Help with lack of Celebrity excursions available now

[tusconcam]

My DW  and I from  are  going on the Ascent May 6th , a 12 day Best of Itlay, Turkey, Greece cruise.

I have posted on our Roll Call and found a number reporting very few excursions thru Celebrity are available and that it seems early for such a shortage. No feedback from the group when asking the following question: 

 

We are late to the cruise party so to speak having just booked, and are frustrated at hearing that so many shore excursions through Celebrity are sold out already and really want the best excursions possible. (not fans of cooking or rug making demonstrations lol)

 

I realize I am going to get a lot of advice to: go on our own and/or look into a Viator or other non ship tour operator and save money etc.  However, we like the idea ideally of zero worries about being late for the ship on excursions end.

Does anyone have any idea if more Celebrity excursions will be on offer before the cruise? 

We have used Viator before in our last cruise and in a pinch might suffice. 

We will go on our own from Villefranche and travel into Rome by train and venture out on our own there as we have been there before. 

 

We do hope that things change with more options available for: Euphaseus/Kusadasi, Rhodes, Mykonos and Santorini. We will keep checking, and hope to get some help here with any suggestions about Celebrity info and/or some past experiences in those ports. 

 

Long winded thank you for feedback 

[tigervixxxen]

Find a current sailing to the same ports, look it up on the app and see if they have more excursions to give you an idea of if more are going to be offered or not. 

[Shiba_Lover]

probably nobody can tell you if Celebrity will offer more excursions with any certainty.  And yes, you probably will get suggestions of taking other operators.  Many of us have done so without missing the ship.  Lots of the private operators make their living off of cruise ship passengers and with social media being what it is - if they got poor reviews, people would not book.  Read the reviews on Viator - if there are red flags from people not getting back on time - that's the sign not to book.  Many offer guarantee that if they are late - they take the expense of getting you to the next port.  I have done all of the ports you mention on my own and was not late back to the port.  I used this company in Ephasus - Private Ephesus Tours - Ephesus Travel Guide   (You can for example, see the reviews of this company on trip advisor to get an idea of how people rated them)

Edited September 27, 2023 by Shiba_Lover

[cw2go]

I sailed Beyond last month to Gk Isles and excursions were limited with Celebrity as well as with privately/independent tour operators. Not sure if more will be added? It's been very slow going with tour recovery in many areas. Alaska as an example is was limited in 2023 and so far for 2024 it still is. 

 

For Mykonos ~ Exploring on your own is super easy. Just wonder and take in the beauty. Baklava was delish! 

 

Kusadasi ~ If the Small Group to Ephesus thru Cel is available book it asap. It was a small bus of about 16 people total. We went to the Virgin Mary House, then Ephesus and on to have lunch with several options, it was quite good. In Turkey it's mandatory for the operator to include the rug demonstration but it was at the end. I enjoyed it, thought the rugs were gorgeous! I was shocked at how great the tour was! Fantastic guide! 

 

Santorini was a mad house! Reports of the over crowding wether with a tour or not are 100% true. The cable car line was awful! 

 

Patty 

[Mike45LC]

"I realize I am going to get a lot of advice to: go on our own and/or look into a Viator or other non ship tour operator and save money etc."  Here it comes:  Book some excursions with Viatour and if something opens up with Celebrity, you can cancel the Viator excursion in that port.  Verify this, but I think Viator allows cancellations until 24 hours in advance.

 

You said that you've used Viator in the past.  I know that my experiences with Viator have been good, although I got grief on this Forum for saying so, such as:  "Viator is just a broker, a booking site, they are not tour operators, you need to book directly with the tour operator."  I used Viator and had no problems --- they spoke English, they booked the excursions we wanted, and everything went smoothly.  And I booked all of my cruise excursions with one company, instead of half-a-dozen.  (One excursion was terrible, but I don't blame Viator for that.)  In each port, we got back to the ship on time with no stress.

 

[Warning:  If your tour gets you back to the ship mid-afternoon, Celebrity tends to have no food venues open except the pizza and hot dogs.  I was very disappointed about this when I did not care for the food offered [if any] on the excursion.  In this regard, Princess is better.]

 

I hope you get wonderful excursions!

 

[wrk2cruise]

1 hour ago, cw2go said:

In Turkey it's mandatory for the operator to include the rug demonstration but it was at the end.

 

Not true.   We were there in May with a guide we booked through Tours By Locals.   We told him no shopping or carpet stops.   Was not an issue.

[budmeister]

1 hour ago, tusconcam said:

My DW  and I from  are  going on the Ascent May 6th , a 12 day Best of Itlay, Turkey, Greece cruise.

I have posted on our Roll Call and found a number reporting very few excursions thru Celebrity are available and that it seems early for such a shortage. No feedback from the group when asking the following question: 

 

We are late to the cruise party so to speak having just booked, and are frustrated at hearing that so many shore excursions through Celebrity are sold out already and really want the best excursions possible. (not fans of cooking or rug making demonstrations lol)

 

I realize I am going to get a lot of advice to: go on our own and/or look into a Viator or other non ship tour operator and save money etc.  However, we like the idea ideally of zero worries about being late for the ship on excursions end.

Does anyone have any idea if more Celebrity excursions will be on offer before the cruise? 

We have used Viator before in our last cruise and in a pinch might suffice. 

We will go on our own from Villefranche and travel into Rome by train and venture out on our own there as we have been there before. 

 

We do hope that things change with more options available for: Euphaseus/Kusadasi, Rhodes, Mykonos and Santorini. We will keep checking, and hope to get some help here with any suggestions about Celebrity info and/or some past experiences in those ports. 

 

Long winded thank you for feedback 

We went to Turkey, Santorini, and Rhodes a couple of weeks ago. Mykonos was cancelled due to weather. We did all off ship excursions, and we are not fearless adventurous people! We safe, secure, and easy people .We were able to do private excursions and get back to the ship like 5 hours b4  all aboard or last tender. 

[budmeister]

1 hour ago, Mike45LC said:

"I realize I am going to get a lot of advice to: go on our own and/or look into a Viator or other non ship tour operator and save money etc."  Here it comes:  Book some excursions with Viatour and if something opens up with Celebrity, you can cancel the Viator excursion in that port.  Verify this, but I think Viator allows cancellations until 24 hours in advance.

 

You said that you've used Viator in the past.  I know that my experiences with Viator have been good, although I got grief on this Forum for saying so, such as:  "Viator is just a broker, a booking site, they are not tour operators, you need to book directly with the tour operator."  I used Viator and had no problems --- they spoke English, they booked the excursions we wanted, and everything went smoothly.  And I booked all of my cruise excursions with one company, instead of half-a-dozen.  (One excursion was terrible, but I don't blame Viator for that.)  In each port, we got back to the ship on time with no stress.

 

[Warning:  If your tour gets you back to the ship mid-afternoon, Celebrity tends to have no food venues open except the pizza and hot dogs.  I was very disappointed about this when I did not care for the food offered [if any] on the excursion.  In this regard, Princess is better.]

 

I hope you get wonderful excursions!

 

I have never had a Viator issue either, and use them for every trip. I agree about food at the 2-3 time we got back most of the time. I made sure to enjoy Greek food b4 getting on the ship. I would not have been so ok with that if this was not a special location. If in the Caribbean or US ports, I would have been really annoyed.

Edited September 27, 2023 by budmeister

[cw2go]

33 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

Not true.   We were there in May with a guide we booked through Tours By Locals.   We told him no shopping or carpet stops.   Was not an issue.

 

I was referring to Celebrity tours because the OP mentioned not wanting to see the rug demonstration but wanted a cruise line tour.

 

It's a part of the contract with the cruise line from what we were told. 

Patty 

[DaKahuna]

@tusconcam  It was mentioned in one of the replies above but my research agrees.  The issue is not with Celebrity but with the general lack of availability of tours themselves.  Celebrity has to do a due diligence on tours before they can put them on their list.  A lot of tour companies went out of business during COVID and have not restarted or brought back some of the tours they offered before the shutdown.   With fewer tours being offered by fewer companies the better ones do fill up rather quickly.   A lot of people are signing up for tours as soon as they become available after they have booked the curise, some as far in advance as a year and a half. 

 

[NutsAboutGolf]

Plan for the worst (great suggestion by @Mike45LC to book now and perhaps cancel later) and hope for the best.  

5 hours ago, tusconcam said:

really want the best excursions possible.

 

Celebrity's non-private tours are rarely "the best" possible as private customizable tours (which X offers but are more expensive than booking on your own) will probably be the best.  Keep researching the ports, I understand this thread is part of your research but check out the port section, watch youtube videos, check out tripadvisor forums, etc.

 

Also, X does cancel tours for various reasons