Do you always do cruise ship excursions?

Largely agree with those above.

Independent excursions can vary from a snap to do ( most ports have folks right there) to wonderful adventures we spend weeks planning (private guisde for 36 hour do kings.in St Petersburg or Israel.

For us the biggest issues are not only price but flexibility and individualization. Got where YOU want for as long as you want. Don't spend half the time waiting for the inevitable straggler who is the last one on the bus at each stop.. which eats up time you might otherwise be using to explore. If this were an exotic itinerary to ports with few English speakers, I'd say " learn this time, take ship tours. The W. Carribean is safe, used to cruise newbies..

Check out trip advisor for the ports. For a first visit, wandering around town, maybe asking a cab driver what he'd charge for a few hours to drive around might be an option.

And in any event, enjoy!

If we are going to be in port for a short time, we book ship trips. We'd rather not risk being back late.

For Bermuda or long stops, we do things on our own.

The only NCL excursions we have ever done are the "on your own" excursions where you get transportation and a bit of narration, but then told to meet back after several hours. We do these only where the price is already close to transportation on our own or where it means you get an early tender without stress. The price is rarely close, but with some of the port excursion credit promos we have done it.

Otherwise, we like to do it ourselves.

My husband and I are taking a cruise hopefully next week (Escape- Western Caribbean) and I was told of this amazing place called Bacalar! It sounds beautiful, but I am a little weary on booking something that is not offered with the cruise line. Has anyone booked outside of the cruise line or are we better booking with Norwegian?

We only book excursions through the cruise line. For the simple reason that if they are late coming back they have to wait for you to get on board. If you do excursions through independent excursion companies they are late getting back to the ship – it's up to you to catch up with the ship.

We always play it safe.

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We do both but find ship excursions to be good quality and reasonable pricing.

 

To me, the whole "the ship will wait for you" thing is worth about 10$.

You are right. And the thing is, the ship will not wait for you at all times, they do make sure you get transport to next available port, though. But here on CC, it has become a "fact" that the ship will wait for you, as long as it is a ship excursion.

We booked both our excursions through the ship and I'm glad we did because when the hurricane blasted the Bahamas and we didn't make it to our last port the excursion was cancelled and refunded to our room..no phone calls..no worries!

We always book independently. It is not the price issue; you can arrange an independent excursion that will almost always be much less crowded than the ship excursion, or private if you prefer. And for some things, like diving, the cruise lines are famous for cancelling at the last minute if they don't get enough people signed up. (I know, counter-intuitive to my first reason.) We also find that the ship excursions usually have some mandatory "shopping stops" built in, which for us is usually a waste of time. If we want to shop we will do that, and the private excursions are happy to stop if you ask them to, but we don't want to be forced to spend a mandatory hour or two looking at the same stuff in every port. It is easy to find the reputable non-ship excursions (Costco travel is a good source), and with the reputable ones, missing the ship is never an issue.

Whenever we don't use the cruise line excursions we have found good vendors at Trip Advisor and another good site that we have had great luck with is Shore Trips. Good luck.

CC has a sister site called TripAdvisor.

Find a top-rated tour company there, contact them, and book a private excursion at a fraction of the cost of the ship's bus tour.

Thank you everyone! With this being our first cruise I am a little nervous and not sure what to expect. (Which I hate, I prefer being organized and having things planned). I just found out about CC at the beginning of this week and I very sad because we have had this cruise planned for almost a year, I am sad we are going to pay more than what we could have, but a week out, cancelling our NCL reservations seems a bit of a gamble! Hopefully my husband and I love cruising and next time we will get our act together sooner and can go off the beaten path!

We have all been first timers! Don't sweat what you should have done. Just enjoy!

I have done both, but as time has gone on and I have gotten more cruise "experience", we book independently. It seems the idea of the ship not waiting is more of a cruise line sales pitch. With that being said on my next cruise in October, we have the $50 port credit as well as the discount for being platinum latitudes members. I have priced excursions and found the ship excursions will actually work out being cheaper. I am going to try those. Hope I don't regret it, but I will know for next time.

I often jump in on this topic because I think sometimes those of us who lean toward ship's tours don't explain our preferences as often and well as those who lean toward independent travel. It really is a matter of preference - how much work do you like to do, and how much does the savings make up for that work?

That said, the first few cruise we took we too ALL ships tours. There was enough to understand without trying to add foreign travel and navigation in foreign ports to the list. I felt safe, comfortable, well guided, and like the cost I paid was worth the product received.

Since then, we have done self-guided walking tours, we have arranged for independent guides/taxi drivers who are recommended on these boards to pick us up at port, we have used professional tour operators, we have rented cars in ports, and we have taken ships tours. I still prefer ships tours:

1. I don't have to sweat the details - others are managing it for me.

2. I get what I paid for - and don't get left at the dock or handed off to a tour operator's "friend" - both have happened to me with independent arrangements.

3. I learn a lot and can't really get lost. Nice to have someone explaining things and pointing us in the right way.

I understand many love the challenge of putting together independent tour operators, and they save money by doing so - I respect that but I invest our money in my relaxation by having most of our tours handled by the ship.

For peace of mind I book through the ship. Personal preference.

Never ever do the ship's excursions. Very overpriced and you are often treated like cattle. Spend some time and do your own excursions.

We are going to Bremuda, and lucky for us, my brother and his Wife are going....they have gone 5 times, and know thier way around, but if we were to do an Excursion, it would be the last day to make sure the ship doesn't leave us behind

We used the ship excursion dept when we first started cruising, then we got smart and booked on our own. We saved money and had more personalized tours. The most important thing to remember is the time element. Anyone who books on their own make sure you allow enough time to return to the ship, at least an hour before sailing. Things do go wrong.

Now that we are platinum and get a discount on tours plus we have we have the excursion perk on our next cruise we will be booking through the ship I am pretty sure.