Princess Shore Excursion Flexibility

[cruisequeen4ever]

We value the security of doing Princess shore excursions, but several of the Med excursions we are interested in don't give us as much free time in the city as we'd like to explore. My question is...With Princess shore excursions, are we allowed to leave the group and explore the city on our own as long as we are back at the designated meeting point on time? The cities we are wanting more free time in are Florence and St. Tropez.

 

 

 

 

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[NavyVeteran]

You may be OK on some excursions, but there is no guarantee they will know a specific meeting time and place for later on. Even if the guide thinks they will be at a specific place at a specific time, things can change.

 

In the Ocean Princess stop at Livorno on December 2nd, Princess offers a Florence & Time On Your Own excursion (LI1-180), a Florence On Your Own excursion (LI1-185), and a Florence & Pisa On Your Own excursion (LI1-190). These excursions seem to be what you are looking for, since they combine Princess transportation with time on your own in the city. You will have to look at the excursion list for your specific cruise to see if these or similar ones are offered.

[cruisequeen4ever]

We know exactly which Florence excursion we want, and we know exactly how much free time is offered with it. We just want to skip the estimated 30 min. tour part and rush to the Duomo.

 

 

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[2pbears]

We did leave our Princess tour in Santorini after we got to Oia because we wanted to explore Oia on our own and then go down to Amoudi for lunch. We told the tour guide we were leaving and asked her if we could still get the passes for the tram back down to the ship in Fira. She was more than happy to oblige and made note of our names and stateroom number.

 

Of course, this was a different situation than what you are describing as we did not intend to meet up with the tour again for transportation back to the ship. Not sure I would want to risk leaving the group for a short time if my ride back to the ship depended on finding them again.

[AKman2495]

On a tour in Aruba in Feb. the tour guide did the first 1/2 of the tour with the group. The last stop was a beach stop where you go and sit on the beach/swim for one hour. The guide said that for those who do not want to sit on the beach, he would drive them to town for shopping (near the pier). He would then go back and get the beach people. He said the shoppers would be on their own to get back to the ship.

 

Many of us went shopping instead of the beach and we had no problem getting back to the ship.

[Stevesan]

On a tour in Aruba in Feb. the tour guide did the first 1/2 of the tour with the group. The last stop was a beach stop where you go and sit on the beach/swim for one hour. The guide said that for those who do not want to sit on the beach, he would drive them to town for shopping (near the pier). He would then go back and get the beach people. He said the shoppers would be on their own to get back to the ship.

 

Many of us went shopping instead of the beach and we had no problem getting back to the ship.

 

It's virtually impossible to get disoriented (lost) at Aruba. Not necessarily true in a Mediterranean city.

[Colo Cruiser]

Of course you can leave the group, as long as you are back when they leave what can they do?

[Cauzneffct]

If they do allow it, just be sure to notify the guide so that they're not waiting around for presumably late/missing people.