Tour companies that arrange sharing

We have three ports in the French Riviera on our upcoming cruise in June. I haven't been successful in getting anyone to share excursions and the costs are more than our budget for private ones. Are there any tour companies that will provide shared excursions where I don't have to find people to share? I found several great excursions that I would like but I would have to get others to have the cost reasonable. I don't want to do the ship excursions for several reasons (itinerary, cost, too many people, too much time on buses vs experiencing the locales).

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Hi,

Have you considered DIY, using public transport?

For instance, the French train system is very very different to Amtrak - fast, frequent, reliable, inexpensive, usually comfortable, and with a superb rail line along the coast. Many of your shipmates will be using it to access places like Monte Carlo, Nice, Antibes.

Alternatively, for shared tours check out consolidators like cruisingexcursions, Viator & City Discovery. These are booking agencies and they sell seats, not vans, on behalf of local tour operators.

They have their limitations. Some are geared to your ship's time in port, with others you'll be sharing with folk based in hotels & need to be very careful about timings. You pay with booking, some will refund if your ship doesn't make port & some don't. But you can be more confident that your money is safer with these large international concerns than with some unknown operator in a foreign country. Reviews of their offerings are mixed, because they're not the operators - so good or bad reviews of a particular tour won't be a reliable guide to the quality of their other tours/operators.

They're also a little more expensive than a direct booking, but usually only by a few dollars - most of their profit comes from the big discounts that they get from bulk-buying.

Or by a little detective-work with the help of google, using their tour description you can often trace the actual operator. This gives you a clearer picture of the tour, a better opportunity to check independent reviews, and perhaps book direct at a lower price.

What are your ports? And what do you want to explore from them?

JB :)

Hello,

You are so right about Googling the description. I found out the tour I was thinking of booking through Viator is with a company that has poor reviews. I was wondering if you could recommend anyone for a tour of Marseille, Aix Provence and Cassis?

Check out the website for Tours By Locals.

Also check provence-connection-tours.com.

They have tour shares and good reviews!

Check out the website for Tours By Locals.

It looks like all their tours are per tour not per person. :(

ack. all those tours are $700 to $800 per tour, so still expensive even if you find 7 people to accompany you.

is there any way to tour Marseilles and the area for $50 or $60 a person?

I had a hard time finding a reasonable tour for Marsielle. After lots of erase arch I think I found a good one. If you are in Marseille port on a tues, thurs, or Saturday then this tour would work. They even offer discounted tours for kids. I booked it for my family in June. It's through Provence Xplorer.

http://www.provence-xplorer.com/excursion/day-tour-from-marseille-to-aix-en-provence-and-cassis/

Hope that helps.

Beth