Excursion price increases

[Eno]

For our cruise coming up the beginning of April out of Southamption, all ship excursions have jumped in price.

None are selling out and most still have the usual listed 20 spaces available.

I only booked a few small excursions ranging in price from 99.95 to 139.95 for Bordeaux, Cherbourg and disembarking excursion to Stonehedge/airport

All are now 35 - 45 dollars more per person and there are three of us.

One that I had looked at but was out of my price range jumped from 349 to 459 - crazy.

[rocklinmom]

Yes Princess has raised shore excursion prices significantly since the beginning of the year. For our May Alaska cruise they raised the prices, then lowered them for a 5 day "Alaska Shore Excursion Sale", then raised them again, and now are doing another 5 day "Sale" with even lower prices. I had booked ours during the first "Sale" and just tried to cancel and rebook them for these lower prices to save some money...of course their shore excursion payment system wasn't working and I couldn't do it.  I am leery of trying it again even though this second "Sale" goes until Monday the 19th. You might watch yours to see if they do the same thing, raise the prices and then do a "Sale" for you. 

[karatemom2]

Yes, I noticed this as well for our Norway cruise this June. The prices went up significantly about two weeks ago. I had been monitoring capacity on an excursion we were interested in, but hadn’t decided on. Thankfully we have a great roll call with numerous private tour options but there are a couple of ports where I’m still considering Princess excursions. I went ahead and booked the one we really want but I was kicking myself for not doing it sooner before the price increase. 

Edited February 17 by karatemom2

[lahlah57]

Just looked at excursions in alaska for our cruise in may and it is absurd...$$$!

We decided no excursions and will just walk off the ship and walk around town or take a simple shuttle into town or hop on hop off! We will not be hosed anymore than we already are!

 

[karatemom2]

1 minute ago, lahlah57 said:

Just looked at excursions in alaska for our cruise in may and it is absurd...$$$!

We decided no excursions and will just walk off the ship and walk around town or take a simple shuttle into town or hop on hop off! We will not be hosed anymore than we already are!

 

Alaska is a great destination to find independent excursions or just explore on your own. Consider renting a car for some of your ports. Some of our best days in Alaska have just involved venturing out in our own vehicle and enjoying the natural beauty and spotting wildlife. 

[startedwithamouse]

You may still see the same spots available online. Been on a full Princess bus? There's much more than 20 people. The number online has nothing to do with how many have booked for supply and demand. 

[Dee_Jay]

For the non-US excursions, is it possible that the exchange rate has gone up, and Princess is raising prices to keep up?

I once booked an independent excursion in New Zealand, paid in NZ Dollars on my credit card.  The excursion was cancelled by the vendor and they refunded my credit card in NZ dollars.  Unfortunately, the exchange rate had gone down, and I got back less US dollars than I had initially spent.

[karatemom2]

9 minutes ago, Dee_Jay said:

For the non-US excursions, is it possible that the exchange rate has gone up, and Princess is raising prices to keep up?

I once booked an independent excursion in New Zealand, paid in NZ Dollars on my credit card.  The excursion was cancelled by the vendor and they refunded my credit card in NZ dollars.  Unfortunately, the exchange rate had gone down, and I got back less US dollars than I had initially spent.

That is an interesting thought, but I don’t think that is the reason as people are reporting these price increases on cruises from Alaska, to the UK, and in our case Norway. It appears they are raising prices across the spectrum, unrelated to the local currency. 

[karatemom2]

35 minutes ago, startedwithamouse said:

You may still see the same spots available online. Been on a full Princess bus? There's much more than 20 people. The number online has nothing to do with how many have booked for supply and demand. 

True on the bus tours. We have booked those online at times and the numbers never change - just stays at 20. But on smaller tours it will show you the spots left. We just missed out on a horseback riding tour on one of our Mexico cruises. There was only one spot left and it wouldn’t book both me and my DH. We tried the waitlist route but no luck. Same thing with a small boat tour in Alaska we missed. We just weren’t able to get on.  Right now for our Norway cruise the train excursion in Flaam is already completely full and I doubt that will open up unless people drop. There is only a finite amount of space for some smaller, more niche tours where with bus tours extra buses and guides can probably be added. 
 

In the instance of the Norway excursion I was watching there is clearly still plenty of availability so the price increase wasn’t related to capacity. I was sort of hoping to hold out and book onboard because we have a ton of OBC. But with the prices going up, it seems like waiting just ends up costing more. 

[Dee_Jay]

2 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

In the instance of the Norway excursion I was watching there is clearly still plenty of availability so the price increase wasn’t related to capacity. I was sort of hoping to hold out and book onboard because we have a ton of OBC. But with the prices going up, it seems like waiting just ends up costing more. 

I'm curious; why don't you book now using your OBC?

[pompeii]

A couple of days ago my personalizer on the princess website would not accept a credit card payment. Tried several different cards, it just wouldn’t process it. Turns out a lot of people were having the same issue. The problem resolved itself overnight but my excursion went up by $40 during that time. Very frustrating. 

[karatemom2]

16 minutes ago, Dee_Jay said:

I'm curious; why don't you book now using your OBC?

 
I tried but for some reason it’s not letting me? The OBC shows up on my cruise personalizer but not as an option for payment when I go to pay for the excursion. It’s worked in the past on other cruises but not this time. Don’t know if it’s a glitch in the system, if Princess has changed its policy on using the OBC in advance, or just an issue we are experiencing. But it just won’t work - I had to pay with a credit card. 

Edited February 17 by karatemom2

[Dee_Jay]

15 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

 
I tried but for some reason it’s not letting me? The OBC shows up on my cruise personalizer but not as an option for payment when I go to pay for the excursion. It’s worked in the past on other cruises but not this time. Don’t know if it’s a glitch in the system, if Princess has changed its policy on using the OBC in advance, or just an issue we are experiencing. But it just won’t work - I had to pay with a credit card. 

Strange!  I just tried it on two upcoming cruises, and the checkbox to use OBC was automatically checked.

[karatemom2]

4 minutes ago, Dee_Jay said:

Strange!  I just tried it on two upcoming cruises, and the checkbox to use OBC was automatically checked.

 

Well I’m glad it worked for you! Our OBC is from our casino deposits and shareholders credit, so not sure if the type of OBC is limiting our options or if it’s just not loading for some reason even though it’s reflected on our summary. 

[Rick&Jeannie]

50 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

We have booked those online at times and the numbers never change - just stays at 20.

I *believe* I have an answer as to why that number always *seems* to stay at 20.  Princess has been using this reservation system for years.  It is a secondary module that runs behind the scenes of the website...even though they make changes to the website that *you* see, it hands off a reservation request to this sub-module that you do not see. 

 

Let's take a hypothetical excursion as an example.  "Exotic Scenic Tour of the Smallest Island You Have Ever Been On". They subcontract this tour from local vendors (no surprise there.)  A single "tourist" style bus will commonly hold about 50 people.  They *may* contract up front for more than one bus...but let's assume for this example that it is the only bus available on the island.  (It's a *really* small island!) 

 

Princess starts taking reservations against the total number of slots that they know the bus will hold.  The behind-the-scenes module "knows" what the total number is.  But the "magic number" shown on the website stays at 20...until they actually get down to 20 slots still open. Then, the system starts to decrement the available number and you start seeing "19, 18, 17...etc."  When you see a number less than 20 showing, that is your cue that this excursion is truly filling up.  Until this happens, you don't know if you are going to be the only people on that bus!  It's a bit of a strange way to operate...but they've been doing it for years that way.  Now...if the total number *starts off* at 20 or less...you will see the number start to decrement right away.

[SSAtlantic]

I noticed the price increase over the weekend. We are cruising from Southampton to Rome in October and there are 3 of us and another couple. I had priced a few excursions that involved long travel each way about 3 weeks ago and noticed last weekend they had all increased $20-$30 per person. We have not made any definite plans yet so not much I can do. We do like to do private excursions with the 5 of us, but several sites involve at least an hour each way travel time. We are considering using ship excursions for these just in case of transport delays.   No one but me has looked at anything so I am just forgetting about the increase. 🤣

[Rick&Jeannie]

Over time, *everything* goes up in price...we all experience this at the grocery store.  But, it's a pretty well known issue that Princess raises excursion prices the closer it gets to sail date.  So, that combined with "normal" (I hate to use that word in this scenario!) supply and demand (and inflation), you're going to pay more for excursions.  I don't like it any more than you do!  That's why I always try to reserve anything that I really want to do very shortly after booking the cruise.  They almost *never* reduce excursion prices!

[PacnGoNow]

1 hour ago, pompeii said:

A couple of days ago my personalizer on the princess website would not accept a credit card payment. Tried several different cards, it just wouldn’t process it. Turns out a lot of people were having the same issue. The problem resolved itself overnight but my excursion went up by $40 during that time. Very frustrating. 

That might have been why the CC wouldn’t work.  They were updating the pricing.  
😳

[pompeii]

7 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

That might have been why the CC wouldn’t work.  They were updating the pricing.  
😳

Yep, that’s my thought 

[devonuk]

They were dear enough previously, certainly wouldn’t have used them before and most definitely won’t be in the future 🙁

[Eno]

Most excursions will allow up to 45 people on one bus but website will always show 20 spots. I have been tracking almost daily and only one excursion has gone down with spots available. With the price increases expect they are getting ready for a ‘sale’.  Princess has been the worst for call centre questions.  One excursion with two options both same start times one 30 mins longer and 40 dollars more. They have no idea why.  Another excursion states that it is a full day but time is only 4 hours again no clue.   I usually do private excursions and now I know why.  

[cr8tiv1]

I booked an excursion using shareholder credits.  I had to jump through hops to get my stocks registered (another long story) so that I could book my Princess excursions months out.  I was happy that Princess processed my OBC outside of the 90 days.  Not sure if I will have to "verify" that I still have the stocks.  My excursion went from $254.95 (paid) to $334.95.  

 

I have always noticed that the rates will increase closer to sail date.  But have never seen a 30% (or more) jump.  It "used to be" 10% to 15%.  I'm glad I booked mine early.  Always good to book ahead.  Let Princess "borrow" my money rather than risk the high increases.  You can always cancel.  I know, another can of worms.

 

8 hours ago, karatemom2 said:

 

Well I’m glad it worked for you! Our OBC is from our casino deposits and shareholders credit, so not sure if the type of OBC is limiting our options or if it’s just not loading for some reason even though it’s reflected on our summary. 

 

[Cruisemeister2002]

We go on a cruise later on in the year and have so far booked a couple of excursions. Some places such as New York only have two excursions which I find strange. These two are a hop on, hop off which you can get in the City anyway and the other is a coach ride around the City. No Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, no Hamptons or 911 memorial. Not that I'm interested in most anyway as a few years ago we did Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island for 50% less than what it would have cost via the cruise line. There are a couple of other excursions we'd like to do as I know these ports don't have much going for them with regards to just wandering around. But I agree prices are high. 

[MissP22]

20 hours ago, lahlah57 said:

Just looked at excursions in alaska for our cruise in may and it is absurd...$$$!

We decided no excursions and will just walk off the ship and walk around town or take a simple shuttle into town or hop on hop off! We will not be hosed anymore than we already are!

 

The more they raise their prices, the more people decide to book tours with outside vendors, usually at up to half the price. You'll often see Princess people at the same locations crammed onto busses and forced to stop at souvenir shops for a lot of wasted time. 

Princess, as well as other cruise lines, have gotten to greedy lately.

[karatemom2]

46 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

The more they raise their prices, the more people decide to book tours with outside vendors, usually at up to half the price. You'll often see Princess people at the same locations crammed onto busses and forced to stop at souvenir shops for a lot of wasted time. 

Princess, as well as other cruise lines, have gotten to greedy lately.

Very true. Rates have gone up twice in the last few weeks for our Norway cruise. We have 8 port days and for most we have planned independent tours. We did book two through Princess only because both were things we really wanted to do and we couldn’t find a similar private tour. One has now gone up

over $100 per person and another $50 per person since we booked them. In one port we have a small group that has arranged a private tour similar to a Princess excursion (actually better as there are only 15 of us and we are doing more) and the price for the individuals in our group is $150 less per person than the inferior Princess tour.
 

It really is highway robbery what they charge for tours when you know they are probably getting massive discounts from the vendors for the volume of people they deliver. I’ve compared what other lines charge for the exact same tours and Princess always seems the most expensive. I think they count on the fact that new cruisers in particular may be nervous about booking independent tours.