Shore Excursions offered as you walk off the ship

[CloudTbird]

Need help in finding shore excursions other than those offered by the ship, POA. On other cruises we have been able to walk off the ship and find many individuals willing to take us in a mini van and show us the highlights of the area. Can anyone give me some suggestions?

[James8]

Yep saw this in Hilo. Roberts (booked ahead of time) was the most popular company I saw on every port. They have the same excurions as NCL but $20 cheaper.

[CloudTbird]

Thanks...have been looking at Roberts web site and their shore excusions.

[Giantfan13]

You might be right James, but I never noticed any tour operators looking for people to do tours at any ports. Maybe I wasn't looking very hard. In other areas, like the Carribbean, these tour people are everywhere, but I never saw them in Hawaii. Again, I'm not saying they weren't there, but if so, they weren't that noticable.

[bustervonboodle]

They are there, we used one in Kona, and saw them in Hilo. As the day goes by the price drops too! Be prepared to wait, the tour operator wants to get as many people as possible in his van, so you will book it and have to wander around for a bit while waiting. I can only suggest this option only for the port of Kona, since i didn't do it anywhere else. But we were happy with our budget tour. We saw alot of things and it was more personal.
We did NO ship tours, we booked everything thru roberts and had a great time in a half filled mini bus watching an overcrowded bus full of cruise ship booked people looking very unhappy. We were able to spread out and move quickly to and from the bus at rest stops, and snacks, and shopping. We even had extra time and our tour guides took us to other places not on the tour, we even got him to stop at the Hard Rock Cafe.
At every port there is a designated place for the Roberts bus to pick you up, i highly recommend them.