Shore excursion times

[Bethwte]

New MSC cruiser here. I don't normally do ship excursions but a couple were reasonably enough priced I decided to try them for my upcoming cruise. I see the duration of the tour listed, but can't seem to find when the tour actually starts anywhere, even after booking and paying for the tour. How can I find this information out or will it only be available once on board? Hopefully not, as I'd like to plan other activities on those days since we're docking for much longer than the tours' durations. 

[dexddd]

MSC trips are generally reasonably priced.

 

Usually don't find times until onboard.

[Anastas617]

On 10/5/2023 at 12:42 AM, Bethwte said:

New MSC cruiser here. I don't normally do ship excursions but a couple were reasonably enough priced I decided to try them for my upcoming cruise. I see the duration of the tour listed, but can't seem to find when the tour actually starts anywhere, even after booking and paying for the tour. How can I find this information out or will it only be available once on board? Hopefully not, as I'd like to plan other activities on those days since we're docking for much longer than the tours' durations. 

Unfortunately, AFAIK you won't know the times until you get your excursion ticket the night before. I'm on a Mediterranean cruise soon and I've been told they organize many of the excursions by language, so on a 4-hour excursion French and Spanish speakers may have morning tours while Italian and English speakers may be in the afternoon for the same tour. I think it's great to cater to different languages to make things easier, but it's also maddening to try to plan your free time in advance. Not sure if this is the same for a Caribbean-based cruise.

[Heartgrove]

We are just back from a cruise to Scotland and Ireland with DSIL using two connecting staterooms. I booked as a single while my wife booked as a double with DSIL. We had linked the two bookings with MSC. There were six ports and initially we booked five excursions. MSC had a disclaimer that for excursions on this cruise, excursions may possibly be conducted in English only. Only the excursion to Edinburgh had the addition of a German translator.

 

The five excursions had us on the same buses together. For one port we had booked a Viator excursion for $146.00/pp as nothing was on the MSC excursion page for Stornoway. About two weeks before, I happen to check our bookings and found that there were now four MSC excursions offered. We booked the one MSC Stornoway excursion for the Callinish Standing Stones at $54.00/pp. This was a good move as it was a tender port and MSC gave priority to MSC excursion-booked passengers.

 

When we received the tickets the night before, I was on the 8:30 am excursion and DW and DSIL were on the 11:30 am excursion. I figured it was due to the late booking that they couldn't put us together. A trip to the excursion desk didn't help but the nice gentleman confirmed for our remaining excursions we were together.A funny aside was as I was booked as a single in the stateroom, I was invited to a Singles Get Together. This was to my wife's surprise!

[Heartgrove]

13 hours ago, Anastas617 said:

I'm on a Mediterranean cruise soon and I've been told they organize many of the excursions by language, so on a 4-hour excursion French and Spanish speakers may have morning tours while Italian and English speakers may be in the afternoon for the same tour.

 

We were on a MSC cruise last year to Sicily. The guide was multi-lingual and narrated the 7-hour excursion in three languages: Engish, French, and Italian. The other two excursions the guides spoke Italian and English.

[Bethwte]

Thanks for the help and insight into your experiences everyone. Shame I probably won't know until the day before so it would be hard to make any kind of a firm plan for other things, but at least it will be Christmas market time so if all else fails, those will be lovely to wander through with any time I have left in port. 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Bethwte

[Itchy&Scratchy]

9 hours ago, Bethwte said:

Thanks for the help and insight into your experiences everyone. Shame I probably won't know until the day before so it would be hard to make any kind of a firm plan for other things, but at least it will be Christmas market time so if all else fails, those will be lovely to wander through with any time I have left in port. 

the best bet is to book an MSC excursion in a tender port, per seasoned MSC cruisers. Especially, if the time in port is very short.

[Heartgrove]

1 hour ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

the best bet is to book an MSC excursion in a tender port, per seasoned MSC cruisers. Especially, if the time in port is very short.

 

Very true! Our tender port in Stornoway favored the MSC-booked excursions. They did not open tendering for other passengers until all of the excursions passengers were off. It took about three hours.