Who likes factory tour / shopping stops on ship excursions?

[sellwingri]

I love the Curacao liquor factory in Curacao.  You can taste different flavors to your hearts content.

[OnTheJourney]

4 minutes ago, sellwingri said:

I love the Curacao liquor factory in Curacao.

Oh YEAH! So much fun. 

[cured]

On a private tour, I have no problem with a short stop at a factory or shop.  In Naples, we stopped at a Limoncello factory and it wasn't the most interesting but I got a couple of nice Christmas ornaments.  The tour was with a highly regarded tour guide whose prices were extremely reasonable for the quality of the tour.  If visiting a shop for a few minutes so that the tour guide can get a kickback and keep tour prices low, I am all for it.

 

Now the group excursions are another story. We took a ship excursion one time that stopped at a factory.  We were allowed 15 minutes to shop after the tour. One family still had not returned to the bus 30 minutes after our scheduled departure time. The driver went in and still could not persuade them to hurry up.  45 minutes after we were supposed to leave and all of us had been sitting on the bus, we finally left.  Because of their selfishness, we had our beach time cut by 45 minutes.

 

If I can control the tour with a private tour, fine, stop at a shop or two.  If it is a group tour and we are at the mercy of the selfishness of others, no way. I will never book a group tour again that has a factory or shopping stop.

 

Oh, and we had a scheduled stop for lunch in town. Guess who was late again for the bus?

[CruisinNole]

We've been lucky avoiding the excursions with shopping but when we went Turkey on a cruise we purposely selected one with a stop in a rug shop. I was stationed in Turkey when I was in the Air Force and I wanted my husband to experience shopping in Turkey. He got a kick out of it, especially the beer the got at the rug factory. I told him it was tea only when I was there!