Shore excursions. To book or not to book that is the question??

For those of you who have never cruised before I wanted to start off by telling you a bit about shore excursions. Normally in each port that you stop in. Your chosen cruise liner will normally offer a list of different sightseeing  options for you do do when you get off the ship. The biggest question you need to ask yourself is do I book and excursion or go it alone?

Assuming you have seen the list of excursions and decided this is something  you would like to do the next question you need to ask yourself is which excursion would suit you best. Normally you can break each excursion down by the following factors.

1. How active do you want to be
2. How much are you looking to spend
3. Do you want a full day or half day tour.

When booking excursions you can normally book most of them before you get on board, however if you still haven’t decided you can also book on board providing they aren’t fully booked.  Not many people are aware is that you don’t have to book excursions through the cruise liner direct. You can book similar or even exactly the same excursions through different companies at a fraction of the price. Please contact your travel agent and ask them if they offer something separate.

I would recommend Excursions in a country like Russia for instance as this way this will cover the cost of your visa.

Should I go it alone?

Some places for me just cry out for an excursion to be booked. Certain countries you may have already travelled to and feel you would rather do your own thing. If you go to the Caribbean for example you may just want to go to the beach for the day and if you are doing various islands around the Caribbean they can appear quite similar.

What would I do?

I personally don’t book any excursions. For me I feel they are very expensive for what you get and I am quite independent and would feel comfortable exploring the countries on my own.

What are your thoughts on this?

I would like to hear from people on this. Do you always book excursions or do you go it alone. tell me why you would choose one over another.