What are the biggest cruise excursion mistakes? — featuring Tips For Travellers

0:00 excursions are one of the biggest extra costs when we go on a cruise vacation and so it never ceases to amaze me the bizarre choices and things that I see my fellow Cruisers doing when planning booking or going on them so stick around to hear about the five most remarkable errors that I've seen and what they

0:19 should have been doing instead so you of course can avoid them welcome aboard I'm Gary bembridge making it easy to get cruising right every time including on cruise excursions the first mistake I see is Cruisers not researching the ports before going so they can decide what the very very best things to see or

0:37 do in them are so if you don't you're relying on what the cruise line is offering and you're assuming that they include always the must and the absolute best SE places however I've learned that may not always be the case because of course Lions have to rely on whatever capacity their specific tour operator

0:55 partner has available when that ship is calling into Port it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to take you to see the very best things they will just offer you what it makes sense to provide so you may be missing out in a particular cruise port but also by researching the port you will know if

1:12 you should even do an Excursion or whether you should self explore and more on that topic later now my go-to for researching Cruise ports is a site called what's in port.com because they have coverage of even the most obscure ports it tells me where the ship is going to be docking what's with an easy

1:31 access how easy it is to explore safety issues public transport options the key sites to see and on and on and on now another critical thing that I always check by Port by Port close to the time is the weather so I can be prepared because of course it chops and changes so for example on my recent region 7

1:51 se's cruise to Japan I could see that really heavy rain was forecast when we were going to be in Tokyo so I actually just packed an umbrella and a bit of a rain rain code into my suitcase and so unlike my fellow guests that were getting really wet or having to stay on the bus to avoid the rain I could still

2:06 get out and see the Imperial Palace the Magi Shrine the hammer Koto Gardens and it was in relative Comfort because I was prepared however this next mistake is something I see creating more problems when it comes to excursions than anything else and that quite simply is not checking the fine print in the

2:25 Excursion details and terms this was the cause of pretty much all of the issues on excursions that I saw on recent cruises and there are actually surprisingly five things that you absolutely need to check first of all check the activity or Fitness level required all Cruise Lines classify

2:43 excursions so for example on that recent region Japan cruise I was talking about they had three clear distinct categories that each tour was rated against with descriptions of like the amount of walking steps standing time and other kind of physical considerations however still on many excursions I went to on

3:01 that trip I saw people really struggling because they hadn't checked the fitness and Mobility so for example we went to visit the kzu Zan to shugu Shrine in shimuzu these had really steep Stone steps that just many people could not cope with the cruise before that I was in French Polynesia and I booked a

3:18 cycling tour which included a ride up to a mountain Viewpoint however people just hadn't read the fitness and ability detail so some ended up having to wait at the bottom of the mountain because they just couldn't do it While most of us spent half of the Excursion time up on the mountain Viewpoint I went to the

3:35 Ral gardo caves in Kochi it had really steep climbs it had tight spaces it had a total of 800 steps which people when they got there realized they just couldn't do it so they had to sit outside while we spent an hour or so in the caves also check the activity levels for weight and height or age limits for

3:53 example I did a helicopter ride on my last Alaska cruise up to the glazers in Juno where there were maximum weight restrictions and one man was actually turned away on the day there can also be hide restrictions for thrill rides like ziplining perhaps age restrictions for you know alcohol drinking related tours

4:12 next look in the fine print for details of the distance from the port and how long you're going to spend on the bus so for example also on that region Japan Cruise the tour to Kyoto from Kobe where we docked had 1 and 1/2 hours on the bus there and 1 and 1/2 hours back now people seemed shocked when we set off to

4:32 learn this because they had not read the fine print thirdly and one I slipped up on my last Caribbean cruise is to check the detail of exactly what is going to happen on the Excursion and the time allocated for each activity so on that trip I booked a beach break in St Lucia now if IID read the detail properly I

4:51 would have realized that we were going to spend almost half of that time doing a shop Excursion at a center with chocolate making candle making t-shirts Screen Printing and other shopping stuff instead of all the time at the beach fourthly check what is and is not included so for example on that region

5:09 Japan cre I've been talking about in many places the Excursion covered our entry into the grounds but not to go inside the attractions or buildings within them so in that Kyoto Excursion I mentioned earlier it got me into the nio castle grounds but touring the actual castle itself I personally had to then

5:27 pay for in addition to the Excursion entry fees now if the tour is over lunchtime also check if a meal is or is not included so again on that coyota tour it was included in a local Resort but on others I went on over meal times it was not included so important that you check what is and isn't included

5:46 also check in the fine print for any dress code so for example when I was in Cairo at the start of my Nile river cruise this year we had to have our shoulders and knees covered on the day that we were visiting a mosque active excursions like say going on an ATV tour may require you know you to have closed

6:05 shoes so always check fine print for dress code now there is another thing that I see Cruisers repeatedly getting wrong and it affects their bank balance badly your most expensive Excursion options will usually be booking the cruise line ones because they mark them up to make a profit on the tours their

6:26 local providers run in the cruise Line's name so they're were going to make a mark up a profit so this is why I do these quick checks before finally booking a cruise line Excursion so first of all I check if I can book the activity direct and if so for Less which is pretty much always is now for example

6:46 I absolutely love doing the Y pass and Yukon train in Skagway Alaska I love it and I always book that direct for way less money than if I was doing it as a cruise Excursion I go in by the way months and months before because it does does sell out so getting in early is key if you're booking direct with the the

7:04 attraction or the provider another is I never book Hop On Hop Off buses through the cruise line for example this summer I was on a Norwegian Viva cruise that stopped in Barcelona now the cruise line was selling the Hop On Hop off bus for over €70 it's about $75 but I could buy a Hop On Hop off day

7:21 pass for just €35 at the booth in the terminal the other thing I always do is compare with independent Alternatives like shore.com shore excursions group.com and now the second by the way makes a lot of their guarantee that they promised to get me back to the ship on time and if they

7:39 don't they will cover the cost of getting me to rejoin the ship at the next Port but whatever route you go this next mistake I unfortunately have seen too many times mess up people's trips most Cruisers seem to wait until just before the cruise or once they're on board to book excursions hence the long

8:00 lines at the short excursions desk on embarcation day this is a terrible idea for a couple of reasons first of all most cruise lines have a pretty good cancellation policy usually the ability to cancel 48 hours before an Excursion with no penalty so I always go in early and I book excursions as soon as they

8:19 are available in my cruise planner online to make sure I get the ones I want from the cruise line knowing I can tweak once I'm on the trip or even cancel them I've been on so many cruises where people have gone on what is a trip of a lifetime and missed out on the key excursions they wanted to do one that

8:37 really really sticks on my mind was on a South American trip on hland America last year with the Highlight was going to see penguins in the Faulkland which for most people was going to be the only Cruise that'll ever go on in their lifetime to see penguins in their natural environment but I met way too

8:53 many people that had waited until they got on board to try and book that Excursion but it was sold out I had booked months and months ahead and I got to go on the Excursion and I got to see the Penguins so I put in my diary the day excursions are going to be open and then I go in and I lock them in for all

9:09 my Cruisers however once Cruisers have their excursions booked there are a couple of mistakes I keep seeing people do once they actually go on them on every trip I always see people traveling with friends or family really annoyed that they're put on different buses or groups now it's so easy because all you

9:28 literally need to do is check in at the same time with all the group together to be on the same bus the next one drives me crazy which is passengers not paying attention to nor respecting Meetup times especially if there's free time to go off and do stuff on a tour the tours end up going at the pace of the slowest

9:48 person now for example on an Excursion in Pisa Italy this summer on each side we were given free time but every time a family always came back late producing the the time we had to explore other attractions the guide kept saying they needed to watch it because he would have to leave them behind if they were late

10:06 at the last stop because he had to get us back to the ship at a set time because it was quite some distance away on the last stop 25 minutes after the me time they were not back and so we left without them now they did eventually get back to the ship before the ship departed by having to catch a taxi at

10:24 their own great expense now there is another huge mistake I see around deciding whether to self-explore use independent tours or stick with the cruise line and there are four times that I will always go with the cruise line over any option now I talk about that and what they are in this video

10:44 starting with the one thing that most people completely Overlook see you over there