Many Curated Experience/"Bubble Excursions" are disappointingly short at only 4 hours

[NutsAboutGolf]

Just bringing this to people's attention, there are ports that only allow you to get off the ship if you book an X excursion.  In some cases, if you want to see a specific attraction, such as a Ruins site for example, X only has one excursion that visits them but its only 4 hours despite being in port from 8am-5pm.  My overall hope is if ports continue to require "bubble excursions", X will offer more excursion options

[mahdnc]

Yes, I have read this, too. I anticipate that this will get better.

[Jeremiah1212]

That's really about the average time for a Caribbean excursion. Longer all day excursions are few and far between. In many of these ports with cruise tourism still dead there are just not many options. 

[Fouremco]

Is it possible to booking a morning and an afternoon excursion, or do the times overlap?

[NutsAboutGolf]

 

1 minute ago, Fouremco said:

Is it possible to booking a morning and an afternoon excursion, or do the times overlap?

 

They're not really scheduled, you generally get on board, receive a ticket/flyer that says to meet somewhere on the ship at 830 and get off the ship at 9am

 

If X is offering an all day beach day for example, it would be great to can pick whichever excursion you want then go to the beach after.  Even if one was willing to pay for say a 4 hour ruins tour and an all day beach day, I'm not sure if you're allowed to visit the beach because you didn't arrive with the initial tours and perhaps X and/or the ports don't want to mix tour groups

[cruisestitch]

Every excursion I have seen had a scheduled time. When you sign up online, you choose the time (assuming there are two or more options). Even with only one, you can see what time the excursion is scheduled for.  Perhaps the OP is thinking of some other cruise line that operates the way he described?

 

Here are two from a cruise planner. You may not be able to see all the available times until you try to book it, and then they choices appear

Edited July 8, 2021 by cruisestitch

[Fouremco]

27 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

 

They're not really scheduled, you generally get on board, receive a ticket/flyer that says to meet somewhere on the ship at 830 and get off the ship at 9am

 

If X is offering an all day beach day for example, it would be great to can pick whichever excursion you want then go to the beach after.  Even if one was willing to pay for say a 4 hour ruins tour and an all day beach day, I'm not sure if you're allowed to visit the beach because you didn't arrive with the initial tours and perhaps X and/or the ports don't want to mix tour groups

Maybe I wasn't clear, but my question was whether there are 4-hour excursions scheduled both morning and afternoon, and if so, is it possible to book one of each? Or are they all scheduled for morning starts?

[Dolebludger]

Which ports in the Caribbean allow cruise guests on land only in "Bubble Excursions"?

[cruisestitch]

Different requirements in the Caribbean for vaccinated vs unvaccinated guests

 

 

 

[NutsAboutGolf]

I stand corrected on the scheduled times, I both called X and spoke to live chat to determine if you could book two.  

1 hour ago, cruisestitch said:

Every excursion I have seen had a scheduled time. When you sign up online, you choose the time (assuming there are two or more options). Even with only one, you can see what time the excursion is scheduled for.  Perhaps the OP is thinking of some other cruise line that operates the way he described?

 

Here are two from a cruise planner. You may not be able to see all the available times until you try to book it, and then they choices appear

 

Thanks, I stand corrected as I didn't try to actually book it.

 

I did call and live chat with X about if they allowed two excursion bookings, particularly one that ends at 12pm and another that starts at 12pm, they stated I would need to check once on the ship but said I would most likely be SOL if the first excursion gets back late and wouldn't be refunded since I'm taking a slot someone else could have taken

[NutsAboutGolf]

16 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Different requirements in the Caribbean for vaccinated vs unvaccinated guests

 

 

 

 

At the moment, things can change at any time, in Costa Maya will allow you to free roam the port area only in addition to curated tours

[phoenix_dream]

12 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

At the moment, things can change at any time, in Costa Maya will allow you to free roam the port area only in addition to curated tours

And if the port area is anything like pre-Covid it is usually so jammed with people you can hardly move!  A much more likely way to spread the virus to the locals who work there than if people could just go about their business.  And this is the country that has been anything but strict in their lockdown measures as well.  Not to mention taking bribes to fake negative Covid tests for visitors returning to the US from all-inclusive resorts (for real, I know people this was offered to).  Sometimes things just don't make much sense these days!

Edited July 8, 2021 by phoenix_dream

[laurajc]

19 hours ago, Fouremco said:

Is it possible to booking a morning and an afternoon excursion, or do the times overlap?

I have booked a 4 x 4 beach experience in the morning and then another excursion to the Baths when we are in Tortola next week.  We will see how it goes!  I tried to double book a morning and afternoon beach excursion at the same spot and just skip the bus rides in between, riding back to ship with the afternoon group, but was told no.  I may ask again after we board on Saturday.

[Fouremco]

3 hours ago, laurajc said:

I have booked a 4 x 4 beach experience in the morning and then another excursion to the Baths when we are in Tortola next week.  We will see how it goes!  I tried to double book a morning and afternoon beach excursion at the same spot and just skip the bus rides in between, riding back to ship with the afternoon group, but was told no.  I may ask again after we board on Saturday.

Thank you, it's good to see that you aren't limited to a single 4-hour excursion.

[NutsAboutGolf]

The issue remains that if you book two different tours (people have done this before pre-covid) they're two entirely different tours and therefore leaves a lot to chance.  We need to collect datapoints because it appears that if the first tour is late, you're SOL on the second.  I don't exactly know how X is doing things but if the port doesn't allow free roam, you will most likely need to reboard the ship after the first tour only to immediately get off the ship again on the second tour.  Once ports allow free roam this issue goes away but if this continues, I'd love for X to come up various full day options and perhaps create a protocol for those who book two tours in the same day and the first one gets back late.  This is assuming X doesn't already have a plan in place; the US based shore excursions rep wasn't aware of anything.

[NMTraveller]

Thanks for the information.  I am still in a wait and see mode on cruises.  The cruise experience must exceed the land experience.  They are not there yet.  I think that the restrictions will be relaxed over time.

[bEwAbG]

46 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

The issue remains that if you book two different tours (people have done this before pre-covid) they're two entirely different tours and therefore leaves a lot to chance.  We need to collect datapoints because it appears that if the first tour is late, you're SOL on the second.  I don't exactly know how X is doing things but if the port doesn't allow free roam, you will most likely need to reboard the ship after the first tour only to immediately get off the ship again on the second tour.  Once ports allow free roam this issue goes away but if this continues, I'd love for X to come up various full day options and perhaps create a protocol for those who book two tours in the same day and the first one gets back late.  This is assuming X doesn't already have a plan in place; the US based shore excursions rep wasn't aware of anything.

 

This is not different than before COVID.  Every excursion has a meeting place and time.  If you're not there when it departs, you're generally SOL.  In my experience, the guides will hang out a bit until they can account for everyone who is signed up, though of course there are no guarantees as to if they'll do that or for how long they'll wait.  If you want some assurances, you're going to have to wait until you're on the ship to discuss with the shore excursions people who will have a better idea as to how soon you'd be able to be back on the ship after the first excursion.  

[NutsAboutGolf]

14 minutes ago, bEwAbG said:

 

This is not different than before COVID.  Every excursion has a meeting place and time.  If you're not there when it departs, you're generally SOL.  In my experience, the guides will hang out a bit until they can account for everyone who is signed up, though of course there are no guarantees as to if they'll do that or for how long they'll wait.  If you want some assurances, you're going to have to wait until you're on the ship to discuss with the shore excursions people who will have a better idea as to how soon you'd be able to be back on the ship after the first excursion.  

 

Exactly yet the overall point isn't about booking a morning and afternoon tour and hoping one is not SOL, I'm hoping if this continues there are simply longer/better options to choose from.  Perhaps after a four hour morning tour the driver can drop those who pay off at the beach so you can join the "beach day" tour.  This saves a lot of time compared to needing to re-board the ship only to get off again.  Some have the opinion the status quo is fine the way it is, I'm not one of them and I would imagine there will be more and more complains the longer this goes on.

[DCPIV]

1 hour ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

Exactly yet the overall point isn't about booking a morning and afternoon tour and hoping one is not SOL, I'm hoping if this continues there are simply longer/better options to choose from.  Perhaps after a four hour morning tour the driver can drop those who pay off at the beach so you can join the "beach day" tour.  This saves a lot of time compared to needing to re-board the ship only to get off again.  Some have the opinion the status quo is fine the way it is, I'm not one of them and I would imagine there will be more and more complains the longer this goes on.

 

I suspect that the cruise lines are doing what they can within the confines of the port regulations. When you're talking about a port that allows only "curated" or "bubble" excursions, I would not expect their regulations to allow the flexibility you would like. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

On 7/8/2021 at 9:09 AM, Fouremco said:

Is it possible to booking a morning and an afternoon excursion, or do the times overlap?

 

On 7/9/2021 at 9:54 AM, bEwAbG said:

 

This is not different than before COVID.  Every excursion has a meeting place and time.  If you're not there when it departs, you're generally SOL.  In my experience, the guides will hang out a bit until they can account for everyone who is signed up, though of course there are no guarantees as to if they'll do that or for how long they'll wait.  If you want some assurances, you're going to have to wait until you're on the ship to discuss with the shore excursions people who will have a better idea as to how soon you'd be able to be back on the ship after the first excursion.  

 

I'm on board now and spoke to the excursions desk yesterday.  There is only one possibility of doing two tours in Cozumel that is do the dolphin encounter (ironically the only excursion I've done there).  Appears you can make most morning tours work and add the late short dolphin encounter or you could do the short dolphin encounter in the morning and there's one afternoon tour which is a culinary tour.  Still very disappointing there aren't other option or that they can't dropped off at a beach where other pax will be after.