Discount Websites to Book Excursions

[johnnywas]

We have booked cruises before but are always looking for new ways to find new tours and at a great price. What would you say the best websites are for booking discount shore excursions?

[beachbum53]

We have booked cruises before but are always looking for new ways to find new tours and at a great price. What would you say the best websites are for booking discount shore excursions?

 

Ever heard the expression "You get what you pay for"? Sometimes, cheaper isn't always better. Rather than book excursions solely based on price, do some research about any excursion operator you're considering. That would include excursions offered through the cruise line, as well as those operating independently of the cruise line. Read customer reviews, both those posted on the "Ports of Call" board on here, as well as those posted on line elsewhere. Better to spend a couple of extra dollars and book an excursion with someone that comes highly recommended, rather than try to save a few bucks and end up booking a lousy excursion.

[John Bull]

The widely-known websites like Viator, City Discovery & Cruisingexcursions, are consolidators / booking agencies. They don't operate tours, they sell tours on behalf of local operators. A one-stop shop which makes it easier to see & book, and the prices are not a great deal higher than booking direct with operators because their commission comes from discounts from the operators. Means you're dealing with a third party which has the advantage that if anything goes wrong you have much more chance of getting your money back but the disadvantages that there's an extra cog in the chain so more risk of a failed communication, and its difficult or impossible to get any more detail than what's on their website.

Those consolidators themselves have excellent reputations, but reviews on tours folk have taken through them are very very mixed because of course the quality of the tour depends on the operator & not the booking agency.

Its often possible to figure who the operator is from their description plus a bit of web-surfing.

We've used agencies just a couple of times for specific one-off reasons, they worked out fine.

 

To deal with tour operators direct needs a lot more research because it's different operators in different ports. And you need to have a great deal more confidence in the operator, which means a lot more surfing to get unbiased & genuine reviews. That's where CC is so useful. There are a few planted reviews even on CC, but contributors with a reasonable post-count (in the hundreds) on various topics & places will be genuine whereas a contributor with just half-a-dozen posts, all praising one tour operator, is very probably a plant.

 

Tours booked direct with operators or with agencies are almost certain to be cheaper than ship's tours. And probably better - but "probably" isn't a confidence-boosting word. ;)

 

Research, research, research.

 

JB :)

[serene56]

check the port of calls forum located here,,,find your port and look for an excursion that is for you

 

 

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

Edited May 6, 2015 by serene56