Carnival vs. local excursions???

[southwardbound]

I was just wondering if there was pros and cons out there about taking an excursion by Carnival vs one by a local? Safety, Reliability, Cost, etc. Thanks!:)

[DonMar]

We took a Carnival excursion in Feb 07, but friend from CC booked a tour with myfriendmario.com. They had a great time. I can not speak from personal experience, but if I were to go back to Panama, I would book with myfriendmario.

(We normally do our own thing, by you could only get on the train from Colon to Panama City through the cruise lines.)

[southwardbound]

Thanks DonMar. I have good and bad reviews from My Friend Mario, and so I was a little concerned. :)

[BillB48]

Be careful if you book a private tour that includes Panama City. Not saying that it is unsafe or anything like that, it is only because of the distances involved. I have read on this board of tour groups just getting back to the ship barely in time as result of congested highways. You really don't want to add that great photo of your ship sailing out of the harbor and you taking the picture to your photo album:eek:!

[Randy & Kathy]

We were there last Nov. and booked a tour with Mario, the CL007 tour, and had a great time. They were very informative and provided a tour that was full of lasting memories. Below my signature is a smugmug link, click on that and go to the Panama section and you can see a sample of some of the pictures that we took. We had a great day there, and in MHO it was a better tour and less expensive than those provided by the cruise line.

Randy

[southwardbound]

Thanks for everyone's imput. We are looking at CL001 with Mario which is the Rainforest, San Lorenzo and Gatun Locks. It a six hour tour. Our ship is docked from 7am -5pm......I think I will email Mario and ask when this tour departs the port.

The other Carnival tours that we are considering are: Mountain biking to San Lorenzo or kayaking in Gatun locks. We don't want to stay on the ship and would like to just get a small flavor of Panama....:)

[churee]

We are also considering MFM CL001. When will you be going? We will be there in February on the Constellation. If you are going soon,please let me know what you think of this excursion. I am still undecided.