celebrity shore excursions or book shore excursions on my own

[outtolunch]

my husband and i will be traveling on the mediterranean cruise this oct/nov barcelona to venice. what has been other members' experience with shore excursions? specifically, is it better to book celebrity sponsored shore excursions or find tours from outside sources?

 

we traveled several years ago to alaska on a celebrity cruise. all of our shore excursions were celebrity excursions, and they were enjoyable. just wondering about europe.

 

any help would be appreciated, thank you.

[SheilaNC]

Strongly encourage you to read through the Europe forum for good information. We used all private drivers or did them ourselves in ports where there was easy access to the sights (e.g.Santorini, Dubrovnik, Venice, Barcelona,etc.) Got most of our help from the Europe forum. It was great!

[Bev]

Hi

I would echo the previous advice and also suggest that you check in with the roll call for your cruise. It's very likely that you'd find others there who would be interested and willing to share private tours with you.

 

Private tours are often less expensive than ship tours and they allow you to customize the tour to your preferences. If there's something on your private tour that you like, you can decide to stay longer there. On the other hand, if something doesn't interest you, you can just move on.

 

DH and I have been arranging our own tours for several years now, and really enjoy it.

 

Bev

[LSilver]

outtolunch:

 

I am not making a recommendation one way or the other per se; but you should be aware of the following...

 

If you are on a private tour that returns late, the ship will sail without you. If you are on a ship-sponsored tour that returns late, the ship will wait.

[outtolunch]

thanks to all suggestions

[mcnyc]

Hi outtolunch, I did mostly Celebrity shore excursions, and found them most enjoyable. BTW, I'm a tour hater and I like going places on my own better than being on a tour, but if I were to go on a tour, might as well be Celebrity's.

 

And they do wait if it's Celebrity sponsored. A group on a Celebrity bus were very late in St. Petersburg, and we waited until their return before the last of the crew came on board.

[bpolan]

We did the mediterranean several years ago on Royal Carribean. We booked excursions to pompeii and to florence through RCCL, and enjoyed both very much. In Marseilles, we hired a taxi for the day and had the very very best day of the entire vacation. the rest of the ports, we walked into town and did our shopping or sightseeing on our own. We loved it.

bp

[snickers]

We recently came back from the galaxy June 23 Med cruise. In all the ports we went on ships excursions, and are we glad we did. The last excursion, which I recommend to everyone going to the Livorno port, was The Tuscan countryside. It included visits to Volterra, San Gimignano, and a lunch in a Tuscan farmhouse. Our bus broke down on our last stop, ( luckily we had already been to all 3 stops). San Gimignano was about 2 hours from Livorno. celebrity held the ship for 2 hours until our bus of 40 people arrived. Had we been on a private excursion, that ship would have sailed and we would have been stranded, and been on our own to get back to Rome.!!

 

Also my recommendations for mEd cruise: In naples, if you have already been to Pompeii and capri, go to the Archeological Museum and Pizza Tasting. The best pizza I ever tasted, and the museum is wonderful with all the beautiful artifacts from Pompeii. IN Santorini, don't miss Oia. And try to have lunch at Sphinx restaurant in Fira, Santorini. Amazing views and excellent food!!! In Sicicly the all day Taormina and Mt Etna, and in Livorni if you've already been to Florence and Pisa, the Tuscan Countryside excursion ( even with the bys breakdown) was superb.!!!