

I like to go through each port on X's website, narrow it down to 3-4 excursions and copy them to an email to myself that I store in a folder named for the cruise.

 

Then, I look for private tours on the Internet. Also, study public transportation, taxis, any way to do-it-yourself.

 

Sometimes the X tours are the best for the money, sometimes private tours. Occasionally we do it ourselves. It all depends on what we want to see, how much time we have, how much does the tour cost and what is best for the day.

[4774Papa]

Also, use cc rollcalls to solicit for others to join you on private tours to cut the overall cost.

[gyanhumara]

...We have 5 port stops on our next cruise plus a pre-cruise stay in San Juan and I'm getting overwhelmed trying to sort out what to do on every island. I have downloaded Celebrity's pdf of excursions but it is over 100 pages so I don't want to print it and I can't seem to get it into Excel so I can make notes about what I want to do in each place. ...How have you sorted through a lot of information to determine what is best to do at each of your stops? Any tips would be appreciated!

 

For my upcoming cruise I'm using an Excel spreadsheet that has a Summary tab (which days in which ports, plus links to more information about said ports, and which at-sea days are formal nights), and then one tab for each individual port. On each port's tab, I have columns for the shore excursion's code, title, cost, whether food or drinks are included, duration, departure time, whether each person in our party of 4 would be interested in the excursion, whether the tour has been booked or not (if "Booked" then I do a summation of the cost that links to the Summary sheet), whether a particular type of excursion is offered in other ports in the itinerary and if so, which ones, and miscellaneous comments.

 

This spreadsheet contains only the top 6 or so excursions that those in my party would be interested in for each port, out of the two to four DOZEN available per port. In other words I did a LOT of whittling.

 

If you want I can send you a copy. Ours is a 14-night with 7 ports.

 

And for the record, I found that Celebrity's PDF isn't always accurate, in addition to being extremely long. Your best bet is to access your reservation via the My Celebrity portion of the web site, because I found in one or two cases that specific tours we were looking at were not available for our sailing. You can get more accurate data, and there is no obligation to buy anything until you actually click the "Book" button.

[ghstudio]

where are you going...maybe we could help....

[newcruiser09]

For my upcoming cruise I'm using an Excel spreadsheet that has a Summary tab (which days in which ports, plus links to more information about said ports, and which at-sea days are formal nights), and then one tab for each individual port. On each port's tab, I have columns for the shore excursion's code, title, cost, whether food or drinks are included, duration, departure time, whether each person in our party of 4 would be interested in the excursion, whether the tour has been booked or not (if "Booked" then I do a summation of the cost that links to the Summary sheet), whether a particular type of excursion is offered in other ports in the itinerary and if so, which ones, and miscellaneous comments.

 

This spreadsheet contains only the top 6 or so excursions that those in my party would be interested in for each port, out of the two to four DOZEN available per port. In other words I did a LOT of whittling.

 

If you want I can send you a copy. Ours is a 14-night with 7 ports.

 

And for the record, I found that Celebrity's PDF isn't always accurate, in addition to being extremely long. Your best bet is to access your reservation via the My Celebrity portion of the web site, because I found in one or two cases that specific tours we were looking at were not available for our sailing. You can get more accurate data, and there is no obligation to buy anything until you actually click the "Book" button.

 

Sounds like what I've started doing, thanks! I actually went through and copied and pasted the information for every excursion from the mycelebrity area into an Excel file, and then added information from fodors so I know what to aim for at each island. This way I can share the information with others going with us. Having all of the information in one place where I can make notes makes it so much easier!

[fleckle]

..... Your best bet is to access your reservation via the My Celebrity portion of the web site, because I found in one or two cases that specific tours we were looking at were not available for our sailing. You can get more accurate data, and there is no obligation to buy anything until you actually click the "Book" button.

Thanks for the reminder! I had been meaning to do that and had forgotten all about it.

 

I also like to browse through the excursion recommendations on Cruise Critic's Ports of Call forums and the "Things to Do" recommendations on Tripadvisor (sister site to Cruise Critic).

[gyanhumara]

You are quite welcome, newcruiser09 and fleckle. Enjoy your cruises!

[4774Papa]

I did have a bad experience when choosing a private tour (it was half per person of the NCL tour).

When we arrived at the port, no one was there to meet us. We had to call the company. They had forgotten about our tour. They quickly arranged out tour, which was ok, but still, could have been a mess.

[njaloha]

Your best bet is to access your reservation via the My Celebrity portion of the web site, because I found in one or two cases that specific tours we were looking at were not available for our sailing. You can get more accurate data, and there is no obligation to buy anything until you actually click the "Book" button.

 

Now this is interesting and helpful information!!!! Thanks for this tip.

[Lsimon]

In picking your excursions I think the first thing is to learn a little about what is offered at the port. You can do a little or a lot of research on this. The minimum, for me, is looking over the Celebrity excursion booklet to see the types of excursions that the cruise line offers there, read the port descriptions here on Cruise Critic and on the Celebrity Website, and possibly browse through the port of call forum here on Cruise critic. You can go way beyond that by looking at other web sites, travel books, travel videos, etc.

 

Once you have a general idea of the options at a port the next question is what do you want to do or like to do. For example, we're not into 'touring' in the Caribbean and prefer snorkeling, day-sail, or beach activities on islands where these are good choices.

 

These couple of steps can narrow down your choices and remaining research considerably. From there we usually find the best information is here on Cruise Critic in the port of call forums. This is a great source, especially with the forums' search function, to look for threads on certain activities or reviewing certain tours operators or excursions.

 

One constant theme I see on cruise critic is a bias against ship's tours to the extent that some posters believe one should never consider a ship's tour. While I too have that bias it isn't a strong one and in some cases we find that the ship's excursion is the best option. There are many times a ship excursion fits in just right or might have a great tour operator locked up so you can only take an excursion with them booked through the cruise line. And there are some ports, especially distant ports on European cruises (distant as in far from the cruise port such as Rome from the Civitavechia cruise port or some distant attraction in Costa Rica) where we just feel more comfortable traveling with the cruise line. Of course there are some types of activities I'd never consider the cruise line excursion for like going to a beach at a Caribbean port. The bottom line is that I think those that would 'never' do ship tours as well as those that would 'only' do ship tours are shortsighted and missing some great opportunities - so keep your mind open.

 

Keith1010 has good advice about not over doing it. There have been some cruises where we had excursions booked every day. This gets pretty tiring - especially if they are all early morning excursions. On more recent cruises I try to limit the early morning excursions to just a few, or avoid them entirely, otherwise we're too tired to enjoy the nightlife on the ship. We need to sleep in a few mornings, after all we are on vacation!! We leave other days for a mid day quick trip to a beach or stroll around the port town. And in some cases we even pick one day to stay on the ship.

[gyanhumara]

...And there are some ports, especially distant ports on European cruises (distant as in far from the cruise port such as Rome from the Civitavechia cruise port or some distant attraction in Costa Rica) where we just feel more comfortable traveling with the cruise line. ...

 

And there are some ports, such as St Petersburg, Russia, where you can only disembark the ship if you're part of the ship's tour because they have arranged your day visa. If you have family or someone else to sponsor you at the restricted port, you might be able to make your own visa arrangements & disembark that way -- I haven't tried that yet. I'll have to ask my aunt, who visits distant cousins in St Petersburg every year to donate medical supplies to their local hospital. She flies in, however.

[4774Papa]

And there are some ports, such as St Petersburg, Russia, where you can only disembark the ship if you're part of the ship's tour because they have arranged your day visa. If you have family or someone else to sponsor you at the restricted port, you might be able to make your own visa arrangements & disembark that way -- I haven't tried that yet. I'll have to ask my aunt, who visits distant cousins in St Petersburg every year to donate medical supplies to their local hospital. She flies in, however.

If you go to St. Pete, you don't want to miss anything. There is soooo much to see in that fantastic city.

[geospyder]

And there are some ports, such as St Petersburg, Russia, where you can only disembark the ship if you're part of the ship's tour because they have arranged your day visa...

 

Partially incorrect. You can arrange private tours in St. Petersburg and you are covered under the tour company's umbrella visa. BTW - St. Petersburg is fantastic. You do not want to miss it. We were there two days and not only did we arrange a private tour for those two days, we also arranged a vodka tasting barge tour the night of the first day. First hangover I've had in many years :o

[4774Papa]

Partially incorrect. You can arrange private tours in St. Petersburg and you are covered under the tour company's umbrella visa. BTW - St. Petersburg is fantastic. You do not want to miss it. We were there two days and not only did we arrange a private tour for those two days, we also arranged a vodka tasting barge tour the night of the first day. First hangover I've had in many years :o

We did Ukraine, Russia and the Baltics this Summer with Vantage and discovered that vodka bottles in Russia, once opened have no cap to put back on the top (Russians expect to drink all in the bottle). I purchased a bottle myself and found that this was true, although we couldn't finish the bottle in one sitting (I just put it in a corner on the riverboat with a plastic cup and finished it later).

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

And there are some ports, such as St Petersburg, Russia, where you can only disembark the ship if you're part of the ship's tour because they have arranged your day visa. If you have family or someone else to sponsor you at the restricted port, you might be able to make your own visa arrangements & disembark that way -- I haven't tried that yet. I'll have to ask my aunt, who visits distant cousins in St Petersburg every year to donate medical supplies to their local hospital. She flies in, however.

 

Not so. If you book with a private guide, the guide will arrange a blanket visa for you. That is one port where you definitely want to arrange a private tour. There's too much to see and you don't want to spend all your time waiting for people to get on or off the bus. Or the shoppers who think the return time to the bus is just a suggestion. It's just too difficult to tour there in a large group. Plus on your own tour, you get to do what YOU want to do.

[EithneMay]

Don't try to fit everything into 7 days or you will need a vacation from your vacation! Plan avfew days to relax or at least have the option to do or not do something. I used to try to fit in too much... Now I cruise 14 nights or B2B cruises! Much more relaxing!

[ljandiernp]

where are you going...maybe we could help....

 

Hi, I am on one leg of the B2B that the OP is on. I am particularly interested in any private tours or "not to be missed" excursions on St. Croix. Unfortunately my husband doesn't snorkle and I'd like to find something we'd both enjoy as we have some beach/snorkle days in the plan already. Has anyone done the small gague RR tour or the X culinary program? Any comments one way or the other on these? Thanks, Laurie