Excursion times

[Aj101710]

Hello, I'm new to cruising with RC and was wondering if someone could answer my question. My boyfriend and I booked a cruise on the Vision for March 26th, 2016 for the Western Caribbean. I was thinking maybe going through the cruise line since I'm a little nervous doing private tours in these ports, because of crime that I've read about. We have done private excursions before in the Southern Caribbean, I don't know maybe I'm being paranoid?

Anyways my question for the cruise ship excursions is what time do they start? I've tried logging in and looking at them while not being logged in and I still cannot find times that the excursions start. I only ask, because at some ports it looks like we might have time to do more than one excursion. I didn't want to press "purchase" and end up with an excursion that is conflicting with another excursion.

Any insight would be very helpful and appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[spookwife]

there's no way to really be sure. some will offer the same excursion with multiple start times.

[killtheump]

Hello, I'm new to cruising with RC and was wondering if someone could answer my question. My boyfriend and I booked a cruise on the Vision for March 26th, 2016 for the Western Caribbean. I was thinking maybe going through the cruise line since I'm a little nervous doing private tours in these ports, because of crime that I've read about. We have done private excursions before in the Southern Caribbean, I don't know maybe I'm being paranoid?

Anyways my question for the cruise ship excursions is what time do they start? I've tried logging in and looking at them while not being logged in and I still cannot find times that the excursions start. I only ask, because at some ports it looks like we might have time to do more than one excursion. I didn't want to press "purchase" and end up with an excursion that is conflicting with another excursion.

Any insight would be very helpful and appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Click Add to Cart you will be able to see times and not be charged.

Edited May 17, 2015 by killtheump

[LeeW]

If you are comfortable doing private tours in the southern Caribbean you will be fine in these ports. Check the boards for the ports you are going to for suggestions.

 

The only port you have that may not be safe is Belize, and 6 months ago it really didn't look bad - port has been expanded and tons of local tour operators selling within the port facility (we took a ship tour to the Altan Ha ruins that was great). Five years ago all the stores inside the port had bars on the entrances and now it is very open and modern. Only real problem with Belize is that all tours require tendering - the ship anchors nearly 10 miles out. A few ship tours for cay snorkeling leave from the ship but most require the long tender ride into the port. Ship tours have priority on the tenders, so you may not get to the dock for 1 1/2 hours after the official arrival time.

 

Roatan is ok, but nothing around the port you would want to walk to. Coz is one big tourist trap, with the RCI pier between town and the Princess/Carnival pier. Been there many times and never felt unsafe. Couple of miles to town or beach resorts, so you pretty much have to take a cab. Haven't been to Costa Maya, but if you want to go to mainland ruins or caves that is MUCH better than trying to do this from Coz (two 45 minute ferry rides that can be very rough).

 

Even after you press purchase you still have to enter credit card data, so if your tours are open to look at you can see the times they are offered. As spookwife said, some tours have multiple times and this shows up when you select number of people as a pull-down menu. Otherwise time is shown to the right. Typically the tours "start" at the meeting time, so are actually somewhat shorter than advertised. Some folks do take more than one tour - for ship tours you can't book an overlap but if the first tour gets back late you might miss the second one, so allow at least an hour between.

[Aj101710]

Thank you everyone for your advice! I will definitely look outside of the cruise line for excursions, except maybe with Belize since it will be tendered, and I don't want to chance missing either of the boats.