How many of you have gone on vacation (land or sea) and wanted to take a tour/excursion? Your cruise or your resort will offer many large group options but you also researched some private tours and you’re not sure what to choose. We’ve experienced both and enjoyed both options. Below is my take on ship excursions vs. shore excursions. The private companies listed here do both so you can’t go wrong.
Ship Shore Excursions
Normally when we book a cruise for ourselves or a client we suggest using the ships excursions. There are several benefits to this. First, if for some reason you are late returning to the ship the ship has to wait for you. They won’t wait for a private excursion (too long). Cancellations are taken care of using ship board credit so you don’t have to wait for funds to be refunded back to a credit card which can take days. When in ports where you have to tender,ship excursions are always given the first tenders into port. Depending on the port, ship excursions can be plentiful and cost effective (I find this to be the case in the Caribbean but not in Europe).
So, if all this sounds so good why the debate? Our Host Agency MTravel has contract with Viator which rivals any cruise line in cost and opportunity. The tours are also smaller. When you book with us all you have to do is let us know what type of excursion you’d like and we’ll connect you with a reputable company that Mtravel endorses. There are shore excursions for every itinerary (Caribbean, Europe, Alaska etc.).
Private Shore Excursions
For both our Mediterranean cruises we chose to go with Private tours. We researched many of the options and our situation made this the best option. Why private and not a ship’s excursion? If we were on our own we would have definitely used a ship’s shore excursion, but since we were with a group a Private tour made better sense since it was both more cost effective and was a much smaller group then a ship’s excursion.
We are heavy users of a website called Cruise Critic This site not only gives you reviews of ships and itineraries but also has a community forum where you can find the ship and date you are sailing and join a roll call of others who are also on your ship at the same time. For each cruise, we been chatting with people for several months prior to each cruise. As we all began discussing what each of us were looking to do we decided that to all go in on a private tour that had no more than 8-10 people which is much less than a ships tour. Plus the cost is split between each couple which makes these tours much more affordable.
For Florence/Pisa (2015) and Naples (2018) we used romeinlimo. There are 8-9 of us in a nice comfortable air conditioned minivan. The reservation was easy to make on their website and its set up so that others can log in and find your reservation and join us.
2019 update: Romeinlimo isn’t in Sicily so for our 2018 Med Cruise we decided to use
Joe Banana . We chose the Godfather Tour. This tour took us to the sites used in the Godfather movies as well as Taoromina.
For our private tour docking in Villefranche, we chose a tour where we visited Nice and Eze as well as Monaco/Monte Carlo. This tour was through Riviera Premium Tours. We joined this tour through others on cruise critic who were familiar with the company out of the UK. Again, there were 8 of us in a nice comfortable van.
2019 Update: I also want to mention Viator. In 2015 we used Viator to tour the Vatican and in 2018 we used them to tour the Acropolis in Athens and dropped us off at the Palace of Versailles in Paris. These tours were pre or post cruise but worth mentioning because of the quality of their product. All tours had extremely knowledgeable guides and the group size was not so large as you couldn’t ask questions when needed.
One of the advantages to booking private shore excursions is that you can ask the driver to pick a favorite restaurant or stop at a location along the way. They are as they say…at your bidding. Both tours are payable in Euros when you arrive. So, which is better? I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Private tours because that was our choice for this trip. When we cruise in the Caribbean we use a ship excursion or our excursion site. We also used Resort for a Day which gives you full resort privileges for a day while you are in port. Because you are with a large group and the tours are much longer…and more expensive in Europe, we felt that using a private tour was the best option for us.
As we ended our cruise in Barcelona in 2015, we did another private tour. Now, Celebrity and Princess…and all other cruise lines have debarkation tours at all ports. In 2015, we stayed overnight and we decided to join some of our cruise critic mates on a private 4 hour tour of Barcelona. Barcelona Day Tours will pick you and our luggage up at the Port of Barcelona and then drop you off at your hotel.
What are your experiences? Have any suggestions? Leave us a comment.
**Please feel free to take a look at any of the links provided in this post. We will be happy to book your vacation be it land or sea and work with you to choose the appropriate excursion(s) for your trip. TAKE A VACATION AND LET YOUR SOLSHINE!!
The Godfather Tour (Private) 
Santorini Wine Tour (Ship)
Dave (grtfldave on cruise critic)
info@solshinetravel.com
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