I was unhappy to find out that Princess marked up shore excursions by as much as 50% over the retail price if you book them yourself. We traveled on the excursions with people who booked them privately and they paid close to 1/2 what we paid for the same excursion.
I understand Princess taking a modest markup but this seemed unreasonable.
I was unhappy to find out that Princess marked up shore excursions by as much as 50% over the retail price if you book them yourself. We traveled on the excursions with people who booked them privately and they paid close to 1/2 what we paid for the same excursion.
I understand Princess taking a modest markup but this seemed unreasonable.
We've done 3 Princess Cruises, Caribbean, Panama Canal, & Alaska. Have always taken the Princess shore excursions. #1 reason is safety. Sure, you might get a less expensive tour, but at least you're hear to tell about it. Also, if you go out on your own, and miss the ship, which has been done on occasion, you're on your own to get to the next port. If you're on a bus that has a flat tire, and it's been booked through the ship, the ship waits for the bus to get back. You can also book your shore excursions online with Princess, and know your availability before yhou leave. We've done 15-20 shore excursions between the 3 different cruises, and wouldn't have it any other way. Have fun, and think this over seriously.
Looking for information on shore excursions for Panama Canal. Do you see enough of the locks while on ship or should we book a tour? Any other tour information for this cruise would be helpful. Panama, Grand Cayman, etc.
We followed the Island Princess through the Gatun Locks (see the Splendour of the Seas review currently on the CR homepage) She passes up to Gatun Lake, hangs out for hours and then reverses the process back down the locks to proceed to dock at Cristobal Pier.
I would strongly suggest you book as shore excursion as it is the only way to get off the ship while she is in Gatun Lake (at least, this is true on the Splendour of the Seas) Check out the Panama page at PortReviews.com for some ideas.
Agree with Susie. We paid the extra money for two Princess excursions on our last cruise (2/7-2/14 on the Golden). Sure the markup is high, but for us it was worth peace of mind. I don't have the time to research private contractors to see if they're reliable or not. The ship won't wait for you if your privately-booked excursion is late returning to port for any reason. Last year we saw people runnning down the pier yelling, "Wait, wait" as dockworkers removed the gangway from the ship! Not for us.
So glad to hear we are not the only ones nervous about scheduling non-ship excursios. We are going in March and again booked through the ship. We always wonder if the non-ship excursions are maybe more personal, but have never had a bad Princess excursion.
We've sailed Princess several times and have never had a bad experience with the tours we've booked. In fact, we were on a Med cruise a couple of years ago which stopped in Rome. We had a full day of all the typical sights, including the Sistine Chapel. The very wonderful, but gregarious, tour guide was a bit late getting us to the Chapel and we literally "lost our group turn". He substituted the Catacombs, and while we were disappointed, these things happen. Here's the bottom line, next day, we found an envelope in our cabin with a letter of apology from Princess. They also credited 30% of the tour price since we hadn't seen what was obviously a highlight of the tour. Pretty impressive!!
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