Mandatory ship excursions

[dritan]

HI

 

We enjoyed our Smeralda cruise so much last Oct that we are hopping onto the new Toscana at Easter.  I'm pretty sure when I booked that the excursion package covered us for half day excursions at all 5 of our stops and was around 150 euros each.  Started getting emails last week about excursion changes ( really minor and related to the time of the excursion) but when I went into check, there appeared to be a new smaller package of two half day excursions and one full day excursion instead.   So had to cancel my old reservations and rebook.  It was also cheaper as you'd expect.

 

Does anyone know if the mandatory use of ship excursions is going to be with us much longer?  I had thought that maybe this change was due to a dropping of that policy but when I checked on another part of the website it still says you can only leave the ship via a ship excursion.  

 

It seems over kill and at odds with what all other cruise lines are doing, even in Europe?

[kremerlorraine]

Maybe you'll have more luck downloading it than I did, but there is a press release dated 14 February in the Costa Press Center section on the website. I've read the French version, which says that, due to the ongoing relaxation of health regulations generally Costa foresees being able to offer passengers the ability to leave the ship on their own "this summer" and will be working towards doing that progressively from "the spring".

 

So no firm dates, but you might be lucky at Easter. You can always book the excursions now and as long as you cancel at least three days before the sailing date you will not have to take them.

[dritan]

Thanks - I'm doing that, in the hope things will be relaxed a bit by Easter.  I'll take a look for that press release area too for any updates. 

[BVILady]

Just got another confirmation for my trip in 2024 and they are stressing that excursions with Costa will need to be taken in countries which are insisting on bubble-excursions. Should you not follow this regulation you will be kicked off and will have to pay for your trip home and not be entitled to any refund. Right now it seems that Italy is still insisting on that rule. Wondering about that, being also booked on a cruise with Royal Caribbean which is stopping in Italian ports and they do offer transfers so you can take your own personal tours. But that will be July 2022 so who knows what will change by then.

[Alex71]

2 hours ago, BVILady said:

Right now it seems that Italy is still insisting on that rule.

 

Sounds like this is a general rule for all cruises stopping in Italy and unfortunately also applies to all other ports on that cruise, even to those outside of Italy. I don't mind taking an excusion into Rome as this gives us the peace of mind to be back in time, but had hoped we can walk around a bit on our own in Barcelona and Valencia.

[jennjess]

I was considering booking a Costa cruise but the mandatory Costa excursions really puts me off.  Hope that they change this soon as other cruiselines do not insist on this.

[BVILady]

Being also booked on RCA and MSC this summer and having done some research it looks like it depends on the regulations of the country and in all ports in the Med we are going to stop cruisers will need to take excursions offered by the cruise-line. It is what it is, just grateful to be able to travel and cruise again.

[Woody14]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:33 AM, BVILady said:

Just got another confirmation for my trip in 2024 and they are stressing that excursions with Costa will need to be taken in countries which are insisting on bubble-excursions. Should you not follow this regulation you will be kicked off and will have to pay for your trip home and not be entitled to any refund. Right now it seems that Italy is still insisting on that rule. Wondering about that, being also booked on a cruise with Royal Caribbean which is stopping in Italian ports and they do offer transfers so you can take your own personal tours. But that will be July 2022 so who knows what will change by then.

2024, we will be in a whole different situation by then, I would not be stressing.      Right now the folks at Costa are just reinforcing the current rules and making the assumption they will be in place forever.   As we all know things will change.   Italy just announced that most of there current restrictions will be gone by May 1 so I would bet that you will get different updates after that.

[BVILady]

I do hope things will change before our trip in July/August. Just mentioned 2024 because I thought it was funny to send me that for a 2024 cruise, but they basically just want to cover all their bases and not been told in 2024 that I had not known about it. 😁

[jennjess]

2 hours ago, Woody14 said:

2024, we will be in a whole different situation by then, I would not be stressing.      Right now the folks at Costa are just reinforcing the current rules and making the assumption they will be in place forever.   As we all know things will change.   Italy just announced that most of there current restrictions will be gone by May 1 so I would bet that you will get different updates after that.

I noticed that MSC, the other Italian line, are dropping their compulsory ship excursions on April 1st, so I hope very much that Costa will follow.  It would be a disadvantage for them not to I would think.

[dritan]

That's excellent news from MSC so hope it's the same for Costa. I'd probably keep the trip into Rome but do some of the other ports myself. Fingers crossed 

[Alex71]

I think I may keep the excursion package even if they allow folks to individually leave the ship again. Rome is already 99 EUR. The package costs 119 EUR. We will shift things around, though, and do Barcelona and Valencia on our own. Instead, we could use the half day excursions to see Aix-en-Provene and the area around Palermo. 

[dritan]

Yes I'm thinking keep the package and keep Rome and then do the 2 half day tours as Marseille and Savona - I think we want to do that Aix en Provence trip which is hard to do on your own and we've done Marseille itself, to death 😉  And Savona only because we want to get out somewhere new as we've done Savona and Genoa before.  So can do Valencia ourselves and thinking Palermo is right there at the port so can do a hop on hop off or similar.  

But maybe we're getting over excited as they still need to announce this freedom 😉

 

[gerryuk]

[Alex71]

Nice, thank you for sharing. Is this from their website?

[Alex71]

My Costa ist overwhelmed. Looks like folks are mass-cancelling their excursions.

[gerryuk]

48 minutes ago, Alex71 said:

Nice, for sharing. Is this from their ?

Their Facebook page.

 

[dritan]

great news. thanks

[jennjess]

This is the news I was waiting for to book a Costa cruise.  Great news.

[BVILady]

18 hours ago, Alex71 said:

My Costa ist overwhelmed. Looks like folks are mass-cancelling their excursions.

I don't understand that, I have been dealing with several cruise-lines, right now booking excursions on Royal Caribbean and MSC, Costa has the best quality in their excursions at the most reasonable price, so alone for the peace of mind to be on the ship when it leaves is well worth it. Was on HAL in Manila on ships-excursions twice where we were the last people back on the ship, not sure whether the ship did have to wait for us. Booking excursions for the Costa World Cruise 2023 right now and happy so far with the excursions offered.

 

[Alex71]

20 minutes ago, BVILady said:

I don't understand that, I have been dealing with several cruise-lines, right now booking excursions on Royal Caribbean and MSC, Costa has the best quality in their excursions at the most reasonable price, so alone for the peace of mind to be on the ship when it leaves is well worth it. Was on HAL in Manila on ships-excursions twice where we were the last people back on the ship, not sure whether the ship did have to wait for us. Booking excursions for the Costa World Cruise 2023 right now and happy so far with the excursions offered.

 

I'm keeping the excursion package but am reallocating some of them. Rome is of course one where it makes sense to use the full day excursion. The port in Barcelona is pretty central, so we will do that on our own and we will also do Valencia on our own now. Therefore I cancelled these two and instead booked one excursion for Palermo that will allow us to also see a neighboring town and and one for Marseille as the port is pretty far out.

 

We've been to all of the places and feel comfortable to use public transport in Barcelona and Valencia. I think it will be a nice mix to have some guided tours but also some alone time.    

Edited March 23, 2022 by Alex71

[dritan]

Just re jigged ours - I also thought it made sense to keep the 3 stop package.  But when we looked at the description of the tour to Rome it was exactly the same as we had done on the Costa Smeralda a few months ago.  So we are doing Marseille as our full day tour as we wanted to go to Aix en Provence, and a half day at Savona so we can visit a few local towns that are awkward to get to.   Decided to do Valencia as a tour purely because I remember it was tricky to get into the town centre from the port  - quite a long walk.  But my memory is 15 years old at this point 😉

 

[dritan]

I have done the trip into Rome via train before so will look to see if it's viable this time round. 

[Alex71]

13 hours ago, dritan said:

Just re jigged ours - I also thought it made sense to keep the 3 stop package.  But when we looked at the description of the tour to Rome it was exactly the same as we had done on the Costa Smeralda a few months ago.  So we are doing Marseille as our full day tour as we wanted to go to Aix en Provence, and a half day at Savona so we can visit a few local towns that are awkward to get to.   Decided to do Valencia as a tour purely because I remember it was tricky to get into the town centre from the port  - quite a long walk.  But my memory is 15 years old at this point 😉

 

 

I was a bit disappointed that the half day trip to Aix is not included in the package, otherwise I would have picked that one as well as we were not so impressed with Marseille when we did it on our own.

 

Valencia is super nice. We spent four days there just before covid. As you say, the center is a bit of a hike from the port. One could walk past the city of art and sciences, but it is not close. 

[dritan]

Exactly on Aix.  When it looked like we would have to take ship excursions to leave the ship, we had booked the extra cost half day tour. I've been once many years ago on an independent port day, but would like a more guided tour this time.  I recall they had a fantastic market. 

It will be interesting to go back to Valencia - I was 4-5 months pregnant last time and we got lost on our walk back to the port - it seemed interminable lol.