Booking Shore Excusrions

[Brian B]

We are on the Dawn March 20 for 10 night South Carribean. Ports include Barbados, Curaco, Dominca, Isla Margarita, St Thomas. We have cruised 3 times previous on the west coast of NA but never booked shore excursions. The excusrions offered by Princess are quite pricey, In reading a book put out by Frommers they name an independent company that you can book excusrsions through, i.e. shorexcursions.com. I looked at their site the tours are limited in number but those the same offered by Princes are a little cheaper. Does anyone have experience in booking excusrions other than those offered by Princess and know of any other web sites that offer packages?

 

[Renee]

I have been on a couple of cruises...What we did which worked really well and saved alot of money, was gather information on these message boards and figure out what we wanted to do at each port.
Then I book them directly. (swim w/ the dolphins saved 30pp cozumel, eco tour in Antiqua etc.) If there isn't that option you can generally get off the ship and ask a taxi to take you where you want to go and pay when you get there. ( did sting ray city Cayman islands, orient beach St Martin, coral world/coli beach,St Thomas, Dunns Falls)
Hope this helps,
Renee

 

[lougee1043]

the only thing you must remember is that if you book independently make sure you allow enough time to get back to the ship in the event something unexpected happens---the ship will not wait for you and it will be your responsibility and cost to catch up with it at its next port----------------------if you book thru the cruise line and something happens to make you late they will wait for you to show up before sailing

 

[sailboat]

It's true that you need to allow enough time to get back to the ship, but it's equally important to think about when you will get to port and whether you will be tendering so that you can plan accordingly to get to your tour on time. You can correspond with many operators via email and work out details about where to meet your tour, etc. in advance. Another thing to learn is what refund policy the operator has--for example--if they don't get enough people to conduct a tour, and so on. You can also research in advance to learn if tour booking desks are near where you will dock and book a tour on shore. Not all tours fill up and you may be able to simply buy a ticket directly from the operator. But I'd do this only on tours that you can take or leave. If you absolutely, positively have to swim with the dolphins, take the secure route and book through the ship.