Thread: Excursions...Book direct or through the ship?

On shore excursions, do you book direct or through the ship and why?

We actually like to book through the ship IF something we want to do offered as a shore excursion!

They pick us up from the ship .... Take us to have fun .... Return us to the ship .... and .... We never "miss the boat"!

Certainly, we take taxis and go to a beach on-our-own as well! Just depends ....

It varies greatly. If something we want to do is only available through the ship, we will book with them.

It also depends on the time issue. If it is a fairly short time in port and it would be a rush to do it on our own, we don't want to take the chance of missing the ship.

PE

I do both, which you didn;t give as an option. Sometimes there are excursions on the ship that I really want to do, sometimes we can do a great excursion cheaper on our own.

Had to vote thru the ship.

For our first 3 cruises only thru the ship. For last cruise some thru the ship and the others right at the dock. And those were great. We wanted island tours and the ships tour seemed very expensive for the length of the tour.

Up coming cruise for 2 ports have booked one with the ship and for the second port not sure yet what we will do. Maybe just a taxi toa beach.

I've always done through the ship but are considering booking direct when I go The Med next year.

We actually do both. Again it depends on my familiarity with the location, time factors, etc. I generally prefer to do it "on our own" as we find we get much more out of direct interaction with local folks vs. walking around in a obvious tourist group with number tags.

I selected "through the ship" as that's how we usually book any excursions we do. Two cruises ago, we booked something at the pier, but it wasn't completely satisfactory. Hubby decided he would rather spend the extra money and go with the ship's excursions as their transportation vehicles are usually better and there's the knowledge that the ship will wait for anyone on an excursion booked through the cruiseline.

That said, much of the time, we just go into the port and walk around. I try to read up on the ports, and check out the websites for each port. Many of those ports will have a brochure they will send you that will contain maps and great ideas for sights to see. A couple of times, we have also negotiated with a taxi driver (after talking to him to get a feel of their attitude toward their city and toward us) for a tour. Or asked a driver to drop us off at a nice beach with arrangements to pick us up at a specific time.

We aactually book both privately and through the ship...depends on the port and time issues....

We usually book direct but have also done ship excursions. We find we get better value and service with the private operators. Have never had a problem with private tour operators but we do our research before hand and look at all the recomendations for the tour operators.