Excursions

[Cordaline]

We are booked on the 4th Oct cruise, plus two friends. Question is: Do we use the ships excursions, or make our own arrangements, via taxis . If on average we payed fourty pounds each per excursion, that would give us a budget of 160 pounds to go wherever.

[Hull 736]

Whether you use the ship's offered tours or if you go independent should be largely determined by whatever particular port you are in.

A good scource of inside dope on this is the ship's staff, i.e. bartenders, waiters, cabin stewards etc.

A nice guideline for this might be to aim for an even split between EXCURSION and "INDEPENDENTS" for your port calls.

That is to say: If your ship calls in a six ports, plan on going on 3 tours and going independent the in the other three ports.

You might actually say to the salesperson in the tour office:

" We can only go on THREE tours this cruise, Which ones are NOT to be missed?

More than likely, they'll be happy to give their honest opinion.

Bottom line: Some ports (ones near cities, like Barbados, Naples, Hong Kong, Gibraltar) are fine for going about independent. Others like LAEM CHEBANG (Thailand's most unexciting container port!) are so far away from everything that you really should book a tour.

Have a great voyage