chimchimtx Posted January 16, 2023 #1 Share Posted January 16, 2023 I rarely to never book Celebrity excursions as I have always had excellent experiences with highly rated local tour guides. But our next cruise will include Cozumel so I am considering a ship tour at that port for safety reasons. I have tried to research this and I see Celebrity says their "Signature" Small Groups are 24 people or less, but I am not sure if this is the same thing as a regular small group excursion. The only post I am seeing on CC is years old and pre-Covid, so I am looking for any feedback from someone who took a small group tour recently. Thanks! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the penguins Posted January 16, 2023 #2 Share Posted January 16, 2023 4 hours ago, chimchimtx said: I rarely to never book Celebrity excursions as I have always had excellent experiences with highly rated local tour guides. But our next cruise will include Cozumel so I am considering a ship tour at that port for safety reasons. I have tried to research this and I see Celebrity says their "Signature" Small Groups are 24 people or less, but I am not sure if this is the same thing as a regular small group excursion. The only post I am seeing on CC is years old and pre-Covid, so I am looking for any feedback from someone who took a small group tour recently. Thanks! A group of 24 doesn't come close to my definition of small. We always have a private guide and share with one other couple or at the very most 2 other couples. Have you tried sites like Toursbylocals (our personal choice) to see what's on offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisneyJim Posted January 16, 2023 #3 Share Posted January 16, 2023 To our surprise, our "small group" excursion last week in Costa Rica was somewhere around 35. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Jim_Iain Posted January 17, 2023 #4 Share Posted January 17, 2023 I think it depends on the tour. I did a Small Group Tour on Summit - Greenland. The group was really small as the boat we were on only held 8 passengers. I took a couple small group tours in Mexico last month and the both had 2 vans with 12 passengers in each van. At the destination we grouped together. It was a Off Road one where we broke into groups of 4 per jeep and the other 2 per jeep I also took a small group Kayaking in Puerto Valletta. In that case there was one 12 passenger van and then we broke into groups of 2 to kayak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellaTN Posted January 17, 2023 #5 Share Posted January 17, 2023 We did a small group tour with celebrity in Cozumel last year on the Apex. It was a cooking class, visit to a tequila place, & tour of a ruin. There were only about 16 people in the group, we took a small trolly type vehicle around the island. Guide was great and it was wonderful to not be on a bus. Highly recommend the cooking class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare NMTraveller Posted January 17, 2023 #6 Share Posted January 17, 2023 They tend to vary widely. I have been in groups of 12 or groups of 50. I am not sure how you count 50 as a small group excursion. I wish that X would publish how many were going to be on their excursions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neverlaysup Posted January 17, 2023 #7 Share Posted January 17, 2023 It depends on the port and the excursion. We recently booked a small group excursion in Tenerife and it was a 32 person mini bus loaded to the gills. It didn't really feel like a small group to us but it's all about the number when making that claim of "small". Other places, the number could be smaller, I really don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinfly Posted January 18, 2023 #8 Share Posted January 18, 2023 Cozumel is quite safe, no need to book a ships tour if you want to do something independently. I was there in December and June. Google "Cabanas at Chankanaab", simple cab ride to/from the port. Great experience at a great price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhoffrob Posted January 18, 2023 #9 Share Posted January 18, 2023 On 1/16/2023 at 10:05 PM, StellaTN said: We did a small group tour with celebrity in Cozumel last year on the Apex. It was a cooking class, visit to a tequila place, & tour of a ruin. There were only about 16 people in the group, we took a small trolly type vehicle around the island. Guide was great and it was wonderful to not be on a bus. Highly recommend the cooking class. We just did this exact tour in Cozumel in December from the Summit. It was a great day, probably 18 or 20 people. Took the trolley/bus. They did reorder the tour, first cooking, then Ruins, then tequila. We were running late for the tequila tour which was fine - it wasn't much of a tour, really just a sales stop so we didn't feel we missed anything. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melispsych Posted January 19, 2023 #10 Share Posted January 19, 2023 We were on a “ small group tour” last week in grand cayman last week which was two buses of at least 25 people each. Definitely not a small group 😁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lme901 Posted January 19, 2023 #11 Share Posted January 19, 2023 15 hours ago, melispsych said: We were on a “ small group tour” last week in grand cayman last week which was two buses of at least 25 people each. Definitely not a small group 😁 We had the same thing happen on a "small group tour" in cayman last month to the Turtle conservatory. Our bus had 14 people on it but when we got there, they combined us with another small bus and one regular size bus taking us on a tour of the facility. The guide was nice but he walked us past the areas quickly and took us off to the side to look at him while he gave us information on what we had just walked past. They easily wasted 10 minutes stressing for us to meet back at the front at a particular time and then our bus was 15 minutes late picking us up. We were beyond frustrated and annoyed with the situation. I went to the shore excursion desk that evening showed them a video I took of our "small group" and they refunded our money. We usually book with private vendors but I fell for the small group wording in the excursion description. I would be hesitant to trust them again in the future. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baypeople Posted January 19, 2023 #12 Share Posted January 19, 2023 2 hours ago, lme901 said: We had the same thing happen on a "small group tour" in cayman last month to the Turtle conservatory. Our bus had 14 people on it but when we got there, they combined us with another small bus and one regular size bus taking us on a tour of the facility. The guide was nice but he walked us past the areas quickly and took us off to the side to look at him while he gave us information on what we had just walked past. They easily wasted 10 minutes stressing for us to meet back at the front at a particular time and then our bus was 15 minutes late picking us up. We were beyond frustrated and annoyed with the situation. I went to the shore excursion desk that evening showed them a video I took of our "small group" and they refunded our money. We usually book with private vendors but I fell for the small group wording in the excursion description. I would be hesitant to trust them again in the future. We are taking that tour next week. I’ll try to report bac k about group size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimchimtx Posted February 1, 2023 Author #13 Share Posted February 1, 2023 Thanks everyone. That is about what I figured. That isn't really my idea of small either. We booked a tour with a local guide instead. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skidhiker Posted May 10 #14 Share Posted May 10 Just finished a small group excursion in Rome. 32 people walking in the crowded streets. Not my definition of small. Read the descriptions carefully. Look for “Signature” small group which is limited to 24 according to other posts I read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mahdnc Posted May 10 #15 Share Posted May 10 On 1/16/2023 at 1:01 PM, chimchimtx said: I rarely to never book Celebrity excursions as I have always had excellent experiences with highly rated local tour guides. But our next cruise will include Cozumel so I am considering a ship tour at that port for safety reasons. I have tried to research this and I see Celebrity says their "Signature" Small Groups are 24 people or less, but I am not sure if this is the same thing as a regular small group excursion. The only post I am seeing on CC is years old and pre-Covid, so I am looking for any feedback from someone who took a small group tour recently. Thanks! We just got back from our Panama Canal cruise. We took two "Small Group" shore excursions through Celebrity. In both cases, we signed up for the activity/destination and not so much because it was a small group. The first small group tour was in Costa Rica. I would say we had about 20 people or so. The second one was a sail and snorkel shore excursion. We had about 13-15 passengers in attendance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Jim_Iain Posted May 10 #16 Share Posted May 10 The small groups I've been on are usually the 20 passenger tour busses. In Fiji we had a small group jeep tour and most only had drier, guide and two guests. We had one odd person so had to ride 3 pax in that jeep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare NMTraveller Posted May 10 #17 Share Posted May 10 Ten to fifty. It varies widely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wineoclock Posted May 11 #18 Share Posted May 11 We did ‘small groups’ on our October group. On 2 separate excursions it meant waiting for the other ‘small group’ to catch us up before being given a talk, lunch and a coffee break. Not my idea of a small group. I fed that back to excursion team back on the ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now