Excursions sold out, need suggestions

[jbinbi]

Am on the Princess Nordic cruise beginning of June. Didn't realize that with 4 months to go all the popular excursions would be sold out! Basically on the cruise to do the excursions. 

So now looking for finding excursions on shore not with ship. I know there are usually many tour companies on land, and might be less expensive than through princess, but I am looking for suggestions on companies that I don't have to hopefully vet in each port. Is there a good company throughout Scandanavia that I can book tours with in most of the major ports? TIA.

[Abercrombie2019]

1 minute ago, jbinbi said:

Am on the Princess Nordic cruise beginning of June. Didn't realize that with 4 months to go all the popular excursions would be sold out! Basically on the cruise to do the excursions. 

So now looking for finding excursions on shore not with ship. I know there are usually many tour companies on land, and might be less expensive than through princess, but I am looking for suggestions on companies that I don't have to hopefully vet in each port. Is there a good company throughout Scandanavia that I can book tours with in most of the major ports? TIA.

A good place to start will be your Roll Call.  There may be people with private excursions booked that are looking for others to join them.

[lx200gps]

3 minutes ago, jbinbi said:

Am on the Princess Nordic cruise beginning of June. Didn't realize that with 4 months to go all the popular excursions would be sold out! Basically on the cruise to do the excursions. 

So now looking for finding excursions on shore not with ship. I know there are usually many tour companies on land, and might be less expensive than through princess, but I am looking for suggestions on companies that I don't have to hopefully vet in each port. Is there a good company throughout Scandanavia that I can book tours with in most of the major ports? TIA.

I obviously can't claim to know about your specific sailing and the excursions in question, but we had a similar situation last October on our California Coastal. The one excursion we wanted was sold out long before we sailed. Immediately upon embarkation we walked over to the Shore-Ex desk and had no problems booking that very excursion.  They had slots available for walk-ups.

 

A lot of folks here on CC are having issues pre-booking things like dining, excursions etc on-line, finding them sold out well ahead of the cruise. In our experience there is ample evidence that Princess doesn't truly "sell out", they do keep a certain percentage of slots so as to be available on board the ship.  Still, the advice above to search your Roll Call for alternatives would be prudent.

[Sarnia 432]

Which ports are you visiting?

[Rick&Jeannie]

Yes, as @lx200gps states, they *generally* hold some excursion slots back for people wanting to book on board. Very similar to what they do with dining slots.

[jbinbi]

28 minutes ago, Sarnia 432 said:

Which ports are you visiting?

skagen, copenhagen, helsinki, tallin, berlin, stockholm, kristiansand.

[Sarnia 432]

Depends on how active you are.  We actually do a lot of ports on our own, but we do walk around 10 miles a day every day!

 

Skagen - we walked to Grenen on our own

Copenhagen - tried the HOHO from the pier, but ended up getting off and just walking

Helsinki - we followed a GPSMyCity guide to tour the city

Tallin - we followed a GPSMyCity guide to tour the city

Berlin - never been there

Stockholm - we walked over to the Vasa museum, then took a “bridges cruise” on the river

Kristiansand - we followed a GPSMyCity guide to tour the city

[DCThunder]

Have you looked at Viator, TripAdvisor, Shore Excursions Group, or Tours by Locals yet?  If you can't find excursions that fit your needs on those sites, I don't know what to tell you...

[jbinbi]

6 minutes ago, DCThunder said:

Have you looked at Viator, TripAdvisor, Shore Excursions Group, or Tours by Locals yet?  If you can't find excursions that fit your needs on those sites, I don't know what to tell you...

Yes. That is what I am trying to avoid. There are 100s of tours to choose from. I am sure that some of the companies that give the tours when it is not contracted with the cruise line are the same ones on there. I was hoping that Princess wouldn't run out of excursions with 140 days to go to sailing. If so, they would get more excursions from a person who does this for a living. 

[DCThunder]

5 minutes ago, jbinbi said:

Yes. That is what I am trying to avoid. There are 100s of tours to choose from. I am sure that some of the companies that give the tours when it is not contracted with the cruise line are the same ones on there. I was hoping that Princess wouldn't run out of excursions with 140 days to go to sailing. If so, they would get more excursions from a person who does this for a living. 

I almost never book ship excursions as I'd prefer a group of 8 to 10 people in a small bus to a huge bus of 50.  So I'd look at what's on the sites I listed, pick what you like, and be done with it.  As was said elsewhere, go on the cruise Roll Call and see what others may have booked and are looking for more people to join.

[skynight]

I'm guessing you are on the June 1st Sky out of Southampton. This is what we did in some of the ports. We toured most of them on our own by walking around.

Copenhagen: The ship docks north of the Kastellet. You can easily take a cab to the center city by Tivoli. From there Copenhagen is a very walkable town. I also remember a hop on hop off bus. You can find information on line about the bus on line. Believe one stop is at the pier.

Helsinki: There was a local bus at the pier which dropped you off in downtown Helsinki. I think they accepted US$ or Euros. There was a person on the pier selling RT tickets

Tallin: We pre-booked a nice walking tour with SPB Tours. There were other companies that offered Tallin tours. Tallin is also a very walkable city.

Kristiansand: This city is at the southern tip of Norway. We disembarked and just walked around.

Stockholm: We took a ship's tour of the palace and a boat ride. Does your ship dock in Nynashamn? Ours did. This is fairly far from Stockholm.

Berlin: Your ship docks at Warnemunde. This is 2 1/2 to 3 hours from Berlin. When we were there Princess arranged for a train to take tours to and from Berlin. The train was right on the pier. If you really wish to see Berlin this is the way to go. Hard to believe all Berlin tours are sold out, but I guess they could be. We did not wish to travel 6 hours there and back. We booked a walking tour of Warnemunde and Rostock again with SPB Tours. It was very nice.

Note: SPB Tours was and maybe still is located in St. Petersburg Russia. Their main focus was two day tours of St. Petersburg. They also offered tours in other Baltic cities through local tour companies. I see they still have a web site. I would suggest you review their web site and contact them. I don't know their current operations since Russia invaded Ukraine. 

 

 

 

[jbinbi]

thanks for these detailed replies! Berlin not all sold out. We originally booked this cruise pre pandemic when the highlight of the cruise was the stop in St. Petersburg. Not on the tour anymore of course 😞

Edited January 22 by jbinbi

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

Found similar on upcoming cruise. Does the Wish List ever pan out or should I check immediately upon boarding? Thanks.

[lx200gps]

16 minutes ago, SJSULIBRARIAN said:

Found similar on upcoming cruise. Does the Wish List ever pan out or should I check immediately upon boarding? Thanks.

In our case, the waitlist didn't work, we never received any word about it. We just went to the Shore Excursions desk and they had availability for our "Sold Out" trip. YMMV of course.

[1025cruise]

Have you checked out the ports of call boards?

[CalLuvsCrusingToo]

4 hours ago, jbinbi said:

Am on the Princess Nordic cruise beginning of June. Didn't realize that with 4 months to go all the popular excursions would be sold out! Basically on the cruise to do the excursions. 

So now looking for finding excursions on shore not with ship. I know there are usually many tour companies on land, and might be less expensive than through princess, but I am looking for suggestions on companies that I don't have to hopefully vet in each port. Is there a good company throughout Scandanavia that I can book tours with in most of the major ports? TIA.

 

Were in the same boat, same cruise.  I didn't realize so many tours would be sold out so soon either.

We have 2 other cruises before this one, so wasn't high on my priority list yet.

But reading other trip threads, it really sounded like so many of our destinations were walkable?

I wasn't too worried about it.

I like the idea that you can visit Tour desk upon boarding.  That might be what we end up doing.

Thanks for this thread.  See you there!

😄

[Iwantsun]

If the excursion you want has a waiting list, register all of the people who want this excursion on the waiting list. I was told by a concierge that if they have enough people to fill a bus, they will request one more bus from the vendor.  Then it depends if the excursion vendor can accomodate.  

 

[milolii]

You. have some good suggestions.  

7 hours ago, jbinbi said:

Am on the Princess Nordic cruise beginning of June. Didn't realize that with 4 months to go all the popular excursions would be sold out!
 

 Is there a good company throughout Scandanavia that I can book tours with in most of the major ports? TIA.

Many of the companies that offered the Baltic port excursions  as a package were based in St.Petersburg.  Well, that ended abruptly.  I think some of them are starting to make a comeback, after leaving Russia.  We struggled to find private tours in 2022 and 2023.  In my opinion, tour companies and other vendors were still struggling to get back up and running- either post Covid, or due to the War in Ukraine.  
 

There are some excellent suggestions above.  Agree  join the roll call.  Also agree to look at Viator and Get your guide.  I wouldn’t wait as their tours sell out as well. 
 

Here are some of ours: 

Skagen: we hired a Taxi with another couple. Email Anna at DanTaxi.  Skagen has an “few” taxis.   Went to Grenen, the sand dunes, the sand church.

Copenhagen: Hop on hop off is a good option, lunch at Nyhavn

Helsinki: hop on hop off here is OK,  fish market and/or Senate Square are nice places to hop off 

Tallin:  We did a ship tour, wonderful old town. 

Stockholm:  Vasa Museum,  Gamla Stan:  there  are hop on hop off boats.  Nice ride around  the harbor.  If you dock out of Stockholm you need transportation to get there.  We docked near town. 

Warnemune:  We didn't go to Berlin, but to Rostock and Schwerin.  We took the train with another American couple who lived in Germany.  
 

I’d have a plan B if you try to get on the ship’s  waiting list. 

[Micahs Grandad]

5 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

Have you checked out the ports of call boards?

Also look at viator or trip advisor for tours

[riffatsea]

Viator is ax3rd party c seller

They don't do any tours themselves

It would not be a place I'd book b a European tour 

[mevs904]

When we took the Regal Baltic cruise a few years ago we used Alla Tours which was similar to SPB tours and based in St. Petersburg.  We took their tours in St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Rostock/Schwerin.  Each of the tours was excellent as was the customer service.  According to their website they are still operating.  Under normal circumstances we would use them again, but since they are a Russian company, sadly, our consciences wouldn’t let us do that.  You may have different feelings on the matter.  They were an excellent tour company.

[DCThunder]

10 hours ago, riffatsea said:

Viator is ax3rd party c seller

They don't do any tours themselves

It would not be a place I'd book b a European tour 

I often use Viator to get the names of local tour companies and then contact those companies directly.  Cuts out the Viator middleman and often results in less expensive excursions...

[capriccio]

1 hour ago, DCThunder said:

I often use Viator to get the names of local tour companies and then contact those companies directly.  Cuts out the Viator middleman and often results in less expensive excursions...

That's exactly what we do and the vendors definitely appreciate it.

[milolii]

Yep that's what we do. 

Edited January 23 by milolii

[Rick&Jeannie]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:00 AM, jbinbi said:

skagen, copenhagen, helsinki, tallin, berlin, stockholm, kristiansand.

We did almost this same itinerary last year.  (Some changes due to weather.)  I can say without a doubt that the Berlin excursion has so far been one of our absolute favorites across almost 15 Princess cruises.  We almost did not sign up for it because of the long train rides both ways...but I'm so glad we did.  You get to see real German countryside during transit and Berlin itself is simply amazing in being able to experience first-hand all of the historical sights you've (probably) read about or seen in so many movies!  Seeing the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall is very hard to describe from the standpoint of what it meant to the people of the city when it was in place.

 

BTW...it's a special chartered train dedicated to the excursion...