Do I book shore excursions through the ship or on my own? Which is better?

[PrettyHazardous]

We never ever ever book with the cruise line and have never been scammed. Use a company from tripadvisor. You can read reviews and everything. Or book someone at the port when you arrive.

[dorothy09]

We have just returned from our first cruise on the Thomson Celebration in the Mediterranean and have learned a lot.

We booked five excursions on five days at the cost of £360 but missed two as we both went down with a stomach bug (free injections suggest norovirus)

We understand that if you book on ship on Thomson you are refunded immediately at reception if you miss a trip through a registered illness.

We booked ours in advance at a Thomson shop and were told the money would be refunded on our card in up to 14 days.

Sadly Thomson are refusing one refund as they are currently 'investigating' it. We both had free injections on different days from the ship's doctor so these must surely be in the ship's medical records.

For this reason in future I would book on ship. In England's travel shops they will tell you that the excursion desk on ship is busy and you might miss out on a trip. This was not the case on our ship - in fact we were told some trips had been cancelled owing to lack of interest.

 

 

Surprise, surprise, got this refund after only four months. Not a peep from Thomson*s customer service department in that time apart from acknowledgement of claim. Wrote to agent Attraction World last weekend and the Thomson shop phoned to say they had got the refund a couple of days later. Should have done that straight away but trusted Thomson*s complaint procedure. Some hope!

[Cruiseswithfamilyornot]

This one is such a personal decision. I have been on over 40 cruises. At first I only booked through a cruise line, now I haven't booked one in years and can't imagine doing so. Conversely, my father refuses to book privately and will ONLY book through the cruise line as he is scared of the "what if" scenerio and finds peace and comfort knowing that if he goes on the cruise ship tours no issues with the ship leaving without you no matter what. Except when he cruises with me, and then he swears that going on your own is better. My mother tells me he doesn't mind going with the ship excursions as he is often "that guy". What guy am I speaking of? The one that when you are with a large cruise group tour tends to ask a lot of questions, decides he wants to buy something at the last minute when everyone is getting back on the bus and then they sit on the bus waiting for him, just overall slowing down the group to the point of irritation and sometimes missing a part of the tour. Any one who has done group cruise tours numerous time knows JUST what I am talking about. Can it happen on smaller tours? It can,but is much less likely as there will only be one of "those guys" and everyone will push him (or her though usually a him) along. On a larger group, you usually have a few of them. So for me....non cruise line tours are less expensive, smaller groups, more customizable(you can even great private tours for not more money if you ask many times) and way more personal. Can't imagine doing a cruise ship large group tour but I totally understand why others want the security of someone vetted by the ship and knowing never an issue getting back. As an aside, I've been on way over 100 private excursions and have never had an issue getting back on time, even the one time a car broke down. With trip advisor and cruise critic, there are a lot of easy ways to research options.

[dorothy09]

Enjoyed the Thomson trip around Antigua but hated the courier for Athens - she droned on and on when a few periods of silence would have been welcome. Dubrovnik and Corfu Town were not bad but Thomsons treatment of our Itea refund has put us off. We have been a little reluctant to strike out on our own but in the Caribbean there were so many reasonably priced trips on offer outside the cruise terminals that we will try those next time. For our Western Med trip reckon the hop on, hop off buses will be a good bet.