shore excursions

[linfromchelsea]

I will be cruising to Mexico in November and want advice about shore excursions. Should I book shore excursions through the cruise line or on my own?

[CruiserBruce]

As discussed here very frequently, that would depend on a couple of things. First, your comfort traveling in another country. Second the ease of doing the things you want to do on your own, as opposed to via a ship's excursion.

 

MANY people on these boards do excursions on their own, or do it yourself (DIY). Some research on the Ports boards, here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5

 

will help you make this decision.

[t_car]

You will need to be more specific for a better response on here.

However, if you are relatively new to cruising, I would book excursions through the cruiseline. Once comfortable, then you can opt to do your own planning.

One rule to remember though. If you book through the cruiseline, and for some reason the return to the ship is delayed, the ship will wait for you. But if you do you own thing, they will leave you behind.:eek: And you will be on your own.

Not a good thing. For examples of this, do a short search on You Tube for videos of this. They are funny but true.

[trish1c]

It depends. There a are pros & cons to both. The biggest being you will save money & probably have fewer people if you book independently but ship's excursions are convenient & the ship will wait if the excursion is late getting back.

 

If you are an otherwise experienced traveler, go ahead & book on your own. You can find excursions by looking here on CC in the Ports of Call section, you can go to the sister site, tripadvisor.com for suggestions of you can search the particular port's board of tourism.

 

Happy planning.

[cb at sea]

It depends on what you want to do! A guidebook will give you the info you need to make an informed decision. We rarely do any excursions at all, since we research where we're going, and find out how to do what we want on our own.

[cadien]

One useful bit of advice we've picked up here is that the kind of port makes a difference. If you can just walk off the ship, easy. But if you're waiting in line for a tender, like possibly at Cabo for your cruise, people who booked ship excursions get off first on some lines and that can save you as much as an hour. That's worth something.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Edited April 5, 2014 by cadien

[obnurse]

Also noteworthy is that it isn't always exponentially more expensive to book through the cruise line. I have priced excursions that were within a few dollar of what's offered by the cruise line.