What are the steps to finding/booking a tour

[chaucer642]

My friend and I are traveling to the Eastern Mediterranean in September. We don't want to use the ship's tours, but smaller group/private tours. I've seen the thread Roll Call and the thread about ports. Where do I start? Roll Call or Ports of Call? I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

 

Thanks.

[Essiesmom]

The first place to start is with a copy of Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports. He will tell you what there is to do in the time you have in port, and how to do it on your own. Then, join the roll call for you cruise. People on the roll call will be organizing independent tours and looking for fellow cruisers to join them and lower the cost. The ports of call boards are the place to go to see what kinds of tours are available if youwant to be the one doing the organizing. EM

[CruiserBruce]

First you have to know what you like. History? Beaches? Art? Buildings?

What is your budget and limitations?

 

Second, probably getting to know each port will help. The guidebook mentioned by Essiesmom is good, the ports boards also help. When you decide what you are interested in, then the roll calls may help you get the right tour at a good price, but the ports board will also have built a base of info.

 

Assembling info is important. Not sure I would focus on what exact order should be followed.

[t60]

My friend and I are traveling to the Eastern Mediterranean in September. We don't want to use the ship's tours, but smaller group/private tours. I've seen the thread Roll Call and the thread about ports. Where do I start? Roll Call or Ports of Call? I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Thanks.

 

Find your Roll call join that, introduce yourself and post asking if anyone is arranging private tours. Also do some research yourself in Ports of Call and see what sort of info you can pick up there eg ask for tour recommendations for each port. I´ve found that private tours are generally arranged by individual roll call members.

Rick Steves does some interesting audio tours you can download to your MP3 if you want to do a self guided tour

Some tour companies like RomeinLimo also offer a tour sharing service. (RIL don´t just tour Rome) also some companies give discounts if you book more than 1 tour with them, eg 1 in Rome, 1 in Venice etc

Good luck, it can be a bit daunting in the beginning especially when you´re dealing with people, companies and countries you don´t know.

Sandy in Spain

[Keith1010]

I would do a combination of several things and they can be done concurrently.

 

Read up about the ports of call. By the way, on Cruise Critic there is another section where Cruise Critic editors write about the ports as they do about the ships.

 

Also read up on the ship sponsored tours. While you don't need to take them it gives a lot of idea of what you can do in the ports.

 

Read the ports of call posts where people talk about what the did in the ports.

 

Read the roll call to get a sense of what people are doing.

 

Read others information about the port on the internet. There are lots of good sources.

 

This should allow you to make a list of the places that you would like to see and to prioritize them.

 

Then decide do yo want to do a private tour just on your own or with others and decide if you need even a tour as some places are easily done on your own.

 

For those places that you want to go with a tour you can get the name and contact information for the tours using the ports of call threads and the roll call and then begin to contact these places.

 

The key is to start early so you have plenty of time to do this for each port of call.

 

Remember that the Med is port intensive so I would not do an official tour in each port otherwise by the middle or towards the end of the cruise you can easily burn out with too many tours and brain overload.

 

Keith