Independent shore excursions

[woodward girl]

Could someone tell me if they have cruised Europe lately and have been able to go on independent shore excursions.  Hearing mixed messages.  Royal Caribbean going to Italy, Turkey and Greece in July.  Have all my shore excursions booked independently as we have done this itinerary many times before.  Can we still get off the ship and do this.  We are fully vaccinated, including the kids.  Thanks Nancy

[CruiserBruce]

If you look on the boards for those countries, you will see the latest discussions:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/8-europe/

 

Be prepared for changes as the situation changes. July is still a ways off, so what people are required to do today may not be true in a month or so.

[gerryuk]

At the moment you can not leave a Costa cruise independently in the Med. I believe its up to the countries the ship visits and not the cruise line. Hopefully things will change sooner rather than later.  

[Hlitner]

When we cruised the Greek Islands last summer our cruise line (Seabourn) had no problem with folks going ashore, independently, in every port.  But that was not only within the rules of the cruise line but also fine with the Greek Government.  Today you have the same situation.  There are two factors (which can change at a moments notice which is 1.  The cruise line's own rules and 2. The rules of the ruling government.  I guess we could add a third issue which is if some local governments also impose their own rules (we recently had this experience in Puerto Vallarta.

 

When the OP wants to know what is the situation in Europe the answer is that what exists today may be different next week.  Countries like Greece, France (they just relaxed their rules on March 12), UK, Italy, all have their own rules.  And even if a country would allow folks to go ashore independently there is no guarantee that your ship might impose their own restriction.  We actually saw this happen last summer in Mykonos where one particular cruise line imposed restrictions (the island had a COVID surge) which were not imposed by other cruise lines.

 

I would speculate that the OP will not have any restrictions in Greece.  Turkey and Italy are an open question and may well change their policies several times between now and July.

 

We have our own interest in the subject because we are heading to Europe in a few days.  Besides our cruise ports we are planning to spend 3 weeks in Europe doing our own thing including a driving trip that could include the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland.  Right now there are no rules that would cause us a problem but that could certainly change between now and when we get to those countries.  But being independent means we would simply change our itinerary and go where we are allowed.  

 

Hank

 

Hank