dhy10565

24 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I think you are asking about Viator, not Aviator, right?

 

If so, my experience with them has been very mixed. Some good tours, some not so good. They are a consolidator (e.g., middle man), and the common wisdom is that it is better to track down the actual local provider -- but I realize that is not so easy in Japan.

 

And with that said, I will say that two of the better tours I did with them WERE in Japan. I think Japanese tour companies have high standards in general. I've had not-great experiences with Viator in Italy, Portugal, and the US and I have moved away from using them due to some of those experiences....

 

Thank you for your feedback. I found tourguides.viator reviews on Tripadvisor but not on Cruise Critic. Tripadvisor have mixed reviews too.  I think we will continue to look for other options first. 

3 hours ago, JMorris271 said:

May I inquire which date your cruise is? We are on the 13th and looking to do that as well.

Yes, we are on the Apr 13th sailing starting from Yokohama. I am signup on CC roll call. So far some of the people on this roll call have booked private tours with a van but not enough room for the 4 of us. We don't mind taking public transportation, Shinkansenm, from Kobe to Kyoto, but we prefer to have the guide meet us at the port. So far, many guides want to meet at the Kyoto JR station.

We are booked on a Japan & Korea cruise with Celebrity Millennium sailing in April 2019.  For some of the ports in Japan, we would like to do private tours. Has anyone hired tour guides from Aviator ? Their website is  Tourguides.viator.com. We are thinking of hiring one for Kobe-Kyoto. Any recommendations?  We checked Triplelights and toursbylocal but have not found exactly what we want. Appreciate any help ...Thanks. 

4 hours ago, Keith1010 said:

You are very welcome cruisemom42.

 

Keith

Thanks everyone for your help. I will keep your recommendations in mind when planning.  Will also post on ports of call board.

We are booked on the Celebrity Millennium sailing to Japan & Korea in April 2019.  The ports in this itinerary include: Kobe, Kochi, Hiroshima, Hakodate, and Yokohama. This is our first trip to Japan and we have questions.

1) We plan to book some private tours and not sure what time we should ask the local guide to meet us at the port.  Should we ask to meet 1/2 hour or 1 hour after the ship is scheduled to arrive ?

2) For Hiroshima, I think Celebrity Millennium is expect to dock in Itsukaichi port. Would there be shuttles from this port to the JR Itsukaichi station ? How frequent, how long the ride, and cost for this shuttle ? We plan to take the local train from this station to Miyajimaguchi, then take ferry to Miyajima.

3) Our cruise ends in Yokohama for an overnight stay. How long should we expect to complete debarkation next morning ? We have prearranged private transfer to airport and would like to know what time we should ask the driver to meet us at the port.

Help on any of the questions above is greatly appeciated...Thanks.

This is just a followup to my question on transfer from Marina Bay Cruise Center to Changi airport with very early morning departure at 4:30am.

We just returned from our Celebrity cruise, ending with an overnight in Singapore. It was quick and smooth departing the ship at 4:30am in the morning. There were staffs available around the clock to process passengers on and off the ship. You should confirm and advise the Celebrity guest relations a few days before that you are leaving early.

I would recommend pre-arrange a transfer to the airport if you have a very early flight. I don't remember seeing any taxi when we got out of the cruise terminal at 4:30am. We pre-booked a private transfer with Blacklane.com a week before our trip. We also pre-booked the transfer with Blacklane.com for our Hong Kong hotel to Kai Tak cruise terminal. We had great service in both transfers, on time and clean business vans.

Hope this followup will help future cruisers in same situation as us.

Thanks for the info.

We are ending our Celebrity Millennium cruise in Singapore. The ship has an overnight in Singapore. We have an early flight on Sun, Nov 22 so we need to pre-arrange a private land taxi from the Marina Bay Cruise Center to the Singapore Changi Airport. There are 4 of us in the group plus luggage. Can anyone recommend a private land taxi company ?

Also, do you know if we might have problems getting off the ship and out of the cruise port on a Sunday at 4:00 AM ? Will there be immigration/security officers available that early in the morning ?

Thank you very much.

Thanks, much appreciated.

We are ending our Celebrity Silhouette Cruise at Venice on May 16, 2014. We have an early flight so we would prefer to pre-arrange a private land taxi from the Venice cruise port to Marco Polo Airport. There are 6 of us in the group. Can anyone recommend a private land taxi company ?

Thanks for the info...good to know with only one entrance we should not miss the taxi driver.

Celebrity Silhouette will arrive in Venice on May 15, 2014 for overnight stay. Does anyone know which berth the ship may be docked in the Marittima pier ? And, where to get that information ? I tried using the http://www.VTP.it/terminal website but only see the schedule with dates but could not find berth details for specific ships. We plan to arrange a private transfer to the airport and I thought this would be useful info. Thanks in advance!