Taking a tour around the ports your cruise ship visits is an integral part of the cruise experience. Here’s how to tackle finding and booking an amazing shore excursion.
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29 Comments
Have been trying to book an excursion for whale watching in Sitka in August, Royal's options are already sold out! Any suggestions.
Get your Guide is another search engine that is great for activities.
All your suggestions are good. However, you left out a major source of information. Written guidebooks! They exist for regions, individual countries and sometimes for cities. Cruise guidebooks do exist.
But read them all. No one guidebook covers everything you can do, see, and buy. Borrow from your Public Library. Older editions are fine for preliminary research. Use the Internet for current prices, hours, new & closed venues, etc.
Rick Steves has 2 cruise guidebooks for Europe. He concentrates on independent port exploration but does recommend commercial operations for some ports.
We have a cruise coming up in August to New England/Canada. Sadly, the excursion we paid for in Halifax/Peggy's Cove got cancelled. RC was awesome though, full refund and an additional credit. Now, we are going to research the what-to-dos in that port.
Always so helpful and ful of great information thanks 👍
Going to Alaska in June. Found a tour that we liked with cruise ship but the tour left at 8am, much earlier than we’d like to up. I found the same tour with the provider but starting at 11am. We are in port until 9pm so I have no fear for getting back in time. Same price as ship but better time!
Perfect timing!
Great advice as always! Very thorough and informative. I’ve book the water park Arawak in labadee for my kids and a private cabana for cococay July. I usually go on TripAdvisor a lot to see what others are doing. Thx again
I find your videos are really helpful and well done. Also, you have such a great voice for this. Great job!
How to get refund if my cruise price decreases ??
Can unvaccinated kids be booked on non royal caribbean excursion or can they even get off the ship for that matter
Disappointed to see swimming with dolphins was glorified on this video. Horrible practice, wish people would never book them so that they could live in the wild. Great video otherwise.
Hey , love the vids! Im about to head out to a cruise soon for navigator . Do you know if they accept CVS covid testing results?
I think when in Italy, it's safer to book a tour through RC since the cities are so far inland. I'd be too nervous about getting back on time!
We have viewed Vloggers’ private, non- Royal Caribbean tours off the ship and have booked the same tour and was very satisfied with the tour. Like Matt said, we were not surprised, and also were able to stop at a fire station to buy some shirts. (This was a private tour, rather than a group tour) Just needed to ask if we could take a short detour.
Royal caribbean has a whole independent website where you can easily search every excursion that may be offered for a given itinerary. This is very helpful when it comes to AGE LIMITS. Please make note of age limits; for example – kids must be at least 10 to ride as a passenger on a wave jet.
Maybe it’s just our family’s luck, but we have had terrible experiences with bike rentals. Chains fall off, tires go flat, etc. and then you’re stuck or wasting a lot of time fixing an unknown bike mikes from the rental place.
can you go on shore/port and walk on your own without booking any tour?
Great info Matt! Got a quick question. How far in advance do they list tickets for Perfect Cay? We cruise next April and I see all the other cruise excursions listed. Just wondering if that is usually the last thing added or do we just pay when we get there. I’m sure I missed a video of you talking about this but I probably missed it. Thanks and love all the info!!:-)
Can I still have my lunch on the ship on shore excursion?
Safety First!! Do some research on the port and the area you will be visiting. There is often a bus/taxi/etc ride well away from the port. Know where you're going and what to expect when you get there.
We use a cruise tour if ship is docked along way from city etc eg Bangkok is a 2 hour drive from port. However in Caribbean we have never booked a cruise tour as local cabs/ tours are plentiful when you get off and much cheaper. They usually know what time ship departs as well. Often we have arranged for them to return and pick us up from a beach as payment is made when we return to the ship so no issues with being stranded.
Question are the excursions on royal cheaper before hand or cheaper when you get there ?
Can you get into full detail of the excursions ? The ones you’ve done ? For example I want to do the snorkeling with 1 hour open bar – it doesn’t say if alcohol if complimentary for an hour lol
I don’t think I’d believe trip advisor reviews again… I’ve come across obvious paid 5 star reviews from people with no other reviews under their belt. Just use caution when booking a tour in a non US territory.
Nice video. Thanks. Please inform if somebody wants to wander on the port can they do that and come back to ship early.
I have a first time cruiser question-if I'm planning an excursion from an outside vendor, what times do I use to book? Such as the itinerary says our ship docks at 9am, does that mean I can't plan for anything before 11am? And if it says leaving port at 9pm, should I plan to be back 1 hr, 2 hrs before that?
If the ship gets to the destination at 8 am & the excursion is scheduled at 8:15am, it’s that enough time to make it? (Booked through Royal Caribbean)
My question is when the ship goes to port how do u know where to go to do your excursion.. ?? Please help