Shore excursions -- what to do!

Today's blog is about shore excursions.  When you logged on to your cruise ships itinerary page and saw all the different type of shore excursions, were you over whelmed?  I totally understand!  Reading up on the available shore excursions for any cruise is a huge undertaking.  There are many choices for every port of call - half day excursions, all day excursions, you name it, they have it.  Use the ships excursion list with descriptions to get an idea of what you would like to see on your trip, then you can start planning.



Purchasing excursion via the ship can be an expensive proposition.  If you purchase a cruise and it comes with a 'Ship Board Credit' as an incentive, use that credit to purchase an excursion if there is one they are offering you that you really like the details on.  That is a very effective use of a ship board credit.   Be aware that the cruise lines are hiring local companies to do the excursions for them, and then marking the price up to make their profit. When you purchase a shore excursion  from the ship, you are generally going to be traveling on a 48 passenger motor coach to wherever you are headed.  Can you do an excursion on your own?  YES, YOU CAN!  And friends, this is where Cruise Critic comes in to play.

Let me tell you about one of my favorite cruises and how we set up our shore excursions to give you an idea of what is possible.   I've mentioned in a previous post that we did the Baltic's cruise - It was actually Celebrity Century, 12 Night Scandinavia & Russia Cruise.  Sounds pretty cool huh?  Here was the Itinerary we had:  Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Estonia, Oslo.  Yes, I was with CJS and neither of us had been to any of these ports of call.

After reading through the Celebrity Century's information on Excursions on line, I then when to Cruise Critic.com.   On this site you can find every Cruise Line, every ship and pretty much every cruise by date.  I went to what they call "The Boards" and found the Celebrity Century's sailing for June 14th - the day we were to board the ship in Amsterdam.  There were already many people posting on this particular thread.  CJS and I had decided that we wanted to set up a 2-day tour in St Petersburg, but we did not want to do it via the ship's excursion desk because it was way out of our budget!

I started my own thread 'Looking for 4-6 people to join a private tour in St. Petersburg' was the title and in the body I wrote a couple of lines about who we were and that we wanted to get a smaller group together for a private tour.  I wrote that I was doing the planning and to contact me via Cruise Critic if interested.

Bold move you might say - how was I going to plan a tour in Russia!?  Well, I used Cruise Critic to look at some past cruises with the same ports and found several people who had done the same thing.  I shamelessly stole there contacts and ideas.  There were a couple of companies I emailed to and I ended up choosing DenRus, a local company in St. Petersburg.  The thing about Russia is you need a Visa.  Nobody will tell you that if you are traveling with a cruise ship, they will give you a 'day' Visa.  The only thing is you have to be with a certified tour guide.  However, it can be your own tour guide and it doesn't have to be via the ship's excursion desk -- but like I said, the ship is not going to tell you this because they make good money on the excursions, especially in Russia.

Most private tour companies offer a set price for the size of the van they are going to use, usually 6-8 passenger Mercedes Mini vans.  In this case I had begun my on line communication with DenRus and knew I was going to have an 8 passenger van, so I was shooting for a minimum of 4 people to join us, making it 6 in the van, plenty of room for everyone, and having a total of 6 people to split the cost really got the price per person down to a very reasonable amount.

I had great response on Cruise Critic and ended up with 6 people who wanted to join, a total of 8 of us. As the organizer, I had to gather everyones names & passport numbers and send that information to DenRus.  Then I set up a met-up for the 8 of us, the second day at sea.  We met in one of the bars, had a drink with each other, got to know each other a bit and discussed our meeting place & time for our time in St. Petersburg.  DenRus had told me we could pay our tour guide in Euros at the end of the second day of the excursion.  I reminded everyone to bring cash with them, with enough over for a tip if the service was good.  We'd have our guide + the driver.

The excursion was fantastic!  We had a guide that was a Professor of Art History from the University who did these excursions to make a little extra cash.  She was amazing.  We had 2-10 hour days with her and the cost was 85% LESS than what we would have paid going through the ships excursion desk INCLUDING a generous tip for the driver & guide.  It was pretty darn easy to set up, just a little research and organizational work on my part, produced a great tour and saved a ton of money.

our St Petersburg group with Ludmilla our guide, second from the left

When I tell people this story they usually say something along the lines of 'weren't you worried that you'd end up with people you did not like?  What happens if someone doesn't show up the day of the tour?  Who covers the cost if that happens?'

I have set up cruise tours with 'strangers' many times.  Not once have I had any of the problems asked above.  People that are traveling via a cruise ship are very friendly - they are just like you - out to have a great vacation and save money where they can.  My experience has been that I get a wide variety of people of all ages and backgrounds.  I've learned to put as much detail in my posts as possible, such as if there is going to be a lot of physical activity, prolonged standing, etc, so people can look at my post and decide if my excursion is right for them.  The biggest problem I have ever encountered was I had one guy on an excursion in Rome one time that was kind of a loud mouth jerk (LOL) but you could find yourself sitting next to one of those types on a big 48 passenger motor coach too, so it is worth the gamble.

A vodka toast at the end of our second day, Vodka provided by our guide

The other question people ask me about setting up my own tours,  how hard is it to set up your own tour? It is not hard at all.  Really, just a little research on the computer, a little emailing with interested parties, communicating with the tour company on behalf of your group - these are your main duties when setting up a tour.  isn't it time consuming?  No, it is not bad.  If you email friends after work, or get on Facebook to post daily or play games on your smart phone, you can do this!  how do you find your tour companies?  I go on Cruise Critic.com and Trip Advisor.  These are my two primary sources for information on destinations.  But I have also just googled '(Location) private tours'  you would be amazed at what is out there.  You email back & forth with the company detailing what you want in your tour.  Find out the maximum number of guests the vehicle can comfortably hold, make arrangements for what type of currency the company wants to be paid in and they should get it at the end of the tour, never in advance. The thing is, in this day and age, people talk about there experiences on line.  If there is an unscrupulous tour company out there, people will talk about it in the travel community.  So really, with just a little 'leg work' at your key board, you too can be an tour planner!
Once you have done your first excursion, you will never go back!

Midnight Russian Sunset

Come back tomorrow for more about cruising
Safe Travels!