Not Booking Excursions Ahead for British Isles?

We're taking a Princess cruise next month that goes to Guernsey, Cobh (for Cork and Blarney Castle), Dublin, Greenock (for Glasgow), Inverness, and Edinburgh. Seeing all the excursions the folks on our rollcall thread have made reservations for is making me dizzy. Which of these ports is it a must to do an excursion (and which ones must be booked in advance)? Will any ports have tours available near the dock?

We don't feel like we have to see every castle or other historic attraction. We're just as comfortable doing a walking tour through a town, stopping at a pub for lunch or somewhere for afternoon tea, going to a small local museum, shopping along the high street, etc.

Our Sept CB BI Roll Call also have organized a lot of shared excursion that also overwhelmed me. Like you, we are not keen on joining too many excursions. We just want to move around at our own pace due to my mobility issues. One castle is enough. We plan to book an excursion in Edinburgh.

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I find this site useful: https://www.whatsinport.com/ (Tom's Port Guides are good but don't include many of the ports on our itinerary.) Note that the Channel Islands (St. Peter Port, Guernsey) are listed separately from the United Kingdom.

I think just about all the ports are easy to DIY in that even if there's not much in the port area itself, public transportation connections are reasonable. It just depends what you want to see. For example, if you're happy staying in Belfast, you can easily DIY, but if you want to visit the Giant's Causeway and the Antrim -- like we do that day -- you'll want an excursion.

Cobh is a nice little town (last port of call for the Titanic.....) and has a small Titanic Experience which is ok.

the train station is right beside the pier and trains run to Cork city often.

I would give Blarney Castle a miss. Not worth the queueing and travelling time and as for kissing the blarney stone ugh! yuk!

Although I would highly recommend private tours in all of these ports, I realize that's not for everyone and can get costly.

IME, you need to book a tour in Greenock and Edinburgh to see the sites because they're farther away from the ship and it's not that easy to walk into town. Or, you can contract with a taxi driver to take you on a tour by the hour. Just have a pretty clear idea of what you want to see and ask for the taxi driver's advice on feasibility within your time/price constraints.

For Guernsey, you can take the public bus to the main sites of interest.

In Dublin, you can take the Luas (their metro system) or a taxi into the center of Dublin - like near Merrion Square or St. Stephen's Green - then do stuff from there. Also, some cruise lines will offer transfers from the ship into Dublin but from what I hear, Princess is charging $8 per person, per way. They take you to Merrion Square and will return you to the ship on the half-hour or so. But - from my calculations, these transfers are about the same cost as a taxi (16E one way).

For Invergordon, some people walk into that little town instead of doing the usual Highlands stuff: http://www.cruisecritic.com/ports/newport.cfm?ID=5859

Thanks. Since posting my questions, I did more research and found that we can take the train from Greenock to Glasgow. There appears to be lots of things to do there. Our ship is in port until late that night (to accommodate those who want to go to the tattoo in Edinburgh), so I'm not as leery of traveling away from the port city on our own.

We can make it to Edinburgh Castle on our own from South Queensferry by either bus or train. Once again, we have enough time before the ship leaves that evening to not have to worry about being rushed to get back. We will plan on being back at least three hours before the ship sails.

Thanks. Since posting my questions, I did more research and found that we can take the train from Greenock to Glasgow. There appears to be lots of things to do there. Our ship is in port until late that night (to accommodate those who want to go to the tattoo in Edinburgh), so I'm not as leery of traveling away from the port city on our own.

 

We can make it to Edinburgh Castle on our own from South Queensferry by either bus or train. Once again, we have enough time before the ship leaves that evening to not have to worry about being rushed to get back. We will plan on being back at least three hours before the ship sails.

Edinburgh is a compact city with the main sites all within walking distance of each other to anybody's who's fit. There's a shuttle bus at the port, operated by a local coach company and that costs £10 / $15 round trip. It's not booked in advance but you may have a wait as it's very popular. You can also get the train which involves an uphill walk of around 10 minutes to get to the station. The main station in Edinburgh is called Edinburgh Waverley.

If you're starting at the Castle, you could just walk down the Royal Mile visiting any number of sites. I would suggest you pick out just a few main places to spend time in as Edinburgh, and the Royal Mile in particular, will be very, very busy when you are there and it may take you longer to get around than you expect. It is not only the Tattoo but the Edinburgh Festival and the Fringe Festival will also be going on. I've got the Fringe Programme here and there are 450 pages in i, with on average 10 shows on each page!!

Dublin can be done taking the HoHo Bus. It is not expensive.

I recommend booking private tours in advance for going to Edinburgh (from Greenock). Edinburgh is a better pick than Glasgow.

For Invergordon we had a wonderful tour to Loch Ness and Inverness.

Guernsey, we took a bike tour from the docks that was fun. You can DIY in Guernsey.

Cobh- we took a great inexpensive private bus tour. Can't remember the name, but we went to Blarney Castle, which I enjoyed as well as Kinsale.

Paddywagon tours as well as Viator you can check out.

Thanks. I wonder about your recommendation to skip Glasgow for Edinburgh. When I pull up info on Glasgow, there looks to be plenty of interesting things to see and do. We'll be in Edinburgh three days later, and right now, I'm thinking that Holyroodhouse and Edinburgh Castle will be the primary attractions we go to there.

Thanks. I wonder about your recommendation to skip Glasgow for Edinburgh. When I pull up info on Glasgow, there looks to be plenty of interesting things to see and do. We'll be in Edinburgh three days later, and right now, I'm thinking that Holyroodhouse and Edinburgh Castle will be the primary attractions we go to there.

There's lots to fill a day in Glasgow and it's a bit of a trek to Edinburgh if you want to DIY it. You've got a day in Edinburgh so personally I'd stick at that. The feel of the two cities is very different so it would be good to see both. Also there's so much more to see in Edinburgh than Holyrood and The Castle.

I'm doing a similar cruise this month. So far, the only pre-paid excursion I've booked ahead is in Belfast. Everywhere else, there seems to be a lot to do on your own, either using public transport or the occasional taxi. For Greenock, I booked one of the by-donation tour of the countryside from the Inverclydetouristgroup.co.uk website.

Right now, I'm debating whether I want to pre-pay Edinburgh castle so I can skip the line... I haven't decided whether to do it first thing in the morning, or in late afternoon after the crowds thin out. Though I heard the tendering can be time-consuming so I don't know if I can get there when it opens at 9:30.

Thanks. I wonder about your recommendation to skip Glasgow for Edinburgh. When I pull up info on Glasgow, there looks to be plenty of interesting things to see and do. We'll be in Edinburgh three days later, and right now, I'm thinking that Holyroodhouse and Edinburgh Castle will be the primary attractions we go to there.

When I researched visiting Glasgow or Edinburgh, I saw interesting things to see in both places, as well as others in the countryside.

However, in my opinion, Edinburgh was awesome. I was not disappointed, Edinburgh is one of those must see places. The next time I visited Greenock, I joined a tour of St. Andrews and sites in that area north of Edinburgh. It was very nice, in particular the ancient abbey where Robert the Bruce was buried.

I have a similar dilemma with our U.K. cruise in two weeks. I've booked a few private excursions with people from my roll call, but lately have found myself wishing I hadn't! I worry that by leaving things up in the air I might miss out, but at worst, I figure I can go into the towns and walk around or take a HoHo bus. I'm also looking up the meeting points for free walking tours.

We were in Invergordon and Edinburg this past May and did both ports DIY. There was a taxi stand right outside the port gate at Invergordon and then there was a bus tour booth a little further up. We took the 25X bus to Inverness instead and then went on a boat trip on Loch Ness. Very easy to do. Just finished the trip report on Invergordon on my blog and working on the Edinburg part now.