World Cruise Excursions

Is it best to book these excursions as soon as they are published, or is it okay to wait until we board the ship and then have the time to chat to our fellow passengers and hear how they rate what is on offer?

I have a fear of waiting as the most popular trips might get sold out, but on the other hand if we wait, we can discuss the various options plus any purchase would then be deducted from onboard credits?

We have never cruised before so this is a step into the unknown (a very big step) ;)

Regards to one and all

John

John, we make all of our excursion decisions ahead of time including those through the cruise line and those we do a private excursions. That way we ensure those that we want to do have availability. However, once on the ship we actually sit down with the manager or assistant manager of the shore excursion department to discuss our choices for those that we booked with the cruise line and we make some changes based on their recommendations.

Keith

John, we make all of our excursion decisions ahead of time including those through the cruise line and those we do a private excursions. That way we ensure those that we want to do have availability. However, once on the ship we actually sit down with the manager or assistant manager of the shore excursion department to discuss our choices for those that we booked with the cruise line and we make some changes based on their recommendations.

 

Keith

Hi Keith,

That is most helpful and thank you very much, I hopefully understand from what you are saying, we can book excursions prior to boarding the ship and then once aboard, we can chat with the manager\assistant booking manager and then maybe alter our choiceif we are not happy with the decisions we have made?

Thanks again for the reply,

John

John, that is the experience on our cruise line.

You may want to ask others on the cruise line you are sailing on the cruise line board if that is their experience as well.

Keith

John, that is the experience on our cruise line.

 

You may want to ask others on the cruise line you are sailing on the cruise line board if that is their experience as well.

 

Keith

I also booked the excursions that I really wanted right away. Some of the ports that don't have any "must do's", I'll wait till I'm on the ship and talk with others. In fact a few of us on our roll call have made plans to discuss some of the ports. There are ports in Australia and New Zealand that we'll ask fellow passengers who are from that part of the world for recommendations.

Have a great trip.

Don

John

I did the world on QE this year. Some of the excursions did sell out before we departed from the UK. Many of the prices also went up after the excursions became available to book. I booked most of mine in late September and when I went to finalise the last few in November, all the ones I was interested in had gone up by around 10%.

If you cancel any once you are on board, you will be charged a 10% cancellation fee but you can cancel up to 7 days before your cruise departure (not the excursion date!) without penalty.

One of the advantages of booking the ships excursions was that some order of the ports of call were changed with little warning and the ship automatically changed the excursion bookings.

There were some excursions available on board that were not available before sailing.

John

 

I did the world on QE this year. Some of the excursions did sell out before we departed from the UK. Many of the prices also went up after the excursions became available to book. I booked most of mine in late September and when I went to finalise the last few in November, all the ones I was interested in had gone up by around 10%.

 

If you cancel any once you are on board, you will be charged a 10% cancellation fee but you can cancel up to 7 days before your cruise departure (not the excursion date!) without penalty.

 

One of the advantages of booking the ships excursions was that some order of the ports of call were changed with little warning and the ship automatically changed the excursion bookings.

 

There were some excursions available on board that were not available before sailing.

Sadly for me it looks like Cunard are not catering for disabled folk but hopefully once on board the ship I can have a chat with those 'behind the desk' :)

Hi

Dont want to rain on anyone's parade BUT I have found the ships excursions to be really not worth the money. They usually include a shopping trip ( we had 20 mins at the Pyramids and a whole hour at some carpet shop in Egypt )

Also they are cute on the actual journey time to the sites. If I had know I would be sitting in a coach most of the day I wouldn't have booked.

In English speaking countries we always organise our own trips - its just cheaper and we can time things to our own choice.

Share a taxi with your table companions maybe.

Hope this helps.

Koo