Tour with Princess or on your own

[teddie2]

Thanks for that Trinitygirl. I definitely think the small local tours and some DIY ..which is what I have done on our land trips.  We did a small boat, 28 people, trip in Croatia with stops at different islands and there was an hour tour of each city. Honestly though some weren't better than others I was bored and preferred to wander around on my own. As for the day tours we did they were great.

Tourfamm thanks for the links if we ever go to Istanbul they will be helpful. Not on this trip though.

[Torfamm]

2 hours ago, teddie2 said:

 

Great idea re getting emergency contact info from the ship!  You never know.

Princess helpfully posts that information on the screens in the elevator lobbies on port days so it’s easy to grab a photo of it as you leave

[teddie2]

Good to know!

Edited October 23, 2023 by teddie2

[pink845]

We are approaching 60 cruises now. Every one longer than 7 days or more and to the far corners of the globe.  I do a lot of research about each and every port.  We have seen so much on our own at a fraction of the cost of a tour (ship or outside agency) by using buses, trains and rental cars to reach out destination.  But it takes a very concerted effort. Maps, printed out, guide books, etc.  If the logistics are too complicated and language is a problem (e.g. Egypt, Russia, China), we have opted for cruise ship tours.  We bear in mind that we cannot see it all and always have the option of another cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

On 10/22/2023 at 8:10 AM, teddie2 said:

So first time cruiser. Going for 20 days Italy France Spain morroco

I always research places we visit in depth but we have always gone on our own and spend several days in a place so this is a whole new experience for us being somewhere just for a few hours and competing with thousands of others once in Port.

So opinions please is it better to just book a tour through the cruise line or try to strike out in your own. Tours for 20 days will get expensive but in some cases might make sense like in Tangier where right off the boat I read you are hassled and followed around to get you to hire them

I am also nervous about being sure to be back in time to the ship so wondering how relaxed I will be if we wander away from the main area so again a new experience. All perspectives and prior experiences would be helpful.

Thank you

We’re in our early 70s and like low stress cruising, so we usually pre-book the PCL excursions that catch our eye rather than booking them on our own. But then we usually have around $1000 in military, shareholder and FCD OBC to prebook the excursions with.
 

We also like the low stress option of not worrying if it’s a tender port, as PCL tours automatically get priority based on tour start times, or a port stop gets cancelled, as we’ll get the tour cost automatically refunded back to our shipboard account. If the tour is late getting back to the ship, the ship will wait for us. Also, for the most part their excursions are usually pretty cool. We also sit in the back of the tour bus rather than crowding in front, so we don’t feel crowded while on the bus. Like I said, low stress.

 

I see you’re cruising in the western Med. I have a Live From thread containing pictures from our Regal Princess cruise in July 2022 around the Med which may give you a flavor of what you can expect on the ones we went on in France and Spain as well as in some other countries. Haven’t been to Morocco yet, but it’s on list. 😁

[LynnSD]

We do a mix of princess and local vendor tours, rarely on our own.  
Last year in the med, we’d been to the major cities many times before, so we took several Princess tours to local farms.   All were very well done — they were family farms with a new generation trying to keep it going, so the stories were interesting.  We usually had lunch prepared with home grown ingredients.  Added benefit was smaller tour groups and no crowds!

[teddie2]

Thank you for your perspectives. I think I will research the cities and once we decide what want to see then we can decide if its better to do withba local or with the Cruise line or on our own. When i think about day trips we have done from places we visited it will be very much like that and we have always gone on our own except this last trip in Croatia we did several local tours that were great.

 

[cruisequeen4ever]

The first time we visit a place, we usually always do a Princess excursion to be safe. If we find that we have done all of the Princess sites that we want to see, the next time we may choose to do an independent tour but allow plenty of time to return to the ship, even if delays occurred.

 

if princess does offer an excursion to a different place, we haven’t been, then we still do a princess excursion again.

 

Basically, our rule of thumb is to stick with Princess as much as possible for peace of mind.

 

We have had wonderful experiences with independent tours, though, except for one out of Naples that had me extremely worried about missing the ship on the way back because the driver had people from three different ships on board and mixed up the departure times, and ours was the earliest and almost got missed.