Shore excursions

[captain99]

Celebrity offers a lot of shore excursions but i was wondering if someone has already rated it on this board?( Italy,Greece,Turkey)

[az_tchr]

Not sure what "it" is but you can go to ports and find lots of information on ports. Celebrity excursions usually have little in the way of ratings. But, you can go to your roll call and find lots of discussion on shore excursions both offered by Celebrity and private ones you could join. Trip Advisor also has lots of info on things to do in every city on Earth.

[realnice46]

Celebrity offers a lot of shore excursions but i was wondering if someone has already rated it on this board?( Italy,Greece,Turkey)

 

We usually book private shore excursions but occasionally have booked shore excursion with Celebrity.Advantages are guaranteed return to ship, but have never experienced any problems with private excursions.

Generally I do some research on the ports deciding on what we want to see, then compare ship and private to see who offers what we want. Ships tours are generally more expensive but are quoted in dollars not local currency. Private tours generally have less people versus big bus. Also do read your roll call to see what other passengers are doing and I also check other roll call with similar itineraries for information.

Good Luck!

[woodley]

I do private and celebrity excursions. Some of the reasons I sometimes choose the ships excursion over a private one are if time in the port is limited, if its a tender port as most times priority disembarkation is given to those on celebrity excursions, If it involves a long journey to get to the excursion and if it is an area that I have heard horror stories from people who went it alone.

 

Private excursions are often more in depth, less expensive and more adventurous. Its also nice getting to know other people from the ship which you can do in smaller group.

[pete_coach]

We did a number of Celebrity tours on our first Med cruise and on our second, we got private tours.

Reason? Well, the Celebrity tours were generally on big buses (especially in Florence, Rome and Turkey). There was many hours wasted waiting for passengers to get on and off the bus as well as those that lost track of time causing the next stop to be either missed or dramatically shortened. On a big bus you are limited to the slowest person and at certain times of the year there are many physically challenged folks on those tours.

The private tours (we found some passengers on Roll Calls wanting to hook up with others to take a private tour), we generally got out to the area first as well as being able to make changes mid tour if the weather or traffic or jus change of mind warranted.

Surprisingly, the price was not much more, if at all, with the Celebrity tour. Some tours we took were considerably cheaper and far better as to what was offered. (Amalfi and Ephesus come to mind).

[WEGL81]

A lot of the excursions have mini-reviews/ratings on the Celebrity website, but it's a mixed bag. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone write a review about their entire cruise and the ship in the shore excursion review section.