Do you plan your own shore excursions? or purchase through the cruise line?

[UptownGirl212]

So I'm leaving on May 1st on my first Royal Caribbean cruise (Adventure of the Seas). The last time I went on a cruise was well over 10 years ago with my family on a Holland American cruise from NYC to Bermuda.

My question is do you folks usually purchase shore excursions through the cruise line, or wing-it once you get to the islands? My boyfriend has put me in charge of this, and I feel like I should purchase at least one excursion through the cruise so one trip out of 4-5 is done for me. :)

Any tips/tricks are greatly appreciated!

The cruise stops in Aruba, Curacao, St. Thomas, and St. Marten.

[mspink98]

I'd check out the ports of call section and see what people recommend for each of these ports. Some ports/excursions are better than others for self-booking. The ports board will also have names of companies to go through for booking your own.

[CaptData]

It depends on how long I have at each port. If only 4 hours then I use the cruise line as they will wait you for tour to return. If it is 6 hours or longer it is cheaper to go with a local. In Grand Cayman, I go with Native ways. Aruba has world famous beachs which are easy to reach by cab. St Thomas is shopping and Havensite is where you dock or you can go to St John's forthe day. St Marteen is a nice historical tour and shopping.Have fun check out the ports of call boardsd for more ideas.

[mii]

I'd check out the ports of call section and see what people recommend for each of these ports. Some ports/excursions are better than others for self-booking. The ports board will also have names of companies to go through for booking your own.

 

That is exactly what I do first, but most of the time I pick ship excursions.

 

marilyn

[catmand]

We had to make a decision for our soon to sail Alaska cruise. If we did one of the tours on our own we figured we could save around 40 bucks. Once we weighed all the things we would need to do as opposed to walking off the ship and getting on a bus, the savings didn't seem worth the hassle.

Unless there was something we really wanted to do that was not available through the ship, we will continue to book through the line. To us, it is just an extention of the cruse, let them do the work and the worry, just give me a nice train; or boat, or bus, or helicopter and we'll let them do the driving.

I just read a story yesterday of some people who were two hours late getting back to the ship. They had an equiptment breakdown. Ship tour, no problem. If that had been an independent tour, they would be flying to the next port to catch up with the ship.

[Skinsfan1311]

We have never used a ships excursion and have found doing them on our own is the way to go. All you need to do is research and be a little adventerous! ;)

[geoherb]

We do a combination. On our last cruise, we did everything on our own. On the couple of cruises before the last one, we did one excursion each through the cruise line and everything else on our own.

 

Usually we like going with independents because we don't feel like we're being herded along. A lot depends on the excursion. For instance, when we kayaked in Alaska, we had a guide for the two of us. We each got to paddle a separate kayak. There were people on cruise ship excursions at the same lake. They had two and three people per kayak and seven or eight kayaks per guide.

[paradisegal]

I have done both...all depends on the port and the time we are there. I do like to do it on my own when at all possible though...

[DisneyDestroyer]

I prefer to book my own whenever possible. It's usually the exact same trip, but cheaper because the cruise ship takes a cut.

 

However, frequently the most popular excursions are completely booked by cruise ships, sometimes even contracted that they are only allowed to book through the cruise ships, not to individuals.

 

This has included the swim-with-the-dolphins in Mexico and ALL the glaciar/dogsled trips in Alaska.

 

Your Tour Agent may be able to help, or at least get you a discount on booking through the ship.

[Trevoli]

I ALWAYS do the ship's tours. Granted, doing them on your own might be cheaper, but I love the idea of just walking off the ship with ticket in hand looking for a person to direct me to the transportation (usually a nice air-conditioned bus) and off we go.

 

I'm also just enough of a worry wart to count on the ship waiting for me, should I get back late, for whatever reason.

 

This is especially important if you and all your travelling companions are on the same tour - there's nobody left to tell the proper folks on the ship that you haven't come back yet.

 

If I did a tour on my own, it would be my luck that the vehicle I rented would break down, or that the cab tour I was on would run out of gas. Or something....

 

Posters on this board will tell you that if you plan ahead well enough to get back to the ship a couple of hours before sailaway, you'll be fine. And while that's probably true, it's kind of a bummer to give up two hours' worth of port time for that reason.

 

T

[Tmeister]

A lot depends on your own comfort level in making your own arrangements. My wife and I are used to traveling and generally make our own arrangements, usually with guidance from these boards or from friends who have traveled where we are going. However in a few instances we would take a ship's tour, especially if traveling where language would be a problem or if time to return to the ship would be tight. There are also a few places where a ship (or several ships) may monopolize the available spaces for an activity. For example, I've heard that this sometimes happens when a lot of ships converge on Grand Cayman and everyone on board wants to go to Stingray City. The ships may have booked all the available tour operators and there would be no one left to take the "independent" travelers. I can't say we've ever run into this, though. We've generally had good experiences making our own arrangements, and we've found that independent operators can be a little more flexible and personable.

[Loviecld]

So I'm leaving on May 1st on my first Royal Caribbean cruise (Adventure of the Seas). The last time I went on a cruise was well over 10 years ago with my family on a Holland American cruise from NYC to Bermuda.

 

My question is do you folks usually purchase shore excursions through the cruise line, or wing-it once you get to the islands? My boyfriend has put me in charge of this, and I feel like I should purchase at least one excursion through the cruise so one trip out of 4-5 is done for me. :)

 

Any tips/tricks are greatly appreciated!

 

The cruise stops in Aruba, Curacao, St. Thomas, and St. Marten.[/QUOI

 

I am going on my first cruise in June. I had the same question. I researched diff. options. We will be going to St.Thomas not much time therefore we chose to book with the ship. The few extra dollars more is worth the chance of missing the ship. We are also going to St.Thomas- longer hours there and we will take a tour with Godfrey Tours. Heard from these boards they are very reliable. For $20.00pp they will pick us up from pier, do alittle sight seeing, 3 hours of shopping, 2 hours of beach and then back to the ship. Good luck with your choice.;)

[CruiseAwayWithMe]

Well, I purchase them through the cruise line and we book them online on the cruise line's website. If you tender in then you are on the first tender if you have the first tour of the day. We have all our tours early and we are tendering in on 3/4 islands. Also, it is much safer to be with the cruise line since if something were to happen that the cruise ship might wait for you since you are on a ship tour. Just I think planning your own shore excursions are okay but you have to be totally on your own. I like planning them throught the cruise line and when we book them on the website we get the tour tickets right to our stateroom.

[c4ddym4n]

We just returned from Eastern Carnival Valor 04-17-05. We used Sunny Liston Tours in St. Thomas. Sunny is great! He picks you up at the ship then takes you over to shop for 2 hours. Then off for a guided 2 hour tour of the island which was fantastic. He gives you a choice of a beach. We picked Sapphire beach, very beautiful, has clean restrooms with a bar and grill. Its private, no one tries to sell you things. Lots of fish, bring gog biscuits to feed the fish. Then Sunny takes you back to the ship. All this for $20 per person. His web site is www.sunnylistontours.com I emailed Godfrey tours for three weeks with no answer, Sunny called me on my cell phone the same day I emailed him. I'm glad we used Sunny he was more reliable.

[stanford's girl]

We've always purchased them through the cruise lines. But then I found Cruise Critic!:D On our next cruise in Oct., we have booked all our excursions on our own. We will be saving a whole lot of money by doing this. LOVE CC!!!!

[CorbinCatFan]

All the previous cruises, we've purchased the shore excursions from the ship but this next cruise, I think we'll book at least two ourselves.

 

I'm using mostly the information that I've gotten from the port of calls on this board and have compared to the cruise lines offerings.

[fay54]

We almost always do our own thing. I find the cruise lines much more expensive and sometimes traveling on your own is more fun. We did a tour with Pete Taylor who is an independent and it was the best tour ever. We climbed the Dunn River Falls and saw lots of other things. I guess it does depend how much time you have also. I would not take a trip to a beach far away from the ship on my own unless you are going to be in port for a while. We did do this is Aruba and actually took an island bus. We felt like we were quite adventurous. We have been lucky to always get back on time. We cruise again in June. Hope our luck continues.

[rogfam]

I suggest that you do the excursions on your own. There are always drivers available at the pier, and you can easily search the internet for organized tours. We are cruising this summer in the Med. and already have booked tours of Istabul, Athens, and the Amalfi Coast. Good luck and enjoy!!

[Cruisin' Chick]

Some issues to consider:

 

1. As many above have said, if something happens to your bus, etc., the ship will wait for you if you have booked your excursion thru them.

 

2. If your ship has to miss a port (happened last month to the Island Princess), the shore desk will handle the cancellations and refunds to your credit card. If you book through an independent tour, make sure there's a cancellation policy that won't penalize you.

 

3. Sometimes the times in port may change from the time you book your cruise. That happened to us for a few ports in Alaska. We booked our excursion in Skagway based on what time we thought our departure would be. But the ship was leaving an hour earlier than planned. And the weather conditions made our tour take longer. But we had booked through Princess so they waited for our group to return.

 

4. For the most part, the excursions through the ship (as opposed to ones that the ship doesn't handle) may be on a higher quality. That point, of course, is debatable. But we ended up enjoying our Skagway bus trip (see #3) more than the tour we booked right at the pier in Ketchikan.

[medalian1]

We booked the first two through Carnival and the second two directly with the tour operators through the web. Everyone in our party of 7 that went on the excursions liked the independents better than the Carnival ones.

[T_Bird]

I like to book them on my own. I check out the ship's excursions first and then see what other local operators have to offer. I often find out that the tours booked on my own are much more flexible and cheaper than booking through the ship.