Cruise Tour Prices

[SteveNorthampton]

Can anybody tell me why there is such a vast difference in tour prices when similar toyrs are offered by different cruise lines?

One of my stops later this month will be Rome (from Civitavecchia)

The "Rome on you own" tour through NCL is $119 or £68 at todays exchange rate of £1= $1.75

The "Rome on your own" tour offered by Celebrity is $74 or £42.50

 

Both tours identical. Collected from the dockside. Bus for an hour or so into Rome. Dropped and then collected later in the day to go back to the ship.

Yet the price difference is $45 or £26 per person.

 

The bill for myself, my wife and three teenage sons would be $595 on NCL or $370 on Celebrity. That's a difference of $225 on the cheapest tour offered.

 

I've done my homework, and we will be hopping onto the train to go it alone. But I just had to ask the question. WHY SUCH DIFFFERENCES??

[WeBeGone]

All shore excursions are sub contracted out to local providers. The locals tour operators submit bids for cruise business. Then the cruiseline adds their money, thus you get different prices. Many of us search the net and our roll calls and book our own tour instead of going through the cruiseline. Many times you can find other cc folks through the roll call to share the cost. I think the only time we've taken a cruiseline shore excursion was when we were in Jamacia or when what we wanted to do was only offered via the ship.

[kitty9]

Celebrity's prices for their cruise fares are generally higher than NCL, so perhaps NCL increases prices for their other services to make up for their lower fares.