Questions about shore excursions - NCL Barcelona/Canaries

[goddessofchaos]

If anyone has been on the NCL Spirit cruise 10 days Barcelona/Canaries I have a few questions about the offered shore excursions. Of the ship sponsored excursions, which would you recommend? Which would you totally avoid?

My daughter and I will be on the Feb. 3 sailing and I have an excursions discount of $50 for each port. I am fairly independent and would seriously consider making my own arrangements but want to make the most use of the discount wherever it is a decent choice. I have had one recommendation to take the ship excursion in Casablanca. Any thoughts on that?

 

On another note - neither of us are particularly much of drinkers (not soft drinks either) but if the shore excursion deal isn't worth it, would it be better to take the drinks package? We also have shipboard credit that might be useful for drinks.

[notes21]

We took the excursion that does Rabat & Casablanca on the Casablanca day and really enjoyed it.....we were 30 minutes late getting back to the ship due to some traffic issues; so we were thankful to have been on a tour through the ship. We also did the Alhambra & Granada tour on the Malaga day which involves a drive, but is so worth seeing. We again were late getting back, but this time it was because of bus problems and having to change out buses. Since those two involve drives, I would really recommend doing the ship's version though others would argue with me on that....

Madeira -- make sure to take an excursion that does the toboggan ride; it is a lot of fun.

[goddessofchaos]

Thank you so much for your good advice. I think when I visited Spain many years ago we went to Granada and the Alhambra. I will have to check my trip diary and photos for that. Good advice about checking distances on tours as I know this can be a danger for a private tour.