Excursions or on our own?

[Woody14]

We tend to treat the cruise as a way to see if the country or area is worth going back to.   Italy is a great example, parts we can access and see well via cruise ship but other parts we will do as an extension to a trip (or even just a land based trip, although rare).  We are planing a greek island cruise this summer departing from Venice (Ravenna actually) we are tacking on some extra days to explore some Northern Italy areas before the cruise.

[Caracarn2]

On 10/18/2022 at 7:40 AM, WheresWalter said:

 

First thing to understand is that there is no rule that you have to leave the ship at port. We have a "Ship Day" at one port every single cruise where we stay onboard while at least 75% of the ship goes off to the port. You have the run of the ship to yourself, especially the big empty pools, and if you fancy a spa treatment, they're always on sale during a port day. So keep that in mind as you become a seasoned cruiser. 🙂 

 

The two big differences to excursions are that if you do a Cruise excursion you're guaranteed the ship will wait for you if you're late or the cruise line has to get you to the next port. If you're independent, the ship will leave without you. In general ships will wait about 30 minutes and I've seen 60 minutes, but they're not under any obligation to wait. And yes, they will and do leave, do a search for "Pier Runners" on YouTube to see some often very funny videos of folks trying to wave the ship back as it pulls away. 🙂 

 

When you do exit the ship terminal area, you will be bombarded with people offering tours, cabs and cars. This is why it's so important to do some research. One option folks love is to simply rent a cab for the day and just go wherever they please and that's a great option. BUT you need to know which cab company you can trust, and you can get that through research. 

 

For the most part we do book independently, BUT you have to do your research if you're going to go independent. Especially if your plan is to hire a cab or local tour service on your own. Right here on CC there is a Ports of Call forum where you can go look at suggestions and recommendations for the individual ports you're about to visit. We also use TripAdvisor, Yelp and anything else we can find to verify the quality and responsiveness of a third party tour operator,

 

Dominican Republic we stick with cruise operated tours. Many folks go off on their own, but on this island we prefer the cruise operated tours if we're leaving the ship.

 

San Juan is a great walking city and if we're going to do anything, we book it on our own. We just did San Juan Food Tours in March and they were a fantastic walking/food tour. But San Juan you can easily just walk and discover. You'll find lots of recommendations for bars and restaurants and independent tours in the Ports of Call forum here on CC. The Fort is about a 15-20 minute walk from the ship so you can easily walk to it on your own and just self explore it if you're really into history. It's a beautiful layout. We also discovered kite flying at the fort because of that food tour, they have a massive lawn where you can fly kites purchased from a little red trailer along the road.

 

St. Maarten, the port area is a cute little touristy town. You hop a water ferry and it drops you off right in the middle of the shopping and dining district. If you're a Star Wars fan, That Yoda Guy is a must visit. Nick Maley is a former Industrial Light and Magic artist who worked on the original Yoda for the movies. He has a mini-Star Wars museum that's fun. There are many tours and excursions you can do here with third parties that are reputable. We usually just hang out in the town for a few hours, stopping to get some Guavaberry Run at the Old Man shops.

 

St. Thomas has a lot to offer and another island that's loaded with good third party excursions. We've done snorkeling and golf on the island, both a lot of fun. There is also a food tour run by the same company that we use in San Juan that we will be doing in a few months when we get there. 

 

Welcome to the cruise family, you have picked an awesome itinerary that should be a lot of fun! 

 

 

 

Would you mind sharing the independent companies you use?  You mentioned them for some of our ports but did not name them.   For trying a cruise we're not the typical cruiser demographic I think.   My wife and I hate sitting on beaches (too boring) we love history, certainly food tours sound like something we'd like but with her motion sickness things with little boats or even floating platforms like snorkeling etc. are not something she sounds too excited about.   I'm also not a terrific swimmer to not sure how comfortable I am with trying snorkeling myself.   I've heard it's super easy if you just know how to float to yes you should be very comfortable in the water.  We're not drinkers so bars etc. are not huge draws for us.  We can certainly get around as in our early 50s, part of our local hiking club and do 3-5 mile hikes regularly and comfortable just winging it.   My biggest concern is about all the horror stories of tourists getting into some problem on their own.  Perhaps these are overblown, but having never been to any of these places it's on my mind.   Now keep in mind, I was born and raised in Chicago and have no problem going into major US cities at night and exploring where many others are IMO unreasonable afraid of the crime etc. so I'm not someone who gets uncomfortable easily.  I've also worked abroad in China and Europe and just hopped in cabs and went to the zoo ot temples or whatever so that's my level of comfort with things, pretty broad.   But somehow I've gotten concerned about the "you could get kidnapped and ransomed" trope, that I understand needs to be overblown but yet seems reasonable to me for some reason.  Maybe it's an unhealthy after effect of the pandemic.  So I'd hate to "play it safe" by taking cruise excursions (especially after nearly 100% of you make them sound dreadful with the issues that would drive both of us INSANE, like just spending time waiting for folks to get bathroom breaks or finishing shopping) and then regret we did not do something more exciting.   My wife and like like to explore and adventure, within reason.   We're not going to go bungee jumping or skydiving, but finding a wonderful historic item off the beaten path or getting to experience the local feel are right up our alley.   So I guess it's getting to experience what it's like being a local without being taken advantage of by the locals.   So after that long explanation, what do folks have for me?  🙂

[CruisingWalter]

6 hours ago, Caracarn2 said:

Would you mind sharing the independent companies you use? 

 

The only company I mentioned was San Juan Food Tours and that's their actual name, absolutely delicious. They also have a branch in St Thomas 🙂 

 

Some others we have used:

Bodden Tours in Roatan, Honduras for Zip Line, Sloth and Monkey encouter

Harv and Marv Whale Watching in Juneau, Alaska, one of the best independent tours ever.

Temsco Helicopter Company in Skagway for both glacier tours and real dogsled camp with snow.

Island Wings Air Service tours with Pilot Michelle Masden in Ketchikan was booked, but bad weather cancelled our tour. She is the ONLY pilot we would fly with because if the weather is bad, she cancels. We saw dozens of other float planes flying up into the fog and low hanging clouds. She said it's too dangerous to do that with so many planes in the area and you can't see much of anything. 

Captain Marvin's in Grand Cayman for Stingrays

Mad Maxx Dune Buggies in St. Kitts

BOSS Submersible in St. Thomas

Kuralu Day Dream Catamaran and Snorkel in Tortola. Best snorkeling trip we've done so far.

 

All of these companies offered refunds if our itinerary changed, they all gave us direct contact information, and they all lived up to what we expected. My wife spends hours researching both here and on other travel sites before booking. 

[CruisingWalter]

6 hours ago, Caracarn2 said:

So I'd hate to "play it safe" by taking cruise excursions (especially after nearly 100% of you make them sound dreadful with the issues that would drive both of us INSANE, like just spending time waiting for folks to get bathroom breaks or finishing shopping)

 

Cruise excursions are not 'dreadful' and they often offer the exact same excursion as the third party operators. Dune buggies, four wheelers, snorkeling, catamarans, big party boats. The difference is you pay a markup to the cruise line, sometimes as much as 100%, vs paying a tour operator directly. And you're also getting a cruise line vetted tour company because the cruise line is responsible for you when you're on a cruise based excursion.

 

We took an AMAZING sunset catamaran sail in St. Thomas that was required to be booked through the cruise line because our return time was sail away time, so the ships had to wait for us. And it was absolutely positively amazing. 

 

In Falmouth, Jamaica I ONLY recommend taking ship tours. That's not the safest town in the world once you leave the secure port area. The port area is a lovely shopping and dining area, but when you leave the gates, it changes very quickly. We did an afternoon tea at a former plantation and it was absolutely stunning. But we never do a third party excursion in that particular port. Others on here will tell you they walk around the port city or take third party tours. We personally do not. 

 

What those 'dreadful' comments are referring to is that the cruise lines do offer some very slow, often bus tours that appeal to a specific audience. Generally you're driven through town, someone narrates, you make a food stop or two, some shopping stops, maybe a history stop, a local distillery/food operation and four to six hours later you're back to the ship. The cruise lines HAVE to offer these because not everyone can, nor wants, to do adrenaline based tours or hang out at a beach all day.

[CruisingWalter]

2 hours ago, MaggieNY said:

Oh, and it all requires a spreadsheet. My husband mocks me but I make a planning spreadsheet for every trip so we have the information we need right on my phone.

1000% and my wife brings paper copies of everything too in case reception is bad or some other WiFi issue. 🙂

[Hlitner]

On 11/15/2022 at 4:48 PM, Essiesmom said:

Add Berlin from Warnemunde as a place hardly worth visiting on a cruise port stop.  Or to be closer to home, Disney World from Port Canaveral.  EM

There are some other nice options from Warnemunde.  For example, you can walk over to the nearby train station and grab a train over to nearby Rostock.  From that town you can spend much of the day taking the Mollie Steam Train.  Later return to Warnemunde where you can have a relaxing dinner at one of the seaside restaurants.  It is a much more relaxing day than the long round trip haul to Berlin.

 

Hank