Wondering why shore excursions are all very early

[carefree lady]

I'm not a new cruiser but this will be my first Princess cruise .My cruise will not be until December 2025. They just released the excursions. It seems like all excursions are first thing in the morning. I am use to seeing other times on other cruise lines, I was wondering if these early excursions fill up do they then release later times?

[d9704011]

Excursions first thing in the morning are typical.

 

I don't know where you're going but if it's in the northern hemisphere you should expect it to be getting a little darkish late in the afternoon... not the best time for finishing up excursions.

[SCX22]

It really all depends on where you are going, what times the tour operators make available to Princess, and the length of the excursion.  If the excursion's is long, like 6 to 8 hours, there is no choice but to leave in the am to get back before all aboard.  I got back from from Papeete Moorea, Cartagena, and Panama City recently (not on the same cruise) and there were am and pm slots for some excursions.

 

The excursion below for the British Isles cruise I'm going on, has am and pm departures.

 

Edited June 6 by SCX22

[skynight]

Where are you cruising? 

[carefree lady]

12 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

It really all depends on where you are going, what times the tour operators make available to Princess, and the length of the excursion.  If the excursion's is long, like 6 to 8 hours, there is no choice but to leave in the am to get back before all aboard.  I got back from from Papeete Moorea, Cartagena, and Panama City recently (not on the same cruise) and there were am and pm slots for some excursions.

 

The excursion below for the British Isles cruise I'm going on, has am and pm departures.

 

 

[carefree lady]

This is a Caribbean cruise. There are excursions as short as 2 hours. Since these were just released and show 20 available tickets I'm thinking that once these sell perhaps they will release more times.

[carefree lady]

6 minutes ago, skynight said:

Where are you cruising? 

Caribbean

[Wishing on a star]

It all depends...  and they could start with the early ones, and open additional later ones???

There is one excursion that I would go with a third party excursion operator, because Princess is just TOO early.  Like, roll your eyes early.

There was one excursion that we did not do on our own, but with Princess did not leave until after lunch, and got back as the Sun was getting low.  (Winter)

It just all depends!

[PR-Texas]

20 tickets is a generic number and means there are at least 20 tickets remaining. I booked several excursions for two of us that showed 20 tickets both before and after I booked.  The excursions I booked that had showed 12 tickets before I booked changed to 10 tickets after I booked. 

[DCThunder]

Travel times to the destination of the excursion are a major factor in departure times.  I did an excursion from Malaga to Granada (not a ship excursion) that left at 0715.  The ship docked and was cleared by 0700, and we hustled to get off right away.  It's about a 3 hour drive each way to Granada and we were in the Alhambra by 10:30. Seeing the sun coming up over the mountains was spectacular.  We were back to the ship, by 3:45pm, with an all-aboard time of 4:30pm. This was in early December, so it was definitely heading towards twilight when we returned.

 

Great excursion, BTW.

[Rick&Jeannie]

1 hour ago, PR-Texas said:

20 tickets is a generic number and means there are at least 20 tickets remaining. I booked several excursions for two of us that showed 20 tickets both before and after I booked.  The excursions I booked that had showed 12 tickets before I booked changed to 10 tickets after I booked. 

Yep! Princess has a somewhat unusual booking system when it comes to excursions. You never *really* know how many actual slots are available because at the very beginning all you see is "20". Only when the total number of available slots really diminishes to "really 20" do you start seeing that count start to reduce. So...if you see 10 tickets remaining...there really are just 10 left. I would say that *if* the tour provider *could* provide more seats, then they would have done so up front to maximize their $$$. But...that's just my opinion!

[dockman]

They are early so you can get back for lunch and an afternoon nap.

[royal3]

Some times, if it is a busy port, there will be other ships arriving later in the day. If this is the case, the excursion operators might be servicing those ship in the afternoon. 

[PR-Texas]

It may also depend on what time the ship gets into the port.  On our New Zealand cruise when we get into port varies.  Three ports it's 8:00am, one 9:00, one 9:30am and one 10:00am. Our excursion times vary from 8:30 to 11:15.  We decided to do all Princess excursions since they had ones we liked and the ones I found with an independent booking agency were fairly comparable in price or were ones we weren't interested in.  We don't cruise often so we just went with the easiest option.

 

Several of our excursions go an hour or so away from the port so I'm guessing that they schedule them so there's plenty of time to get back to the ship is something happens to delay the return.

Edited June 7 by PR-Texas

[JordanF]

One factor may be the promise that the ship won't leave without you if you are on a ship excursion.  This promise has a strong trickle down effect on the tour operators, who will have severe consequences if they are late in returning to the ship (our tour guide in Athens told us about this).  So I suspect they are all just that much happier to take you out in the morning and leave the afternoons to you if they can.

[startedwithamouse]

They also may have multiple tours. 

 

Our recent Sapphire Princess, multiple three hour excursions were coming and going during the day in Suva, Papeete and American Samoa.