Not understanding excursion booking process - please help!

Princess itinerary states excursions are preselected i.e."am gold dredge, pm riverboat" "national history tour depart between 2-330" however these excursions are offered for a price on the website for the same days, as well. Are these already booked or do I have to choose a time and pay a separate fee? I am not understanding. Thanks!

On the excursions part of your cruise itinerary they divide up each cruise port by port. Click on the different ports and inspect the variety offered. You chose whichever you think you might like to do. Descriptions as videos and detailed written information will help you select what ones you want to sign up for. Payment is required for each, some cruise lines ask for payment at time of booking the excursion by credit/debit card other lines add the excursion costs to your onboard account to be paid at end of cruise.

Regards John

It sounds like you are asking about the land portion of a cruise-tour to Alaska. These tours may be included in your package. I would ask on the Princess board here. EM

On Princess, and on other mainstream cruise lines, "excursions" are optional extras and are payable.

You can sign up for whichever ones you want.

Or sign up for none of them - you can just walk off the ship & do your own thing.

Depending which ports, you can see the place on foot, or use local transport (at many ports there are taxis & vans touting to take you on a tour), or share a van tour, or fix up a private tour.

There are pros & cons for doing it in different ways. We reckon ship excursions to usually be like cattle-drives and poor value, so we book them only rarely - usually because there's no alternative for a place we want to go. For a first cruise you may feel differently - there's the comfort that on a ship's excursion it's the cruise line's responsibility to get you back to the ship on time, though the risks of missing the sailaway are grossly over-played by cruise lines.

As John has posted, the cruise line gives a degree of information about where each excursion goes & does.

That's a good start for researching what you want to see or do. Then check on the web for the alternatives to ship's excursions.

I'm hazarding a guess that this is an Alaskan cruise? So check out the Alaska ports-of-call forum here on Cruise Critic https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=55

If I guessed wrong, go to that page & click on the arrow at "forum jump" near the bottom of the page to bring up the other forums.

JB :)

Edited to add. If Essiesmom has guessed right & this is a pre or post-cruise tour, ignore John's post and mine.

Thanks all! Ya'll are probably wondering why I had such a stupid question, sorry! I found out I held a "connoisseur" land/cruise tour without realizing that meant certain excursions are booked for me already. Apparently that's why my itinerary had them on a booking confirmation, but when I signed into my princess account, they were still available on the website to purchase separately (for those not utilizing the connoisseur option). The more I know...:rolleyes:;p