How to handle excursions on your next cruise

Shore excursions…   should we book them or shouldn’t we? Should we arrange them through the cruise line or book these independently? Should we buy them before we go or when we’re on board the ship? These are just some of the many questions I’m constantly being asked by my clients.

Let’s address some important issues.

There are some places that you probably would be better off booking the cruise lines’ recognised shore excursion.

I’m thinking of places like Honningsvag, Norway’s gateway for the North Cape. St Petersburg in Russia. Tianjin, the port in China for Beijing. Egypt’s Port Said for trips to the pyramids.  I often suggest clients use the cruise lines’ excursions in these places, because arranging them yourself becomes rather impractical.

To visit the North Cape observatory on any cruise, you’re going to visit Honningsvag and this is quite a trip from the port. Doing this on your own is really not recommended.

St. Petersburg Russia is one of those classic cities visited on cruise ships where you simply must have an excursion.

Visiting here independently is neither easy, nor recommended, and it can be a nightmare to get an independent visa anyway. I have known occasions when I’ve cruised to St Petersburg where passengers with independent visas have suddenly been told, on the day of arrival, that the Russian authorities have decided not to allow those people to disembark. So what’s the point arriving in this city, with all its many highlights, only to find that after so much preparation, that you can’t disembark after all.

If you did disembark, to travel around St Petersburg independently is not something I recommend to anyone, and for good reasons. You could be lucky and the cruise line might offer an “excursion” really a glorified transfer into the city to see places like renowned Nevsky Prospekt.

Challenges you’ll experience might be the language barrier for one. The complexity of the layout of the city for another. Problems sometimes with timed entrances to the palaces. Location of cruise berths are often far from the attractions of the city.

As for Tianjin, Beijing’s port…    don’t even think about it.

I’ve cruised to Egypt on many occasions. I remember our first trip with our two young daughters and we decided we’ll go see the pyramids. Once again, this is neither a simple trip to arrange on your own, nor is it one that I would recommend you be doing independently. When we arrived there, after a long coach trip, my wife and I disembarked the coach and looked at the amazing sites of the pyramids and the Sphinx standing in front of us.

One of our daughters, already reluctant to have been dragged along to see this amazing site, within three minutes exclaimed…  “well we’ve seen it. Can we go back to the ship now?”

Petra is a “must see” when cruising into the port of Aqaba but take my advice and get a specialist to arrange this one excursion for you, otherwise a DIY plan may be wasting good money.

A simple solution for shore excursions is there for all and remember, you don’t need shore excursions in many ports you’ll visit.

Cruising is all about getting friendly with your fellow passengers and you’re likely to meet up with another similar couple, who, when asked, might be quite happy to share a taxi with you and that will offset the cost. So, in some ports of call, it might well be worth disembarking the ship and negotiating with a good taxi/tour driver to show you the place, at an agreed rate.

When my wife and I arrive in a port, that we have never visited before, we often make our first stop a visit to the local tourist information office, and ask them what is the best way to see the place in the short time that we have available. On occasions, we have taken an English speaking walking tour and found that we were the only couple, so we have a guide all to ourselves.

Need to know more about shore excursion selection? Happy to share my experiences as soon as you have booked. You can reach me on my direct line 0330 303 8397 or by email to [email protected].