An Excursion That Is Self-Guided?!

[GK95]

Just saw this on the Sun Princess excursions for Bar, Montenegro and started laughing. Why would I pay $60/pp to take myself around town? No way is that price worth a brief orientation. 
 

Has anyone else ever seen a self-guided excursion?

[EDVM96]

Basically you pay for the 2x 15 minute coach transportation to and from the ship.
Stari Bar ist about 6 km from the port.

 

Local transportation should be much less expensive, tho.

 

[cr8tiv1]

Princess has offered "tours" that are "on your own".  They are providing you transportation to and from point of interest.

 

When Princess docked at Kahului, they would offer and, in my opinion, expensive bus ride to Lahaina.  

 

In Japan, they offered a shuttle to the nearest town for anywhere between $20 - $30, round trip.  

 

In Boston, they offered HOHO buses that would pick you up at the cruise terminal.  More expensive than picking up a HOHO in the city.  

 

Many of their excursions are mere transportation.

[SCX22]

There are some excursions, which are marked as "on your own," in it's name that are basically just transportation and a local guide that will take you to a place, give you a brief orientation, let you explore the place on your own for a few hours, and take you back to the ship.  In Vigo and A Coruna, there's Santiago de Compostela On Your Own.  In Cadiz, there's Seville On Your Own.  Both places are about 2 hours from port each way and you get 4 hours in town on your own.  Used free OBC to pay for said excursions so I didn't care.  

 

TBH, sometimes I prefer the on your own with Princess excursions because inevitably, you get some slow pokes who take forever to get off and on the bus or can't keep up with the group.  If using my own money and not OBC, I try and book excursions independently.

[Muffinz]

There is an excursion on our December Cruise on Crown Princess. One of the Excursions in Melbourne (Australia) is "Gladstone mall on your own" where they take you to a mega mall and you have 4-6 hours there on your own

All Princess are doing is providing transport there and back... I'd be bored after an hour in a mega mall like that!

[donaldsc]

There is one possible advantage for an on-your-own tour to a location that is not close to the ship.  That is that as long as you are back to the bus pickup on time you do not have to worry about missing the ship.

 

DON

[Crystaltipps67]

We booked a Princess tour in Bilbao that, when we booked it, included the Guggenheim and a walking tour of the old town. Somewhere between booking and delivery that changed and the walking tour was removed. Nobody told us (Princess said they had told our (UK) TA. The TA said 'they never do that - we are not the same as US TAs') but the website changed to say that you'd be 'pointed in the direction of the old town, a 20 min walk away'. I wasn't routinely checking the website for changes to the booked tour - why would I? So we didn't know, and we weren't the only folk on the tour who were very cross about this. We had tremendous trouble trying to get some money back as we would never have booked what amounted to a $75 transfer (when there was a free bus taking people to the town) once you'd knocked off the Guggenheim entry tickets. Of course the staff on the excursions desk could only see the current details of the tour so they just kept saying that it wasn't included. And (lesson learned) it had not occurred to me to screen shot what I had actually booked. Eventually I think we just wore them down and they coughed up to get rid of us. I will not book a Princess excursion again after that