Private touring ??

[3GrayCats]

Wondering if anyone has taken the HAL private touring with car shore excursions? Are they worth it? Thanks

[CruiserBruce]

Yes, we have taken those. Only you can decide if they are worth it, but we enjoyed them tremendously.

 

Some research on the Ports boards, here:

 

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

 

may reveal you can do it just as well, and for cheaper, using local venders.

[kazu]

We did it in one port that I considered risky so with our group it worked out well. cost was more than a local but locals were hard to find and I wasn't taking chances in Constanta.

 

Short summary - the HAL tour buses seemed nicer than we had (and this was a HAL tour), the suspension was pretty much gone in our vehicle so we lost time on our trip but we did have a nice unexpected stop that the others didn't.

 

The stop was worth it, the ride was uncomfortable for many.

 

So, is it worth it? I don't know. I've had far more comfortable vehicles elsewhere. My issues with shore excursions went unanswered so, I simply won't do it again.

 

HAL's price is very pricey - I only did this because of the port. Otherwise we do private tours and I will honestly say that in most, you will have a very nice vehicle and probably very much cheaper than HAL's.

[Iwant2BatC]

My traveling companions and I booked these in all the ports last year (Around Africa) where we thought there might be a security. We had nice vehicles but the guides varied in competence. My big gripe with the tours through the ship is that there is no system for evaluation or feedback. We had several guides that were less than wonderful and we still paid the rack rate. Yet one ship bus tour gave a 25% credit because windows were slightly frosted. Personally, if there are 3 or 4 of you to share the cost it is worth it to me to have the independence. I also use a Canadian company which has guides in most major ports. Most have been excellent.

[6travelers]

Did a Mediterranean Cruise on the Eurodam a few years a ago. My daughter was in a full leg cast on crutches. It was an injury that happened just a few weeks before the cruise. We reserved the private cars/vans thru HAL for quite a few ports. I remember Athens, Ephesus and I think two other ports. The vehicles were very nice. It was a little expensive but for our special circumstances it worked out wonderfully. We had a driver and a guide each time. We were able to do exactly what we wanted.

[take us away]

Depends on what you want to do - if it is the 'standard' touring at the port, you may do better taking a private excursion thru your Roll Call or a web site listing for a local tour agency. We do not like the 'stop 30 minutes for pictures, stop for an hour for a snack and local entertainment, stop for a drink', etc. so we either grab a private cab or small tour bus at the pier or if there are some security issues or we are not overly comfortable wandering 'alone' in a port, we use the HAL private cars. Have only used them in some ports in Asia and Africa and it worked out well for us as we could see a lot of what / where we wanted, take a peek at a few things we did not want to spend a lot of time seeing, and the guides were overall pretty good. You may do well asking about CC tours on your roll call.