P&O Shore Excursions

[Flumps]

Hello All. I'm hoping that some of you can give a little guidance regarding what to expect price-wise and value for money-wise for various P&O organised shore excursions. We're booked to sail on Britannia next Aug and it will be a long time yet until our Cruise Personaliser gives us access to view and book excursion options. We're happier booking direct with the cruise line rather than independent tours or making our own way on-shore...we like the 'security' of being wafted along :) If any of you have recently taken P&O excursions/ booked excursions to the following ports, I'd be really grateful if you would share the details and experiences to give us an advance idea of how much we should budget for:

Valencia

Barcelona

Monte Carlo

Rome

Florence/Pisa

Cartagena

Gibraltar

 

Apologies if there is already a thread on here with recent details of excursions - please feel free to point me in the direction of that if thats the case :)

 

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Host Sharon]

Hi Flumps and welcome to Cruise Critic. As a very rough guide a half day can vary between £35 - £45 and a full day £80 - £100 depending on the country - Norway for example is always more expensive.

 

I know you said you prefer to go with P&O but most of the ports you have listed have great Hop on Hop off buses at reasonable cost. The exceptions where you would be much happier on tour are Rome and Florence/Pisa as they are quite a distance from the ports. Gibraltar really doesn't need a tour as there are taxis outside the port gate ready to take you up the rock etc.

[Elviex]

Hi Flumps! We did a two week cruise in Azura in May and we like the security blanket of P&O! It was our first cruise of more than three or four nights. I did a lot of research mostly on the forums. We did P&O tours to Barcelona, Cartagena and Florence. In La Coruna we took the escorted Atul Kochar tour of the markets followed by a fab lunch. We have visited Gibraltar independently a couple of times previously so we just walked into the town and did some shopping. In Barcelona we did the highlights tour which lasted four hours I think and cost £37 per adult. We thought it was quite good value and gave us a taste of the city ready for our trip there next May when we are doing a similar itinerary again. Cartagena was interesting! We chose the Panoramic Cartagena tour...first they drove us round the town then we had a good tour of the Roman theatre followed by an hour and a half on the coach when they dove us up through the mountains to La Manga and back. We would have preferred a stop somewhere to take photos or have a drink so bear in mind the long coach trip if you do go for this one. The cost was £37.50 per adult. Finally Florence...we did Florence on your own at £44 per adult. The coach drive to Florence took just over an hour and the guide chatted away non stop. They drop you outside the old town from where there is a fifteen minute walk into town. Clearly one couple had not read this as they struggled to walk that distance. I don't know what they did in Florence, but when we met up again a couple of hours or so later the guide organised a taxi for them back to the coach!

I hope that helps.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Flumps]

Thanks for the responses - Really useful info and much appreciated :)

[groovechick]

Hi Flumps,

First of all love your moniker. Last August we did a beach break in Valencia and it was great. I think it cost about £20 pp. Although there are beaches quite near the port, we took a P&O organised excursion to a beach called El Saler. It was lovely - clean and quiet, with no hawkers, plenty of loungers and parasols, and a couple of small places selling cold drinks and ice creams. The beach shelves out gently - the water's at waist/bust height for quite a distance. We went there in the morning and were about the only people there. By lunchtime, when we left, it was starting to fill up with Spanish families.

 

In Gib we had booked a private tour in advance, which was excellent value for money, and absolutely no worries about getting back to the ship on time.

 

I know you said you don't want to do DIY, but Barcelona really is very easy to get around on your own. Once the ship's shuttle had dropped us off near the Columbus monument, we had no trouble getting around by Metro, which was very quick, clean and relatively uncrowded.

 

I think the guides can make or break your excursion: we went on a full day Land of the Trolls excursion in Norway and the guide was absolutely awful. Nice person, but useless as a tour guide. IIRC she was Slovenian and really struggled with English. We were heartily sick of her by the afternoon and I think a lot of people feigned sleep in the hope she would stop her commentary!

 

Look forward to hearing your opinion of Britannia, we're on her next December.

[Ty Olwen]

Hi Flumps , sounds as if you are booked on same cruise we are planning doing - august 15th ? We were on Azura in June and done 2 organised tours with p and o - Rome full day tour £50 each went to colleseum Vatican and St. Peter's square . Done trip in Gibraltar £33 up the rock . In Cartagena you can walk in to the town independently . Hope this is useful and see you next year !

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Flumps]

Thanks so much for the responses. All good info for when we come to book shore excursions nearer our departure time - really will be very useful :) And yes, its the Britannia cruise leaving 15th Aug 2015. Seems a long way away right now - but that just adds to the 'looking forward' :)