Ship Excursions - Mediterranean Tours

[donaldsc]

I have several questions about the Atlas ship excursions.  We almost never take ship excursions but the ones listed for our Mediterranean cruise look sort of interesting and are reasonably priced. The cruises we are taking are the Oct 12 - 7 Night Bilboa to Lisbon cruise and the Oct 19 Lisbon to Canary Island cruise.

 

1.Are the excursions and the guides usually pretty good?

 

2. How large are the tour groups?  I would not want to be on a bus w 40 of my new closest friends.

 

3. Do the tours waste time on shopping stops or will I spend my tour time actually seeing stuff.

 

4. Did I forget to ask anything else about the Atlas excursions.

 

5. Do they ever cancel tours because of an insufficient number of booking after I have booked the tour or especially after I am on board?

 

DON

[mlmdaisy]

The tours we took were pretty good.  Our itinerary was RT Barcelona, so the ports were different.  There were no tacky stops to buy souvenirs; content was focused on the described activities.  Group size can be large, though.

 

As for cancellations, we had the opposite problem.  They had very low capacity and only a small fraction of passengers could be accommodated on the ship's tours. 

[YoHoHo]

On 6/9/2024 at 11:53 AM, donaldsc said:

 

 

1.Are the excursions and the guides usually pretty good?

 

We took perhaps 8 over 21 days and all were of good quality. A couple very good and and others still enjoyable and interesting. Where you are travelling of course impacts what is available. As Atlas often is docking at smaller ports there is naturally less available as the providers are fewer and are not cruise ship focused. Larger ports will have the usual offerings (and quality).

 

On 6/9/2024 at 11:53 AM, donaldsc said:

 

2. How large are the tour groups?  I would not want to be on a bus w 40 of my new closest friends.

 

Varies. A couple were small (8?) and one was larger (25?). That one was a big bus 1/2 full for a longish scenic drive to a pretty place.

 

Don't over think this. The ship sails with only a few pax. It is not likely 1/3 are wanting to take the same excursion. No big ship, multiple bus excursions except for the included "expedition" when almost the entire ship load of pax joined in. They managed those very well and quality was excellent.

 

On 6/9/2024 at 11:53 AM, donaldsc said:

3. Do the tours waste time on shopping stops or will I spend my tour time actually seeing stuff.

We were not taken for shopping on any of our excursions. I don't know how you will spend your time. Some of the tours were focusing on history and place and the very informative guides usually also allowed a little free time for seeing stuff on ones own which was often appreciated as sometimes information overload sets in for those not as keen on the topic (or distracted by heat of the day or beckoning blue sea.)

 

On 6/9/2024 at 11:53 AM, donaldsc said:

 

 

4. Did I forget to ask anything else about the Atlas excursions.

 

 

On 6/9/2024 at 11:53 AM, donaldsc said:

5. Do they ever cancel tours because of an insufficient number of booking after I have booked the tour or especially after I am on board?

Yes! This is a great question.

 

We had several cancelled due to lack of participation. So book early, book often to get numbers high and not risk having it cancelled before you buy.

 

The person managing excursions worked very hard to provide alternatives and encouraged participation up to the last minute trying to get enough to be able to provide the excursion. 

 

The biggest problem is when have one booked for the first day out as we did not find out until once on board and then it is too late to find a tour on our own. So if you do book a shorex for day one be prepared with a backup plan. We weren't so missed touring opportunity.

 

This cancel day 1 excursions was annoying because Atlas head office knows the participation levels a week before sailing as purchasing is closed a week ahead, so they could have told us of the cancellation several days before. This happened to me twice. The excursion manager on board must face the disappointed clients and has no control over the (bad) timing.

 

We had a great tour that I suspect was run despite low numbers just to not have to cancel once again. 

 

Other than the "day 1" issue, despite cancellations I was pleased with the excursion and the price and the efforts of the excursion manager to ensure satisfaction.