Mangalore, India

Can the major sites in Mangalore be seen and enjoyed using a taxi? Or do I need to book a private tour company? Thanks for your help.

Don't use a taxi - arrange for a private tour before hand. Plenty of India tour guide suggestions here. We had a fantastic day in Mangalore even though it was a public holiday. I recommend you visit the wholesale fish market on the wharf - wild, bustling, crazy, a completely different view than the usual tourist spots such as the church. There is a wildlife park that might interest you. We used Magic and were pleased with our day.

Be sure to try the famous Mangalore fish fry for lunch. Several very good restaurants overlooking the town from up on the hill where it is cooler.

We are using a tour company and have an excellent price.

http://www.mangaloredaytours.com/

Lijo jose

Muziris Heritage - Day Tours

wwww.daytoursincochin.com

+91 9846249482

Mangalore

This tour is $85 per person for a maximum of 18 persons in a 21 seater van.

The tour is described in this link. It includes

1. Pick up from the cruise terminal

2. Cashew factory visit

3. Kadri and Gogarnatha temple visit

4. Visit Central market

5. St. Aloysius Chapel visit

6. Orientation tour of Mangalore city

7. Drop you at the cruise terminal according to your schedule.

In that spirit, we used in April http://www.magictoursofindia.com. They were terrific in three cities our ship visited - Goa, Mangalore, Cochin. We had a small group of four people and found the guides from Magic Tours were superb, their communication with us in the US was great (before hand with a detailed itinerary and listing of costs for each stop), they accept credit cards.

Most importantly, they delivered on everything promised and made our visits truly memorable and allowed our guides to change our schedule as we saw fit.

In Mangalore we decided to dump Moodabiidri and the Jain temple with 1000 pillars. Glad we did - others on the ship who went said it was a long trip and a waste of time.

Instead, we went to the fish market, visited an eye popping brand new Hindu temple donated by the Ghandi family, went to our guide's family home, the Chapel and had a lovely lunch up in the hills, one in our small group stopped to get their hand tattooed with henna. Fun day.

I recommend Magic Tours for small groups stopping on a cruise in India.

Hi, just wondering whether cruise ships dock or anchor in Mangalore. I saw one website that claims that due to sandbars, ships much anchor. We will be on a smaller ship and very much hoping that we can dock.

Thanks!

Just returned from an around the world on Pacific Princess. One of our stops was Mangalore, India. At the time we booked we were told that everyone had to have an Indian Visa, cost around $180 US. ( we were told later the Indian law had changed and this is no longer the case) Not much to see in Mangalore, and we would not have paid this much to get off the ship here.

But, we had the visa, so we went. We used Magic Tours of India and were very impressed. We saw all the sights offered by the ship's tour and more. Plus, since there were only nine of us, the guide was very agreeable to going off the written agenda to show us things of interest, not in the guide books. He was also very aware of the time we needed to be back to the port and made sure we were on schedule.

As mentioned in other posts, this was not a professional guide, so he didn't bombard us for hours about the history of Mangalore back to 2000 BC, and this was a good thing. He was however, very knowledgeable about the area and able to answer any questions we had. Then, when we arrived at a sight he took a few minutes to tell us about what we were going to see and answer any specific questions before turning us loose.

The only small issue that arose was that when we arrived at one of the sights, they wanted a $2 admission fee and the guide was confused by this and said it wasn't included in the price, despite the written email from Magic Tours stating otherwise. So, we paid the two dollars. We learned during the tour here that this may have been a misunderstanding, in that we were given samples of the juices produced on this farm whereas the folks on the Princess tour were not. So, maybe the two dollars was optional if you wanted the juice samples. No big deal, but when we arrived back at the ship, a Magic Tours supervisor was there to see how we enjoyed the tour and when we mentioned this, he wanted to refund everyone the $2. We declined and just said he might want to check into this.

All-in-all, we had a wonderful tour and were very pleased with our guide and driver. So, if you obtain or have an Indian visa and get off in Mangalore, we recommend you save some money and use Magic Tours.