Why are there so few reviews for specific excursions?

[DalTXColtsFan]

This is more for conversation than anything else. I can pick a specific ship and find 10 or 20 or even more reviews for it almost instantaneously, but when I look for a review of an individual excursion (in my case, particularly those on the Royal Caribbean website), I rarely find ANY and when I do find some there are 2 reviews at the most spanning the last 5 years! That's true both here and on their website!

 

Anyone have any theories as to why that is???

[fishywood]

Certainly far fewer passengers (other than novice cruisers) are taking ship's excursions given how easy it has become to find information about either private tours or independent sightseeing.

 

And how many people actually know that there is a section for posting excursion reviews on the cruise line web site?

 

But my guess is that once they have returned from their cruise most passengers prefer to never log back on to the cruise lines' ponderous and glitch-laden websites (of which RCI and sister line X are the worst offenders) until they have another cruise booked.

 

...and you can say the same thing about Cruise Critic: even cruises with heavily-participated roll calls often have not a single review posted to the main Cruise Critic page once the cruise is over. No point in dwelling over your vacation, no matter how wonderful, once you are back to the usual grind.

[cb at sea]

We rarely, if ever, take excursions! It's so easy, cheap and simple to do things on your own! A guidebook is an invaluable resource, as you do need to know something about where you're going!

[Sixtytwo]

I also believe it has to do with fewer folks taking ship sponsored excursions. But, you can check out TirpAdvisor and likely find lots of information on excursions on most ports. As well, the Ports of Call thread on CC has info on things to do, including excursions.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Krazy Kruizers]

Definitely more and more people are doing private excursions.

And people like us who have been to some ports quite a few times do their own thing when they get off the ship.

[Hlitner]

We have spent far more then 1000 days on cruises to hundreds of ports. In all that time we have spent, perhaps, 3 or 4 days on cruise line excursions. We probably do around 90% of ports (on 6 contintents) on our own and the other 10% would be on private tours (usually arranged on the appropriate CC Roll Call). To say we dislike cruise line excursions would be a huge understatement.

 

Hank

[DalTXColtsFan]

I did not notice before that if you search reviews, the individual reviews have a section where you can discuss the excursion you took in each port whether it was RC-booked or not.

 

I ended up doing RC-booked excursions in Roatan and Belize. The one in Roatan was overpriced (it was a eco forest hike followed by a 2-hour beach break), but the one in Belize (a boat cruise up a river where we could see howler monkeys followed by a bus ride to the Altun Ha Mayan ruins) was excellent and worth every penny. I did a private excursion in Cozumel to a beach club called Nachi Cocum that was quite relaxing and pleasant.

 

Many of my cruisemates book excursions from people in the ports and enjoy it. I may try that someday, who knows.

[TNcruising02]

it's frustrating to me that RCL does not have customer reviews for their excursions. When I went on my Carnival cruises, I could read a lot of reviews when I was trying to decide which ones to pick. I find them very helpful. Other cruise ships have reviews, so I am not sure why there aren't any on RCL's site.

[CruiseGal999]

I'll be visiting Cuba soon and I will NOT take any NCL excursions.

A Mediterranean cruise in 2013, we booked ALL NCL excursions. They were overpriced, they were severely underwhelming and below expectations. So, it's scary for me as a solo cruiser this trip, and the port being Havana, Cuba but I much prefer having my money go directly to the people and NOT NCL.

[donaldsc]

I'll be visiting Cuba soon and I will NOT take any NCL excursions.

A Mediterranean cruise in 2013, we booked ALL NCL excursions. They were overpriced, they were severely underwhelming and below expectations. So, it's scary for me as a solo cruiser this trip, and the port being Havana, Cuba but I much prefer having my money go directly to the people and NOT NCL.

 

Been to Havana. You will not have a problem there. It is a very friendly city.

 

DON

[mrsfuzzmo]

I think part of it is the specific cruise lines naming the same tours, different names, or having only slightly different features. For example, A tour to the Tulum ruins on Royal Caribbean might be named: Magical Mayan Experience with lunch. The same tour with NCL might be called Tulum Ruins and beach Day. Basically the same thing....different names. So if you're searching by a specific tour name, you will get few responses.

 

When looking for excursions, especially ship sponsored excursions, it's easier to go to the destination pages : Cozumel - and ask about the different feature of the tour. "What's a tour to Tulum like?" "Will my teens like Tulum Ruins", "Is going to Tulum worth it", that type of thing. Once you decide what you want to actually do on a tour or where you want to go, then you can check out what the ship has to offer.