Princess Tour or Dora

[travellingnana]

The Princess tour in Cartagena includes inside visits to San Felipe fortress,the Inquisition Palace, and San Pedro Claver Church. Dora visits the Fort and Inquisition Palace as photo stops only, but she does visit La Popa Monastery and San Redro Claver. Can anyone help with deciding which tour to take?

[shastatroy]

Just returned from our cruise on Saturday. We took the Lee Miles tour which is basically the same as the Dora tour. We went to La Popa and it wasn't very impressive, I would not choose this tour again as we were very disappointed with our day, including the disappearance of our tour bus for nearly an hour, we had to take taxis to the next stop and hope our bus showed up.

 

I would do the Princess tour and the chance to go inside the Inquisition Palace rather than simply walking by it. Private tours concentrate on photo ops and then dropping us off at stores to make purchases. (fyi: Princess will do this also but at least you will get a little history lesson)

 

Enjoy your trip and get ready to be surrounded by street venders pushing their goods! And no the "real Columbian silver" is not real silver as we know it. :)

[travellingnana]

Thank you. That helps. I'm not sure I can pass up going inside the fort!

[runeu]

Hello!

 

We have the same problem and are still not sure whether we want to go with Dora or take the ship's tour. The plus on Dora's side is, the tour will presumably be more private. I guess the ship tours will have more people on it, but we also like the fact of seeing less the Inquisition palace from the inside. We have visited very impressive churches in Europe and from the photos the churches in Cartagena cannot compare to them...so I do not feel that I need to visit 2 or 3 so-so churches.

 

Any experiences with the ship tours? Are they really crowded? Are there guides who tell you something about history?

[Suitcasefull]

We booked a tour with Dora and she tailored it to what we wanted to see. We did do a private tour for just the two of us due to health concerns. Dora can arrange tours of different sizes. She took a group of about 14 that day. We were in a van with a guide, Dency, and a driver. We did not care about one of the churches so substituted the gold museum. Loved the trip up to La Popa because you can't beat that view! We did not go up the hill into the fort but that could have been arranged if we'd wanted to take the time (and walk uphill in that humidity!) but did go in a lower place inside the wall. Also did Inquisition Palace, shopping, walked through Old Town - walled city, drove through new areas, etc. Check with Dora and tell her what you want to do. She and the other ladies who work with her are very helpful and will try to make your tour there one that makes the best use of time for what you want. Our driver returned us to the ship in perfect time but we did make sure we weren't cutting it too close.

[sjmbruce]

we went with the Princess tour. there was maybe 12 or 14 people total. not a small, intimate group but not a huge crowd either. i choose the princess tour because i really wanted to go inside the fort and the inquisition palace.

joining a private tour group on the roll call wouldn't have allowed for tailoring inside tours, and the tour groups on my roll call were about the same size as the princess tour anyway. the private tours were also much more expensive.

i felt like we got to see a lot with the princess tour and i was pleasantly surprised at how much i enjoyed it.

[runeu]

We did ask Dora if it's possible to adjust the tour to our needs and told her that we want to see the inquisition palace from the inside. She denied our request for making any changes to the standard tour. However, Lee Miles offered the tour we want to us - the only thing is, that we can't afford the price for a private tour for two people...and we need to find 4-6 more people! In our roll call nobody seems to be interested so far :(

 

Though booking the ship's tour does not seem to be a bad option either...

[irvington]

We did the Dora tour today and it was great. That said, we would have loved to do the fort and the inquisition palace as well. We just weren't in port very long -- I think we wouldn't have had time to do much more.

[kcmich44]

We did ask Dora if it's possible to adjust the tour to our needs and told her that we want to see the inquisition palace from the inside. She denied our request for making any changes to the standard tour. However, Lee Miles offered the tour we want to us - the only thing is, that we can't afford the price for a private tour for two people...and we need to find 4-6 more people! In our roll call nobody seems to be interested so far :(

 

Though booking the ship's tour does not seem to be a bad option either...

I'm not sure which cruise you're going on. We are on the 12/9 Equinox and have info from Lee Miles for a private tour. It is more than we want to pay for the 2 of use, would youor anybody else be interested?

Visit fortress for 45 min(go inside),walk the Old City for 30 min, visit Palace of Inquisition for 35 min., walk to San Pedro Claver and photo stop for 10 min walk, 5 min photo, Drive to New City Pierino Gallo Plaza new shops(ship recommended stores), or Los Bovedas for merchandise made in Cartagena or P We can eliminate either or shopping visits. If anyone is interested please let us know. It would be on an air conditioned mini-van.

 

The price for this for 2 is $262, hoping to get a few more people.,

Kathy