Booking a Shore Excursion Through the Cruise Line vs. Doing it Yourself

Should I just book all my shore excursions through the cruise line, or should I organise them all myself?

This is always a difficult one to give advice on as it really does depend on what kind of person you are. It’s true that as cruise prices become more and more competitive, as cruise lines strive to compete with each other, they need to find another revenue stream to increase their profits. Cruise line shore excursions are a very easy way of doing this by adding surcharges to them. Massive savings can be had if you’re prepared to organise them yourself, but a lot of people aren’t comfortable with this for several reasons........

Most cruise ships don’t turn up at the city advertised – for instance if you’re going to Rome you’ll arrive in Civitavecchia and have to be transferred by coach. Even if you’re cruise ship does arrive in the correct city the places you want to visit may be many miles from the docks. If you’ve booked your shore excursion through the cruise line then all you need to do is get off the ship and a coach will be waiting for you to take you to your chosen destination. Organising it yourself means you need to arrange your own trains/taxis/transport to the place of interest and then arrange tickets for the place your visiting, (assuming it’s some kind of museum etc). This is all certainly possible, and you will save yourself a lot of money, but remember, you’ll be doing it in a foreign country you're not familiar with, where you probably wont speak the language and others might not speak yours if you need to ask for help. To top it all off,you only normally have a few hours, 12-18 at the absolute most, before the cruise ship leaves for its next destination, whether you’re onboard or not.

I know that all sounds a bit ‘doom and gloomy’ but it is do-able. All you have to do is a bit of research into your different ports of call before you go. Have a few phrases ready if you run into difficulties, time it carefully and most of all make sure you’re the kind of person who won’t get ‘stressed out’ on your own, in a foreign city.
On the other hand, in the cruise lines defence, a cruise holiday is meant to be about relaxation and not having to worry about anything, so a lot of people feel the extra costs involved with the cruise line organised excursions are worth it. Again, as I said, it depends what kind of person you are.

Do any of my readers have any experience with organising your own shore excursions? How easy was it? Did anything go wrong? Was it worth the savings? If you have ever organised your own shore excursions or are thinking about it feel free to add your comments and thoughts below.

Happy Cruising.