Booking excursion if Marella is booked through Sunning

[rodndonna]

Has anyone had any experience in booking excursions when your Marella cruise is booked through Sunwing vacations? 

 

We have booked a Panama cruise through Sunwing (flying form Toronto) and can't seem to pre-book any excursions. To do so on Marella's website requires a 7 or 8 digit Marella booking reference and all we have is a Sunning booking reference (9 digits). I have contacted Marella who has told me I need the Marella booking reference, and when I contacted Sunning, the answer was as far as they understand - we can only book after we are on the cruise. 

 

Just wondering if anyone has experience or luck with this - or if we really just have to wait until we are on the cruise. We don;t mind doing DYI bookings for most ports - but was hoping to do pre-book Marella excursion for the Canal.

[SausPud]

You do really need the Marella Booking reference for booking online. Your Sunwing TA should have given you the Marella Booking reference that they would have received when they booked your cruise. It should be on your paperwork from your TA with the cruise details.

[rodndonna]

24 minutes ago, SausPud said:

You do really need the Marella Booking reference for booking online. Your Sunwing TA should have given you the Marella Booking reference that they would have received when they booked your cruise. It should be on your paperwork from your TA with the cruise details.

 

The Sunwing booking has been done on-line - and the booking confirmation only supplies a 9 digit Sunning reference (I've tried dropping front and end digits but no luck - pretty sure they are not related). When I login to my Sunwing booking - the option to get our 'e-documents' states they will  not be available until Feb 25 (our cruise is Mar 24) - so maybe it will be there - and then at least I can book a month before (just hoping that the 1 popular excursion we want is not gone).

 

 

 

 

[Pensioncruiser]

As SP says you do really need your Marella booking ref if for nothing else you have to give API online. We have never not been provided with one but also have never booked through Sunwing. 

Sorry not much help I know 😒

[Vitalsign]

70% of Excursions are available online only so I suggest that you go to destination services as soon as you arrive or use the screens on deck 7 round the atrium as soon as you embark to ensure you get your trip if you cannot access online The canal boat trip is fantastic so I hope you get on

[rodndonna]

Thank you all - if nothing else - I feel better knowing it's not just me that thinks it makes no sense that we don't have the option to pre-book.

 

If 30% are still remaining when we get on board - at least we should have a good shot at booking then. It would really be a bummer to miss the canal tour - it is intended  to be the highlight for us on this cruise.

[SausPud]

In the early days of Cruising, I do 1 a year and have 16 under my belt now, we would wait till onboard, and even watch a show telling us about the ports of call before we even thought of booking an excursion. 

It wasn't until Helsinki where a limited number was available for the ice bar trip that we missed out as this booked up fast. That was after a fair few cruises without a problem and it wasn't a Marella cruise either.

Since then we pre book and plan before sailing. This is fun for us and if another excursion of better interest appears, we can always swap for it once onboard. 

Also prebooking makes my on board account alot less at the end of the cruise.

[kruzseeka]

Would Running be prepared to ring Marcella for their booking ref?  If only they would do that perhaps armed with the appropriate reference you could ring TUI directly to try to book an excursion.  Might be worth a try.  Good luck. 

[rodndonna]

3 hours ago, kruzseeka said:

Would Running be prepared to ring Marcella for their booking ref?  If only they would do that perhaps armed with the appropriate reference you could ring TUI directly to try to book an excursion.  Might be worth a try.  Good luck. 

 

After thinking about this - I think the problem might be that Sunwing may not have specific reference yet to Matrella -  they likely just have a certain # of bookings available to them to reserve in a general nature with Marella (just numbers and types of rooms to hold) - and then in the last month the final details are provided, money is transferred from Sunwing to Marella and bookings are finalized.

 

When we book through another flight/travel package provider like Sunwing - it is starting to make sense to me that there really is no Marella booking reference until a month before departure (when final payments are due).  🤔

 

 

[addicted cruiser]

We have done three cruises on Discovery 2 thru Sunwing and you cannot book excursions, upgrade drink pkg.etc. Until you are on board.  Sometimes your cabins # is assigned early and then sometimes changed at boarding and other times you don’t have your cabin # until you board.

i have never seen a Marella reference or booking # on any of my documents, only on the final bill when leaving the ship.

[rodndonna]

4 hours ago, addicted cruiser said:

We have done three cruises on Discovery 2 thru Sunwing and you cannot book excursions, upgrade drink pkg.etc. Until you are on board.  Sometimes your cabins # is assigned early and then sometimes changed at boarding and other times you don’t have your cabin # until you board.

i have never seen a Marella reference or booking # on any of my documents, only on the final bill when leaving the ship.

 

Thanks Addicted - not was I was hoping to hear - but what we have been bracing for. 🙄

 

I will still hold a very 'slim' hope that things have changed and I  will find some useful reference when we get our Edocs a month before the cruise  - but will reset our expectations and have a backup plan for the worse case scenario for doing a DIY canal visit. 🙁

 

[Vitalsign]

I've done the canal trip twice and there were a number of Canadians on the trip so I'm sure you'll be able to book when you embark Both times there were 2 boats for the excursion - good luck and enjoy a great cruise

[addicted cruiser]

I agree with Vitalsign that there were still a lot of openings on the excursions to book once we boarded. I can’t comment on anything for Panama as we didn’t want to do anything here as we had done the canal several times with another cruiseline.  

Go to Interactive Kiosks once on board to book excursions which are on deck 5 Near the elevators  so you don’t need to wait for the excursion desk to open.

Have a great cruise.

[Vitalsign]

Addictedcruiser is right the screens are on deck 5 around the atrium

[brian1]

I also read that diy tours are not an option.On the Marella tour page,it says you will not be allowed off ship unless booked thru them.

[rodndonna]

3 hours ago, brian1 said:

I also read that diy tours are not an option.On the Marella tour page,it says you will not be allowed off ship unless booked thru them.

 

Wow - that would really stink if we can't manage to get the Canal tour Marella excursion - I assume that would be just for the port in Panama?

 

We were on a Marella (thomson) cruise before doing where we weren't allowed to disembark until all the Thomson tours had disembarked (Israel), but have not heard of Marealla excursions being the only people allowed to disembark. I did read elsewhere that taxis are not allowed in the port area until after all the cruise based tours have left - so it seems very geared to getting everyone to take ship tours.

[rodndonna]

3 hours ago, brian1 said:

I also read that diy tours are not an option.On the Marella tour page,it says you will not be allowed off ship unless booked thru them.

 

OK - I see that statement now - it is on the Gatun Lake cruise port page - I think that applies to the Panama Experience cruise itinerary which partially cases through the canal (which we did  to book as it it didn't work for us - but its what we want to do). We are doing Pride of Panama and only stop in Colon and do tours from there. 

[brian1]

56 minutes ago, rodndonna said:

 

OK - I see that statement now - it is on the Gatun Lake cruise port page - I think that applies to the Panama Experience cruise itinerary which partially cases through the canal (which we did  to book as it it didn't work for us - but its what we want to do). We are doing Pride of Panama and only stop in Colon and do tours from there. 

That's good,might be worth researching diy options.The one I saw was a tender port and probably the tour boats pickup on the ship,hence that stipulation.

[Vitalsign]

We have been to Colon three times and I wouldn't advise anyone to get off the ship there even if you are allowed to It is an industrial port and doubt it is safe to do so I don't believe Marella are behind this just to sell excursions but for safety. The canal boat trip which I have done twice includes a return from Panama City by coach and on one occasion we were late back to the ship but of course the ship waited for us. I know you cannot book the glass topped train independently because the ship has reserved all the seats. On our second visit our friends were unable to book the canal trip on line as they had sold out and forgot to go to destination services straight away after embarking and it had sold out so had to do the train instead which meant we did the canal trip again on our on own as we'd booked it on line. We could have switched to the train but had enjoyed it so much we did it again. Our friends managed to see us sail by from the visitor viewing area near the San Pedro docks!! 

[brian1]

All industrial ports have fenced off areas and shuttle buses to safe areas,where tours can be picked up.Ships tours,sometimes pick up at the dockside,as they have a designated route thru all the container operations etc.The worse scenario for us was Buenos Aries,where everyone queued for at least a hour and a half just to get the free shuttle buses,which zigzagged thru a massive working port just to pick up the ship tours.

[Vitalsign]

I don't know of anyone who got off the ship in Colon independently If you have please advise

There we're no problems going independently from Cartegna, Limon, Belize or Roatan

Edited July 11, 2019 by Vitalsign

[brian1]

Google is your friend,you can prebook loads.

[rodndonna]

3 hours ago, Vitalsign said:

I don't know of anyone who got off the ship in Colon independently If you have please advise

There we're no problems going independently from Cartegna, Limon, Belize or Roatan

 

I have read to be safe it is recommended to use only registered cabs from the area (only coming in after ship tours have left the area) - but we would likely book a tour through Viator as there is a highly rated one there for a private tour to Panama City and the Canal with pickup at the port. 

 

[tinsoldier]

We had this same issue as we booked through Plant Cruise rather than direct with TUI.  I thought that meant that we couldn't use the TUI online excursions system however after lots of googling and asking around I discovered the following site which gave us access to all the available excursions and enabled us to book them if we wanted: https://www.marellaexcursionspassenger.tui.co.uk/login

 

[rodndonna]

1 hour ago, tinsoldier said:

We had this same issue as we booked through Plant Cruise rather than direct with TUI.  I thought that meant that we couldn't use the TUI online excursions system however after lots of googling and asking around I discovered the following site which gave us access to all the available excursions and enabled us to book them if we wanted: https://www.marellaexcursionspassenger.tui.co.uk/login

 

 

Hi Tinsoldier,

 

We have tried to use that site - but we would still need a Marella booking reference number which we do not have in our case. It sounds like you booked  the Marella cruise holiday through a third part booking site - so you would still have a Marella reference. When we book with Sunwing -we are booking a Sunwing based flight and cruise package (non-thomson/Marella flight) - something like an all-inclusive holiday where Sunwing treats the cruise like a hotel stay for the package. 😐