Re: tour company recommendations

[ellie84]

Hopefully someone can help me out! Please could anyone suggest good tour companies for private tours in the following ports:

 

Mumbai

Goa

Muscat

Khasab

Abu Dhabi

Dubai

 

Additionally any good “private car with driver” options (as in don’t really require tour necessarily, more car with driver at our disposal) for the following ports:

 

Dubai

Abu Dhabi

 

Thank you in advance for any helpful suggestions!! :)

 

 

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[SargassoPirate]

While I didn't check those specific ports, the travel department of my big box warehouse club offers not only cruises with a search engine that works, but they also offer tours with a "return to the ship" guarantee. You can search with your cruise, and then the tours they offer are listed for each port. We've used them and have been very satisfied and they charge about 75%, on average, of what the cruise line wants.

[Keith1010]

You may also want to post this on Africa/Middle East Ports Of Call Board at:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=32

 

Keith

[Anarinya]

We just returned from a similar cruise 2 weeks ago.

In Goa, we used GoaMagic as our Tour Company. We could plan the day ahead and I communicated a lot with them planning out our itinerary. We had a private tour with a guide from the company, Senhor Mendes, and a driver, both delivered excellent service. We had a great day and saw everything we wanted to see and more. It was a bit pricey but definitely worth it.

 

In Mumbai, we booked our tours via viator, and the company that delivered them was AmazeTours. Again, fantastic service. We booked a private tour of Mumbai including food sampling for one day in Mumbai and we covered so much! Price was also very good and we enjoyed the time our guide Akshay! He was amazing! For the second day in Mumbai, we booked a Join-in tour to Elephanta Island, that turned out to be a private tour, as we were the only ones booked. They even adjusted the time for the tour to suit better our needs! Again our guide Haresh (not sure about the spelling), a native of the island, took good care of us and explained us a lot about what we saw in the caves - all this explanation made it much more worthwhile!

I would thoroughly recommend both these companies without hesitation.

 

In Oman we only visited Muscat, there we went without an organized tour, and used taxis instead to where we wanted to go. Be sure to agree to a price before you get in, as even official taxis don't use meters. You could also hire a cab for an hour or two for I think 20 Rial/hour for a city tour but we just visited the National museum and the area around it as well as the souk. Both were just a short taxi ride away, no need for a tour.

In Abu Dhabi and Dubai we also found that getting around was easy with taxis and hiring them as we went. We didn't feel the need to hire a cab for a day or so, but I am sure they would certainly do that. In the emirates, it is very easy to use taxis and they are all metered (they have to by law) so it's very transparent. Just make sure you take an official taxi and not some kind of Limo service (they tried to trick us into one in Dubai, but we realized before getting in the car and refused).

 

These were our experiences, we were very happy with the cruise and all our choices. Feel free to ask in case you have questions

[jelayne]

If you haven’t joined the Roll Call for your sailing you may want to do so. We are doing these ports and a few more next month and a number of us have arranged small group tours.

 

We are using Magic Tours of India others have booked with Muziris Tours. In Oman we have booked with Sunshine Tours.

 

Since we haven’t done these tours yet I can’t tell the quality but all these companies were highly rated on Trip Advisor.

[SY3813]

Hopefully someone can help me out! Please could anyone suggest good tour companies for private tours in the following ports:

 

Mumbai

Goa

Muscat

Khasab

Abu Dhabi

Dubai

 

Additionally any good “private car with driver” options (as in don’t really require tour necessarily, more car with driver at our disposal) for the following ports:

 

Dubai

Abu Dhabi

 

Thank you in advance for any helpful suggestions!! :)

 

 

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I have the contact details for the best driver ever in Goa. Fully AC And insured comfortable car. Uniformed driver who will take you wherever you want (lots to do - spice farm, Old Goa Churches, Panjim for shopping and good restaurants). We spend a couple months a year in Goa and have used this driver for over 10 years. We will not slum it in the little tuktuks or smaller taxis as we want comfort and safety. We also cruise with Celebrity and have recommended this driver before. Regarding Mumbai I have used one tour company who was excellent again they will tailor make a tour to suit your preferences happy to supply the details. Email me on sycruise3813@gmail.com for further details. Hope this helps. Suzanne

 

 

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[4774Papa]

Hopefully someone can help me out! Please could anyone suggest good tour companies for private tours in the following ports:

 

Mumbai

Goa

Muscat

Khasab

Abu Dhabi

Dubai

 

Additionally any good “private car with driver” options (as in don’t really require tour necessarily, more car with driver at our disposal) for the following ports:

 

Dubai

Abu Dhabi

 

Thank you in advance for any helpful suggestions!! :)

 

 

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We did Mumbai with Mumbai Magic. They were super.

 

For the other Indian ports, we had a great tour with Cochin Day Tours-Muziris Heritage ask for Lijo Josehttp://www.daytoursincochin.com/cochin-backwater-tour/

His tours were super and not expensive.

For other tour information check out my review.

Singapore to Dubai

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=501167

[lacy20]

We did a tour in Mumbai with Reality Tours and Travel. Here is their info: http://www.realitytoursandtravel.com/. We did the Dharavi Slum Tour with Sightseeing. We were picked up at the port by a tour guide and driver. It was a very special day. The Dharavi part of the tour may not be for everyone, but I came away feeling very inspired by the people. I felt like we were visitors, rather than tourists. The people were very nice and proud to show the industry they have developed under difficult circumstances. It was just my husband and I on the tour, so after the Dharavi tour, we treated our driver and guide to lunch in a small local restaurant recommended by our guide. We were the only non-locals there! After, we visited all the local sightseeing spots we could fit in before returning to the ship. We enjoyed really getting to know these two young men during the day. I loved it!

[SY3813]

Previously used Young’s tours - excellent and reasonably priced- info@youngtoursandtravel.com In Goa can recommend kumarstravels2000@gmail.com. Both of these have been used and charge fair prices and don’t charge extra for Cruise passengers . Both provide advice but can tailor make itineraries dependent on interests.

 

 

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