Excursions

[firstcruiseyeah]

Hello!

My husband and I are going on our first cruise this December, for our 25th wedding anniversary. First time going on vacation by ourselves since we've had children (they are now 18,17 and 15) so, we are extremely excited. I know it is way to far in advance to do much but I'm a planner so, I need to plan :). We are going on the 5 day Royal Caribbean, Navigator of the Seas, visiting Nassau and Cozumel. We were looking at excursions on the Royal Caribbean site and didn't see anything too exciting for Nassau except for the Atlantis Adventure (so, so) and Jaguar Bus, Bike Adventure in Cozumel (this looked like a lot of fun). Any suggestions or advise?

I'm sure I will have many more questions. This is just the start! :)

[CruiserBruce]

Welcome to Cruise Critic! Congrats on your anniversary.

 

You should do the excursions that interest you, but don't feel you HAVE to do an excursion. You can wonder around, take a private tour, or just stay on the ship. You are not required to take an excursion.

[Keith1010]

Welcome to Cruise Critic and congratulations on your first cruise and celebrating a special milestone wedding anniversary.

 

As usual, CruiserBruce has it right. Often people don't do excursions in those ports.

 

If you visit the ports of call section on Cruise Critic you can get idea about what to do and often you can just do them on your own.

 

Keith

[OCruisers]

Welcome to Cruise Critic! What a great way to celebrate your 25th Wedding Anniversary! :D

 

You've picked good excursions! Enjoy! :D

[cb at sea]

A guidebook is what you need....pick one up at your local library! Knowing about your ports will give you the most from your time ashore!

Nothing wrong with ship's excursions...they are pretty fool-proof, but DIY can be much cheaper and you'll be on your own schedule!

[DreamsCaribbean]

We just returned from our first cruise yesterday (RC Adventure of the Seas). For us, it was also our first vacation together after 21 years of marriage, and it was so fun. The ports we hit were San Juan (the point of origin and ending),St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Martin, Dominica and Barbados.

 

We scheduled an excursion in every port, in advance, just to have all of the details buttoned down well in advance. Five of the excursions were booked through RCI. One was booked through a company affiliated with our travel agent's parent company.

 

I think we would have been fine not booking any and having the flexibility to wing it if we wanted to. We did end up skipping one of the excursions, for which my cost was refunded but not my husband's (at the risk of providing TMI, I cancelled because of very heavy female issues).

 

The one that I was very glad to have scheduled was the tour of San Juan on the morning that the cruise ended (we scheduled it the day before). Our flight did not leave San Juan until 3:45 pm, but we were off the boat by 9am. We didn't know what to do for those 6+ hours, or how we were supposed to get to the airport, and we did not want to schlep around town carrying our luggage. By booking the tour of San Juan through RCI, they took care of getting our luggage to the airport during our tour, and the tour guide dropped us off at the airport.

 

Have fun on your cruise. I regret not doing this earlier in our marriage, and I have never felt so spoiled as I did on the cruise!

 

Nichole B.

[Robinsoncruiseso]

Plan, Plan, Plan. I do as well and we have always had a great time. We just returned from the Western Carib, which included Cozumel. I just booked our first excursion for March 2017 in the Carib.

 

I always book independent tours and if you like to snorkel, I used cozumelsnorkel.net. They were great. Last time I was in Nassau, there was one little hotel on Paradise Island, so no help there.

 

Hope you have a great 25th...we just celebrated our 25th as well and are also celebrating being empty nesters...a whole new stage of parenting.:eek:

[GottaKnowWhen]

Hello!

My husband and I are going on our first cruise this December, for our 25th wedding anniversary. First time going on vacation by ourselves since we've had children (they are now 18,17 and 15) so, we are extremely excited. I know it is way to far in advance to do much but I'm a planner so, I need to plan :). We are going on the 5 day Royal Caribbean, Navigator of the Seas, visiting Nassau and Cozumel. We were looking at excursions on the Royal Caribbean site and didn't see anything too exciting for Nassau except for the Atlantis Adventure (so, so) and Jaguar Bus, Bike Adventure in Cozumel (this looked like a lot of fun). Any suggestions or advise?

I'm sure I will have many more questions. This is just the start! :)

 

I am sure that there were reasons you chose the cruise that you did. Cost, schedule and other concerns were probably part of your planning. But I would like to suggest that you shouldn't be totally committed to your first choice. My reason for saying that is that you don't seem excited by the two ports you'll be visiting. You may get suggestions here on interesting things to do on the port days. Or you may decide to spend most of those days aboard. But you could also switch to a different cruise with a different itinerary with stops that were of more potential interest to you.

 

So my general suggestion is to buy one of the several travel books that are aimed at cruise ship passengers in the Caribbean, with extensive discussion of the different ports and their attractions. You may find stuff in Nassau and Cozumel but you may also find other destinations that have options that fall more in line with your interests. Above all, don't fret too much about it. Any cruise is an adventure in itself, and chances are good that you will be back for more. The on-shore experiences can range from meh to awesome, but the cruise is the thing. Enjoy!

[KirkNC]

Welcome to Cruise Critic!

[Cuizer2]

Hello!

My husband and I are going on our first cruise this December, for our 25th wedding anniversary. First time going on vacation by ourselves since we've had children (they are now 18,17 and 15) so, we are extremely excited. I know it is way to far in advance to do much but I'm a planner so, I need to plan :). We are going on the 5 day Royal Caribbean, Navigator of the Seas, visiting Nassau and Cozumel. We were looking at excursions on the Royal Caribbean site and didn't see anything too exciting for Nassau except for the Atlantis Adventure (so, so) and Jaguar Bus, Bike Adventure in Cozumel (this looked like a lot of fun). Any suggestions or advise?

I'm sure I will have many more questions. This is just the start! :)

 

What are your interests. Choices in Nassau are limited, but Cozumel has lots of options.

[coreyswife7701]

We are going on our first cruise at the end of the month and our only port is Cozumel. We've reserved the Cooking Class/Playa Mia resort break. It gets great reviews and we love cooking and trying new foods so we are WAY excited about this one. :)