Carribean excursions

[Daddyglove]

Hi me, my wife and 11 year old daughter are going on our first carribean cruise in February.

After looking on the internet we would like to do quite a few excursions like - stingray city, jeep safaris, zip lining, sea trek, swim with turtles.

Would I be best booking with P&o on board or booking with tour guides online like Cosol etc or just getting ashore and choosing which excursion we fancy that day

How much roughly should I be paying for jeep safaris etc and is it any cheaper booking online for an excursion or waiting till ashore and choosing

Thanks for any replies

 

 

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[tartanexile81]

We do a Caribbean Cruise every Winter and never do P&O tours. At first we mainly did private tours like Cosol. Now we mainly decide what we want to do then grab a taxi on the pier and negotiate a good price. You can really beat the price down. We've always found that if we ask them to come back for us at the end of an activity they do - or at least make sure another driver picks us up.

 

The problem with P&O tours is that you have to start and finish at their time. People will say but what if you miss the ship?? It won't wait for you. Well the answer is we never leave it to the last minute to return to the ship but come back to spend time in the local shops or bars about 90 minutes before we sail

[groovechick]

Hi me, my wife and 11 year old daughter are going on our first carribean cruise in February.

After looking on the internet we would like to do quite a few excursions like - stingray city, jeep safaris, zip lining, sea trek, swim with turtles.

Would I be best booking with P&o on board or booking with tour guides online like Cosol etc or just getting ashore and choosing which excursion we fancy that day

How much roughly should I be paying for jeep safaris etc and is it any cheaper booking online for an excursion or waiting till ashore and choosing

Thanks for any replies

 

 

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We did our first Caribbean cruise last Christmas and opted to organise excursions ourselves to save money. We only did one tour with P&O (submarine in Barbados) because the operators won't actually let you book direct with them. I did a lot of research/price comparisons and found that on average we saved at least 20% on P&O's price and occasionally as much as 50%.

 

Personally as it's your first time I would say go with local tour companies/guides. We did just hop in a taxi on Grand Cayman, otherwise we did organised tours. You can check the ones that get good reviews on Cruise Critic/Trip Advisor and choose accordingly. I would also say it's worth digging a bit deeper and using names that don't crop up so often. For instance on St Maarten the name that springs to everyone's lips in Bernard's Tours, but we used a firm called Twin Island Tours who were fab and cheaper than Bernard's. Likewise on Grenada we used Grenada Sunsation, who don't seem to be very well known but were wonderful and again, cheaper. All these firms know they live or die by their reliability and the reviews they get - most tours are timed to fit in comfortably with ships' port times. This gives you peace of mind, particularly as you have a young daughter.

 

I would want another cruise or two under my belt to take tartanexile's approach, but that's just me. Whatever, you are sure to have a wonderful time. Happy cruising!