Booking Shore Tours on Princess

My wife and I have booked on the Royal Princess, Trans-Atlantic, this Oct. We had previously reserved two shore excursions by Princess, several weeks ago. However, yesterday, when we attempted to pre-reserve some additional tours we were surprised to find that all, and I mean all, of the tours were sold out.

We contacted Princess on Monday, and were expecting to be told that additional shore excursions would be available to be booked on board. However, Princess informed us that this is not the case; and currently Princess does not intend to add any additional tours to those which have been sold out.

Princess told us, politely, that we are out of luck in respect to booking any additional shore excursions.

This is the first time that this has even happened whether on Princess, RCCL, Carnival, Celebrity etc. It seems that Princess has a new policy, that one should book well in advance of the cruise, or face the prospect of being shut out.

Does anyone have any suggestions.

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Does anyone have any suggestions.

Give it a little time. I find it hard to believe they won't add more tour capacity given a month's notice. It may be a little while as I suspect the excursions group is going to be a little busy rearranging future Caribbean excursions.

OTOH, join your cruise's roll call and see if anyone is arranging private tours.

We always check excursions as soon as they're available. They can (and do) sell out. If you call back and talk to a different rep, you'll likely get a different answer. The reps don't know and make stuff up to get you off the phone.

1) Check with your roll call as suggested above.

2) Check every day for new excursions or slots that have been released due to cancellations.

Good luck!

That happened to us at one of the Norway stops because, frankly, they just don't have enough tour guides to service that area. If that is not the case with your stops, you can always check with private tours or check with your Roll Call and see if you can join any private tours anyone has set up. I actually prefer private tours to the ship's.

We're on the same cruise & there is a very active roll call with many independent tours booked but this close to sailing there is very limited availability.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2287876&page=199

I just checked for tour availability and every tour has a Reserve box but checking more tours details the ones I viewed had either "soldout" or "waitlist". That is odd on a Spanish Passage itinerary & it's something I've never experienced.

This cruise did not require advance payment to reserve tours so there may be some cancellations & eventually availability with waitlisted tours either before sailing or on the ship.

We did the spring TA on the Royal and did only private tours arranged thru our Roll Call.

You are on the largest class cruise ship Princess has. The tour providers at the ports on your itinerary may be limited in the number of tour slots they can sell to Princess.

With a smaller ship, there might still have been some openings, but with more passengers on your ship, it is easy to believe the tours are sold out.

Thanks for the response, we are hoping that Princess will add some additional tours after we board Royal Princess. If not, we do have a Fodor's tour book, and will do some sightseeing by ourselves. In any case, looking forward to the trip. Royal Princess is a great ship, we have a mini-suite with C.C., and drink package included.

How far in advance can you book them thru princess so I can be on look out for excursions?

How far in advance can you book them thru princess so I can be on look out for excursions?

Prior to requiring payment to pre-book tours which began earlier this year, they stated generally they're available 90-120 days prior to sailing. However I've experienced as late as 30 days & as early as 11 months in advance.

Here's their current statement from their shore excursions FAQs: "You can book your shore excursion with Cruise Personalizer® from approximately 180 days before travel, and up to 5 days before you depart".

https://www.princess.com/learn/faq_answer/pre_cruise/excursions.jsp

Why not just book with local tour operators or research to DIY. Much cheaper than ship tours. As you don't list your ports of call it's difficult to advise.

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Why not just book with local tour operators or research to DIY. Much cheaper than ship tours. As you don't list your ports of call it's difficult to advise.

 

 

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The local tours can also sell out way far in advance. We're booked on the 49 day repositioning of the Royal from FLL to LA around the horn. The cruise isn't until February 2019 but there are folks who have already fully booked certain private tours that are highly recommended or that they have done in the past. Seriously. For a cruise in 2019 these excursions are completely full. A bit mind boggling...

I wonder what the tour desk on the Royal and other Princess boats will be doing. With virtually all the tours booked, they appear to be out of a job.

Well, I agree it is mind boggling. I sometimes don't even know what I'm doing next week, let alone in 2019!

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It used to be that the only thing you had to do in advance of the cruise was to decide whether to do early dining or late dining. It appears that the cruise lines now wish for you to have everything and I mean everything planned out months before the cruise. Specifically what Speciality Restaurants you wish to dine in, whether you wish to pay your gratuities in advance, what tours you wish to book, whether you want to celebrate a birthday or anniversary and if so, how to do it. To me, it tends to take a bit of fun out of the cruise, in that in the past, we liked to make decisions as the cruise progressed while on the boat. A good example, one meets a group of people and they wish to get together, but they find that they are unable to book a Specialty Restaurant because it has been booked well in advance, or they would like to take a tour together and find that this also has been booked.

The local tours can also sell out way far in advance. We're booked on the 49 day repositioning of the Royal from FLL to LA around the horn. The cruise isn't until February 2019 but there are folks who have already fully booked certain private tours that are highly recommended or that they have done in the past. Seriously. For a cruise in 2019 these excursions are completely full. A bit mind boggling...

A problem is that many of the ports do not have the tour infrastructure to support the number of passengers on a ship the size of the Regal.

We did part of that route on the Golden which has about 2600 passengers. Even then there were not enough tour spaces available in many ports, especially the Falkland Islands. Sending a ship with 1000 more passengers simply means 1000 more disappointed passengers who will not be able to find meaningful excursions.