How small are the "Small Group" ship excursions? Any recent experiences?

[chimchimtx]

I rarely to never book Celebrity excursions as I have always had excellent experiences with highly rated local tour guides.   But our next cruise will include Cozumel so I am considering a ship tour at that port for safety reasons.  I have tried to research this and I see Celebrity says their "Signature" Small Groups are 24 people or less, but I am not sure if this is the same thing as a regular small group excursion.  The only post I am seeing on CC is years old and pre-Covid, so I am looking for any feedback from someone who took a small group tour recently. Thanks!

[the penguins]

4 hours ago, chimchimtx said:

I rarely to never book Celebrity excursions as I have always had excellent experiences with highly rated local tour guides.   But our next cruise will include Cozumel so I am considering a ship tour at that port for safety reasons.  I have tried to research this and I see Celebrity says their "Signature" Small Groups are 24 people or less, but I am not sure if this is the same thing as a regular small group excursion.  The only post I am seeing on CC is years old and pre-Covid, so I am looking for any feedback from someone who took a small group tour recently. Thanks!

A group of 24 doesn't come close to my definition of small. We always have a private guide and share with one other couple or at the very most 2 other couples. Have you tried sites like Toursbylocals (our personal choice) to see what's on offer.

[DisneyJim]

To our surprise, our "small group" excursion last week in Costa Rica was somewhere around 35.

[Jim_Iain]

I think it depends on the tour.   I did a Small Group Tour on Summit - Greenland.   The group was really small as the boat we were on only held 8 passengers.

 

I took a couple small group tours in Mexico last month and the both had 2 vans with 12 passengers in each van.   At the destination we grouped together.   It was a Off Road  one where we broke into groups of 4 per jeep and the other 2 per jeep

 

I also took a small group Kayaking in Puerto Valletta.   In that case there was one 12 passenger van and then we broke into groups of 2 to kayak.

[StellaTN]

We did a small group tour with celebrity in Cozumel last year on the Apex. It was a cooking class, visit to a tequila place, & tour of a ruin. There were only about 16 people in the group, we took a small trolly type vehicle around the island.  Guide was great and it was wonderful

to not be on a bus. Highly recommend the cooking class. 

[NMTraveller]

They tend to vary widely.  I have been in groups of 12 or groups of 50.  I am not sure how you count 50 as a small group excursion.  I wish that X would publish how many were going to be on their excursions.

[neverlaysup]

It depends on the port and the excursion. We recently booked a small group excursion in Tenerife and it was a 32 person mini bus loaded to the gills. It didn't really feel like a small group to us but it's all about the number when making that claim of "small". Other places, the number could be smaller, I really don't know.

[cruisinfly]

Cozumel is quite safe, no need to book a ships tour if you want to do something independently. I was there in December and June.

 

Google  "Cabanas at Chankanaab", simple cab ride to/from the port. Great experience at a great price.

[mhoffrob]

On 1/16/2023 at 10:05 PM, StellaTN said:

We did a small group tour with celebrity in Cozumel last year on the Apex. It was a cooking class, visit to a tequila place, & tour of a ruin. There were only about 16 people in the group, we took a small trolly type vehicle around the island.  Guide was great and it was wonderful

to not be on a bus. Highly recommend the cooking class. 

We just did this exact tour in Cozumel in December from the Summit.  It was a great day, probably 18 or 20 people.  Took the trolley/bus.  They did reorder the tour, first cooking, then Ruins, then tequila.  We were running late for the tequila tour which was fine - it wasn't much of a tour, really just a sales stop so we didn't feel we missed anything.  

[melispsych]

We were on a “ small group tour” last week in grand cayman last week which was two buses of at least 25 people each. Definitely not a small group 😁

[lme901]

15 hours ago, melispsych said:

We were on a “ small group tour” last week in grand cayman last week which was two buses of at least 25 people each. Definitely not a small group 😁

We had the same thing happen on a "small group tour" in cayman last month to the Turtle conservatory.  Our bus had 14 people on it but when we got there, they combined us with another small bus and one regular size bus taking us on a tour of the facility.  The guide was nice but he walked us past the areas quickly and took us off to the side to look at him while he gave us information on what we had just walked past.  They easily wasted 10 minutes stressing for us to meet back at the front at a particular time and then our bus was 15 minutes late picking us up.  We were beyond frustrated and annoyed with the situation.  I went to the shore excursion desk that evening showed them a video I took of our "small group" and they refunded our money.  We usually book with private vendors but I fell for the small group wording in the excursion description.  I would be hesitant to trust them again in the future.

[baypeople]

2 hours ago, lme901 said:

We had the same thing happen on a "small group tour" in cayman last month to the Turtle conservatory.  Our bus had 14 people on it but when we got there, they combined us with another small bus and one regular size bus taking us on a tour of the facility.  The guide was nice but he walked us past the areas quickly and took us off to the side to look at him while he gave us information on what we had just walked past.  They easily wasted 10 minutes stressing for us to meet back at the front at a particular time and then our bus was 15 minutes late picking us up.  We were beyond frustrated and annoyed with the situation.  I went to the shore excursion desk that evening showed them a video I took of our "small group" and they refunded our money.  We usually book with private vendors but I fell for the small group wording in the excursion description.  I would be hesitant to trust them again in the future.

We are taking that tour next week.  I’ll try to report bac k about group size.

[chimchimtx]

Thanks everyone.  That is about what I figured. That isn't really my idea of small either.  We booked a tour with a local guide instead.