Joining a private shore excursion

How does it work? Clarification: if another Cruise Critic member sets up a Shore Excursion and I decide to join it, do I pay them or do I pay the shore excursions company? If I pay the shore excursions company, how do I find out what it is? I'm asking this because on the last two cruises I've seen a lot of shore excursions but I have no idea how this stuff is supposed to work

How does it work? Clarification: if another Cruise Critic member sets up a Shore Excursion and I decide to join it, do I pay them or do I pay the shore excursions company? If I pay the shore excursions company, how do I find out what it is? I'm asking this because on the last two cruises I've seen a lot of shore excursions but I have no idea how this stuff is supposed to work

I book all of my shore excursions through independent operators - I have utilized a ship tour only once (when there was no viable alternative). I always pay the tour operator directly (assuming they require prepayment or a deposit) and I have joined several groups organized through roll calls.

FWIW - my cruises are almost exclusively to European ports.

If joining a group then you pay the tour operator? It's Bali

I haven't done this, but I personally would only do it if I paid the independent excursion company directly, ie. had my own booking. In that case you'd only be requesting to be in the same group as others here (if that excursion operator would even have more than 1 group for an excursion - often they don't). You'd only need the operator name, excursion type/name if applicable, and possibly time of day (you'd already know the day), and would contact the operator.

I would respond to post on your Roll Call about it but I see you already have. Hope you find something. Have fun. :)

If joining a group then you pay the tour operator? It's Bali

I have both joined and organized private small group tours. The requirement for deposit or pre-payment or pay after the tour varies (per person or per group) from activity to activity, place to place (all over the world) and company to company.

In any case, do your research about providers.

For example, if you ever do Bora Bora, anyone who's been there a few times will tell you the Patrick and his Maohi Nui Tour is the "gold standard."

Someone will start the ball rolling with an e-mail to him to set the date and itinerary/pricing/minimum folks required. Once details are settled, the specifics go onto the CC "roll call". And I always organize it as "first come, first served" with reservation and any required deposit/prepayment done directly between individual passengers and the tour provider. If payment is done at the end of the tour, we'll always meet onboard after muster to solidify plans and, sometimes, collect the payment due (for ease of dealing with the Tour folks).

Note that, once the slots are filled pre-cruise, that's it. Sign-ups are Honor-bound to not pull out (or they must find replacements) so as to not disadvantage others if the tour is "per vehicle" as opposed to "per person."

Fortunately, we've always picked tours that are well respected and book full months in advance.

Whatever you do, do NOT become responsible for collecting money (except as described above just before you head out on a tour if it makes things easier) and do NOT take on responsibility for the whole $$$ contract.

when I have set up a tour I will collect the money on the day of the tour & pay the guide if it is one sum for X number of people eg: 300 for up to 10 people then divide it by the number in the group for pp rate

Some guides will price the tour PP even though I have booked the tour with my group I let people pay their own amount

If I have to prepay for the whole amount up front then I collect from the other group members before the tour date

There are several ways to do it

You can also just set a tour for the 2 of you if that is what you prefer

I keep my groups limited to 12 pax or less

YMMV

How does it work? Clarification: if another Cruise Critic member sets up a Shore Excursion and I decide to join it, do I pay them or do I pay the shore excursions company? If I pay the shore excursions company, how do I find out what it is? I'm asking this because on the last two cruises I've seen a lot of shore excursions but I have no idea how this stuff is supposed to work

I have joined others’ excursions, I have organized excursions. Payment? It depends. Some companies make it easy for every participant to pay directly. The organizer will give you an email or URL address, plus a code like “tell them you are joining Joe Bottlefly’s excursion to the Dead Sea on 12/25/2018”. Some companies expect a single payment from the single organizer; when I am that guy, I am on the hook for the total amount and just need to have faith that my fellow cruisers will not stiff me.

In short, if an organizer says he/she has space on an excursion you want to do, ask him/her about the payment process. There is no common single correct answer.

Stan

The simple answer is that "it varies." Whoever organizes a group tour will generally post (on the appropriate Roll Call) the terms of the tour. Over the years we have directly paid tour providers in advance (online) and also at the actual tour. In other cases we have actually forwarded some money to the tour organizer and we have also had private tours where the organizer will collect all the money during a planned meeting on the cruise.

Hank

I have planned a lot of private excursions. I research the operators and find a tour I like. Then I email the operator to check availability and book it for , like 8

Then I post the details on my roll call. If personal information is required up front, I ask all my tour members to communicate directly with the tour operator.

Only twice was I asked for deposit. It was small and I do pay it up front. (I'm trusting Lol ) Never had a problem. Generally payment is in full at end of tour. I collect the money and hand it to our guide/driver.

We did this for the first time last summer on our European cruise. We took a chance, but so did the person who booked it. At the time, Overlord Tours didn't require full payment ahead of time, I guess now they do. But they did require someone to give a credit card to hold the reservation, and they would charge a penalty if we didn't show up. We then had 3 parties in our group (a woman with her parents, another couple, and ourselves with our teenage son). So once we agreed to do this through our roll call here on CC, we exchanged emails and communicated that way. I know anyone can say/be anything they want through an email, but you can get a feeling for the people you're booking with. In fact, it turned out the one woman actually lived like 5 miles from us! LOL! But in our case, we brought Euros to pay the tour operator on the day of our tour in Le Havre.

It worked out perfectly! Of course, I know there are stories when it doesn't, but we did it and had no problems. I think you really need to communicate (through email if you can) with the people you're looking to book with.

I have organized a few group excursions. Generally, I am an advance planner, so I start the ball rolling with a guide/trip that I want to do, then I open it up in the roll call to help the tour operator get to the desired/minimum number of bodies. I advertise my email address and then I do most of the nitty-gritty planning via email. This is one area where the lack of private messaging on CruiseCritic is a real PITA.

Luckily, I have never had to handle group money. If the tour operator wants money, I let each party make their own formal reservation & payment. Basically I just become a shepherd then. I would probably not object to putting a deposit down on behalf of the group, but I don't really want to get in the business of collecting payments from each party. If I was joining somebody else's roll-call tour, I would rather make a required advance payment directly to the tour operator than to another passenger, but I wouldn't rule it out.

I do try and get my groups together at a designated meeting point on the ship, then we all disembark together and go find our tour operator.

Luckily, the tours I have done have been known & reliable operators and I think they appreciated me being a single point of contact and email funnel. Those operators also collected payment and tips from each group at the end of the tour. By not handling money, I also avoid being the complaint dept if someone isn't happy :)

YMMV

How does it work? Clarification: if another Cruise Critic member sets up a Shore Excursion and I decide to join it, do I pay them or do I pay the shore excursions company? If I pay the shore excursions company, how do I find out what it is? I'm asking this because on the last two cruises I've seen a lot of shore excursions but I have no idea how this stuff is supposed to work

I almost never take ship tours and I feel that they are a total rip off unless there are no alternatives. In some ports, the ships buy up all the local tours and you have no alternative. Between the ones that I have joined and the ones that I have organized, I have probably done 80 - 100 private tours and have never had any problems regarding guides or payments. I should add that I only set up or participate in small group tours with less than 10 people and usually less than that and I find that the people who do small group tours are usually pretty cool.

In answer to your question, how you pay depends upon the tour. Some guides ask for payment in advance and some let you pay after you have taken the tour. How they handle it does not matter to me. If I have set up the tour and I have to pay in advance, I ask that the other people on the tour pay me on the ship when we meet for the tour. If the guide doesn't require an advance payment, everyone pays the guide individually at the end of the tour. The person who sets up the tour should tell you how payment is to be handled.

Hope that this helps.

DON

We have done this many times, and I have also been the the booker or the bookie.

It can work either way. I like a limit of 8.

Sometimes we each pay the tour operator on the day of the tour, but more often the person who organized the tour will ask each person/couple to have the amount in an envelope and will collect it prior to the tour.

We have never had a problem doing this.