Excursions

I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to book our island excursions through Disney, or just to book on our own? Is it more expensive through them, or does it have an advantage in some way?

I was sailing on the Disney Magic a few years back and we had just left St. Thomas. We felt the ship stop, we all looked out the windows and saw we were pretty far from the dock.

We later found out that one the excursions (submarine) had broken down and the people that were in the sub didn't get back to the ship in time for sail away.

The Disney Magic arranged transportation to the ship and waited for the people to get onboard before we started sailing again.

We were told they had booked the excursion through Disney.

They knew these people did not board the ship and they were all on the same Disney excursion. I can't imagine what would have happened if someone was stuck underwater without anyone knowing what was happening.

This is one good example of the advantage between booking through Disney or not.

As much as all of us want to save money, purchasing a shore excursion outside of the cruise lines sponsored excursions can ruin your vacation as the ship will not wait for anyone who is not back on board by the time the ship is ready to sail. I had a good friend who booked jungle tour thru an outside company to save 20 dollars per person and the jeep they were in broke down and by the time they got back to the cruise terminal the ship had sailed. They had to find a flight that would take them to the next stop and could not so they had to fly home home and wait for the ship to arrive so they could have the cruise staff get their belongings too them. Sadly this was their first port so on a 7 day cruise they cruised two days. We were on a great tour in Puerto Vallarta two years ago and the tour was an hour an half late getting back, but since we booked it on the ship there were several cruise staff that were on the tour with us and they told us no worries the ship will wait for us and they did.

Hmmm. That was what I had been thinking about also. I figured if you did it independantly you were completely on your own. The DCL website says that I can't book anything until Dec.6th(we sail Feb. 19th). Isn't that a little close to when we leave? I have the itch to book all of this stuff in advance because I can't imagine leaving it all that close. What it it all gets booked up? It's stressing me out. Lol.

I was just on the DCL website, and I read that pretty much everyone who has traveled on the line before can access their planning stuff way earlier. Now I'm really worried. What if everyone else books the times and stuff that we want? Does this happen a lot?

I was just on the DCL website, and I read that pretty much everyone who has traveled on the line before can access their planning stuff way earlier. Now I'm really worried. What if everyone else books the times and stuff that we want? Does this happen a lot?

All depends on the excursion. Some of them go quite quickly, though many cruise lines will open up another offering if that happens. What excursions were you looking at?

All I know so far is that I definately want to do the dolphin thing, perhaps sting rays. I haven't really looked into it yet, but that's a must do, top of the list.