Are all RCCL excursions this bad???

[grand isle joe]

Yes.....all excursions are that bad or worse.

 

 

 

(more room for me and my family on the excursions and no worries about sold out problems) ;)

[clawmachine]

Just a plug for Captain Marvin's Sting Ray City tour in GC - it was wonderful! Our van and boat weren't crowded at all, and the guides were attentive and helpful. We had two school aged kids and a 3-year old non swimmer with us and it all was very easy and fun.

Edited May 10, 2015 by clawmachine

[e2011]

Many shore excursions are bad. RCCL, NCL, Disney it makes no difference. These tour companies are all independent contractors working in 3rd world countries. Think about that for a minute and you may never go on a shore excursion again. I am surprised more tour buses don;t crash and kill people. Sorry for the OP bad experience but it is not RCCL fault. They do the best they can to "approve" these contractors but as I said...these are 3rd world countries and islands. I would also submit that banging your head on a boat is normal wear and tear for going on said boat and trip. Accidents happen.

[Paul65]

Thank you. Very well-said.

 

Did you really think it was well said. I didn't necessarily agree with TomAceEsq, but I find the whole cheerleader/pom pom BS a most tired cliche' on these boards. It makes me cringe every time I read that crap.

[lido deck larry]

How's your head wound doing? Are you ok?

[Spurschick]

Many shore excursions are bad. RCCL, NCL, Disney it makes no difference. These tour companies are all independent contractors working in 3rd world countries. Think about that for a minute and you may never go on a shore excursion again. I am surprised more tour buses don;t crash and kill people. Sorry for the OP bad experience but it is not RCCL fault. They do the best they can to "approve" these contractors but as I said...these are 3rd world countries and islands. I would also submit that banging your head on a boat is normal wear and tear for going on said boat and trip. Accidents happen.

 

GC is hardly a third world country/island:rolleyes:.

 

Transport in general on GC is small, so yes I can see an issue with leg space, especially if you are tall.

 

In general we have had good, bad and indifferent excursion experiences.

Our European excursions have generally faired better than caribbean excursions. Even then we have had buses that have broken down. Issues can happen regardless of who you book with.

 

In caribbean a lot of vehicles don't even have AC. My point is whenever you travel don't expect standards to be the same as at home.

 

If I ever have an issue with an excursion, I do deal with it on board. Once back you will not be referred to the excursion department which is a seperate entity and I am still waiting for an email from them from a year ago;)

[Spurschick]

We booked tour GCC7 Catamaran Sail and Stingray city . this was one of the worst tours we have taken in my 58 cruises, 1st we were stuffed into a very uncomfortable bus with no leg room ( I am 6' 4") then Catamaran was way over crowded for the amount of people ( approx. 40) and staff on boat was just 3, and one of those was the photographer , when we got to stingray city there was no one supervising getting on and off the boat, I cut/scraped my head getting back on and was bleeding quite a bit, crew had me fill out a report for RCCL about the injury. I was very surprised that no one from RCCL inquired on what happened or how my health was after getting back on board.

 

This was my 1st excursion in many years with RCCL ( did not do any last couple of cruises) , if this is typical might need to rethink my 12 day Europe cruise that we just booked, send e-mail to RCCL and waiting for a reply

 

 

If you emailed RC about an excursion, the excursion department is a seperate entity and not very forthcoming responding to emails. I am still waiting for response from last year::rolleyes: hope you hear back, but it probably won't be quick. ;)

[DragonOfTheSeas]

FYI--The best place to complain is on the ship. [We are not complainers. this is the only complaint for any excursion we have ever written]

 

We usually do not book RCL excursions anymore but, we liked the sound of one in St thomas and the port times were iffy. So, we booked. It was not a good experience. When we reboarded our ship we went to excursions and complained. they had us fill in a form describing our experience. They told us others had done this, too. The next day we got a note that they were refunding our account a portion of the cost of the excursion. --Those that did not complain did not get anything. But, the most important thing was they were alerted that this was a poor excursion.

Edited May 10, 2015 by DragonOfTheSeas

[Paulette3028]

FYI--The best place to complain is on the ship. [We are not complainers. this is the only complaint for any excursion we have ever written]

 

We usually do not book RCL excursions anymore but, we liked the sound of one in St thomas and the port times were iffy. So, we booked. It was not a good experience. When we reboarded our ship we went to excursions and complained. they had us fill in a form describing our experience. They told us others had done this, too. The next day we got a note that they were refunding our account a portion of the cost of the excursion. --Those that did not complain did not get anything. But, the most important thing was they were alerted that this was a poor excursion.

 

Your point is 100% true, the minute someone returns from a RCCL excursion and had a problem (small or large) they need to go to the excursion desk and let them know. If the cruiser doesn't do that, then Royal has no timely way to know what is happening. We did it on a cruise and were immediately given a partial refund. After returning home I reached out to a department in Miami that handles post cruise issues -- royalguestrelations@rccl.com. In combination with the written report left on the ship and my complaint (and probably others from that sailing), I understand that some changes have occurred with the excursion involved.

[Paul65]

How's your head wound doing? Are you ok?

 

It's really not bad at all....

 

[lido deck larry]

It's really not bad at all....

 

Hahaha! too funny... [emoji12]

[brenderlou]

This is why we always go with a reputable private tour. Ship tours are always too packed and generic for our liking.

Edited May 10, 2015 by brenderlou

[George C]

It's really not bad at all....

 

 

OK that is great, I am fine, never did see Doctor ( just layer, I am kidding) , head was tender for a few days. Another thing bad about the excursion was no rum punch on the way back to shore, could have used a drink ( can not remember a boat trip in Caribbean without rum punch). Yes I have been hearing about how great Captain Marvin tours was for decades and I should have booked them

[Royal Caribbean International]

We booked tour GCC7 Catamaran Sail and Stingray city . this was one of the worst tours we have taken in my 58 cruises, 1st we were stuffed into a very uncomfortable bus with no leg room ( I am 6' 4") then Catamaran was way over crowded for the amount of people ( approx. 40) and staff on boat was just 3, and one of those was the photographer , when we got to stingray city there was no one supervising getting on and off the boat, I cut/scraped my head getting back on and was bleeding quite a bit, crew had me fill out a report for RCCL about the injury. I was very surprised that no one from RCCL inquired on what happened or how my health was after getting back on board.

 

This was my 1st excursion in many years with RCCL ( did not do any last couple of cruises) , if this is typical might need to rethink my 12 day Europe cruise that we just booked, send e-mail to RCCL and waiting for a reply

 

Hello, George. We're sorry to hear that this happened, and hope you're feeling better. Can you please send us your ship, sail date, and stateroom number so we can look into this? If you're not comfortable with sharing your information, then please call us at 800 256 6649 so we can research this further. Thank you.

[griffy116]

We've used both RCCL tours and private tours. Obviously the private tours will be with smaller groups. The bus is never as comfortable (just like a seat in economy on a plane) for a tall person. My Grandson is 6'0' and he tries to get an aisle seat on a bus but it's still uncomfortable. No way to get around that or for RCCL to do anything about that. As for the overcrowding, the 3rd party vendor decides how many they can safely manage, but it sounds like they were packing too many people on there to comfortably handle. We now book through private tour companies after checking recommendations on CC and TripAdvisor. We've enjoyed the small mini-van with more legroom, a small group with more personal attention. We have taken two Med cruises to Europe with RCCL and both were amazing. We exclusively used private tour companies and got to see much more than we would have on an RCCL tour with a big bus group. Your complaints about RCCL using a particular vendor are valid, especially the overcrowded boat. Accidents happen. Was your injury such that you needed medical attention when returning to the ship? If so, RCCL should have responded. If not, it becomes a matter of how many complaints they get and whether they decide to make changes to their vendor or how many passengers they will book for any given excursion. I hope you get a response soon. Sorry you were dissatisfied.

[Folk Singer]

It is hard to say if most of them are bad or not. We rarely do ship excursions but the occasional time that we have they have gone off quite well.

 

 

Agree. I would rather use the RCCL than Private but this is a personal thing.

[Paulette3028]

Agree. I would rather use the RCCL than Private but this is a personal thing.

 

Our first experience with a private tour was recently during our Indy sailing. We used information from our Roll Call about independent excursions that others had done, and had a great experience.

 

Prior to that we always booked with Royal, because we knew that if the excursion was delayed the ship would not leave without us, since it was booked through Royal.

[JKrise]

These seem like very petty complaints. You never mention that the excursion itself was actually poor, you're just upset with leg room on a bus and that there wasn't anyone telling you to mind your surroundings getting back on a boat. I hate to sound like a jerk, but do you really need someone to tell you to watch your head? How exactly would someone supervising getting back on the catamaran make you avoid being clumsy?

 

 

Your kidding, right?

[George C]

Hello, George. We're sorry to hear that this happened, and hope you're feeling better. Can you please send us your ship, sail date, and stateroom number so we can look into this? If you're not comfortable with sharing your information, then please call us at 800 256 6649 so we can research this further. Thank you.

 

I did send all this info to RCCL on 5/5, but we were on Navigator left on 4/26 we had a GS #1298 and this was the tour

GCC7 Catamaran Sail and Stingray city

[SRQSally]

We've done a couple RC Stingray City tours done on catamaran. Don't remember the name of the boat, but crew of 3 were fantastic with no mishaps

and I'm no spring chicken. We loved the tour and experience. My husband is 6'4" also and is just careful.

Do you remember the name of the catamaran?

[tip]

In most cases, I would suggest that you run, don't walk right by the excursion desk. After twenty-five cruises and multiple excursions booked both through the ship and privately, we have found the ship excursions to be nothing more than overpriced cattle herds.

 

If you take a little time to explore the ports of call threads on these boards, you will find many private excursions that are almost always much cheaper than the ship excursions. Trip Advisor is another valuable source of information. In most cases, you will be on a van or even a taxi with fewer people rather than on the ship excursion buses that are usually quite crowded. And it never seems to fail, the entire bus is often kept waiting because at least one passenger can not tell time.

 

There have been a few instances where we have taken ship excursions. Martinique comes to mind. It is just not a tourist island and there were no private excursions unless you wanted to pay for a taxi tour in a Mercedes Benz!

We shall take a ship excursion on the Serenade of the Seas next winter in St. Kitts because the open air bus/railway tour is only offered by the ship.

 

Do some research, plan ahead, leave a comfortable cushion of time to get back to the ship before all aboard and not only will you save some money, but you won't be disappointed.

[LeeW]

We took GC88 last year and were amazed that there were three buses feeding one catamaran and buses were much larger than the usual Caribbean tour. Buses were tight and warm but for a 10 minute ride it was fine.

 

The cat was more like a small ferry and had plenty of room for 80 people and three sets of stairs to get up and down. The photographer was emailing all your photos home for $20 (a real bargain). Lots of squid for feeding and crew let you handle rays as much as you wanted. Huge tour by RCI standards and it actually worked well. Generally you want a smaller boat for the rays but this was one of our better tours.

[George C]

We took GC88 last year and were amazed that there were three buses feeding one catamaran and buses were much larger than the usual Caribbean tour. Buses were tight and warm but for a 10 minute ride it was fine.

 

The cat was more like a small ferry and had plenty of room for 80 people and three sets of stairs to get up and down. The photographer was emailing all your photos home for $20 (a real bargain). Lots of squid for feeding and crew let you handle rays as much as you wanted. Huge tour by RCI standards and it actually worked well. Generally you want a smaller boat for the rays but this was one of our better tours.

 

Interesting they charged 40 to e-mail photo's on my trip

[Oppalopa]

These seem like very petty complaints. You never mention that the excursion itself was actually poor, you're just upset with leg room on a bus and that there wasn't anyone telling you to mind your surroundings getting back on a boat. I hate to sound like a jerk, but do you really need someone to tell you to watch your head? How exactly would someone supervising getting back on the catamaran make you avoid being clumsy?

Do you really hate to? I doubt it.

[CCC3]

My first cruise is coming up in 3 weeks, and we have booked independent excursions in two of the ports (just going to chill out & walk around in Grand Cayman). I wouldn't have even thought if doing this, if it wasn't for all the positive advice on CC, and the research I've done on sites like tripadvisor. So I appreciate all the advice people have given!