Why I Don’t Book Shore Excursions Through the Cruise Line (And You Shouldn’t Either)

OK, you’ve booked a cruise… now what?!

One of the main things you’ll need to plan after your cruise is booked, is what to do when you have days in the ports. When we travel, we really want to make the most of our time in the different countries we visit. I’ve got some strong opinions about the best way to do this!

First… research!

First, check out what there is to do at each location. A good place to start is just googling things like ‘best things to do with 1 day in X’ or ‘best shore excursions in X’. This will give you an idea of options.

You may want to also research the location of the port compared to the activities. Examples:

• Cozumel – Step off the boat and you’re in the city and can walk around!
• Saint Maarten – Not much around the immediate area after exiting ship.
• Rome – You’re an hour away from any of the main attractions
• Puerto Limon, Costa Rica – The surrounding area isn’t super safe, so you need to have a tour lined up

Understand the timing

Typically cruises will have some time when you’re just ‘at sea’ where you can do whatever you want while on the ship. Other days have scheduled bookings at different ports.

Each day at port may have different times. Make sure you thoroughly check what time you’re going to be at the port. Sometimes it’s 12 hours, or sometimes it’s only 5. You’ll want to use that information in your research to make sure you’re getting a tour that makes sense.

If not using the cruise ship excursion, you’ll absolutely need to be careful about the timing. I’d leave at least an hour after the scheduled arrival before a tour starts, and close to 2 hours before scheduled ship departure. For instance, if your ship is in port from 9am-5pm, I’d schedule something from 10am-3pm just to make sure we have enough time. Depending on how far away from the ship you’re going, you may be able to be a little bit more flexible with that timing.

Book through the cruise line, or not?

My #1 tip for anyone cruising is: do not book shore excursions with the cruise line! This may be an unpopular take and does come with some risk, but it’s always been the best option for us! I’ll give you some pros and cons so you can make the decision that is right for you.

Risks of booking your own excursion: if the ship is late getting into port, you may miss your timed excursion. If the ship somehow changes the itinerary due to weather or some other event, you’ll likely lose out on the money you spent on the excursion. And – biggest risk – if you don’t make it back to the ship in time, you’ll get left behind. Yes…they will leave you.

Benefits to booking with the cruise line: simplicity is the main one. It’s easy! They tell you where to meet in the morning, they arrange everything, and drop you back off in plenty of time. And – if your tour is running late, the ship will not leave without you. You also get your money back if for some reason the excursion doesn’t happen.

Benefits to booking your own (my preference): I love this option for many reasons, but it does involve a lot more planning. First – many of the cruise excursions involve giant tour busses and some basic cookie cutter experiences. I don’t love sitting on giant tour busses with a hundred people. Second – you can save a TON of money booking on your own. Cruise excursions are so expensive. I always book through places like Viator, Booking.com, Getyourguide, Expedia etc. They are generally much cheaper than the cruise line, because people booking with the cruise are paying for the convenience. But, when you are making 3-5 stops on a cruise, saving $100-$400 per port makes a huge difference! And saving money means you can just book more trips in the future 😉

We’ve done this dozens of times. Here are some of our favorites:

• Santa Marta, Colombia – while our fellow passengers went to a mediocre beach day ($70/pp to ride in a bus to a beach near a shipping port!), we booked a jeep tour of a village in the mountains of Colombia where we got to swim in waterfalls, learn how to make chocolate and try Colombian coffee! People were complaining at night that the tours were all bad… that the beaches were dirty and the shopping was not great, but we had one of the best days ever! Minca Full Day Tour There were hardly any tourists in this area, and we felt like we got such an amazing immersion in the beautiful country of Colombia.

• Aruba – the cruise ship offered a few beach excursions, but we had the best time in an open air jeep exploring caves, cliff jumping, beaches, and seeing the coastline all in a small group tour. Island Ultimate Safari by Jeep. We got to see such a variety of things, whereas other cruise passengers didn’t get the experiences we had.

• Bonaire – here, we rented a golf cart on our own. We reserved it ahead of time and toured the island ourselves! The eastern half of the island is flat and essentially 1 main road. I had written down our ‘itinerary’ ahead of time, so we took off and made stops at all of the interesting things along the way (salt flats, flamingos, historic slave huts, beaches and even a donkey sanctuary). We were able to avoid the giant tour busses, and instead, drove around wherever we wanted! Plus – who doesn’t love driving a golf cart.

• Saint Maarten – We took a catamaran out to swim with sea turtles. A lot of cruise excursions go here too, but this was cheaper and a smaller groups Catamaran and Sea Turtles. A lot of the time, this is the best reason to book outside of the cruise ship. Getting a cheaper deal is usually possible when you’re booking through a 3rd party site. The cruise ships are able to charge high prices because many people want the convenience. If you’re willing to do just a bit more work, you’ll get a huge reward.

Check Ratings and Reviews

When booking tours like this – also be sure to book something that is well reviewed. I usually look for tours that have at least 100 reviews on whatever platform I’m booking from and that score 4.5+ stars. We’ve used Viator, Expedia, Getyourguide and booking.com for various excursions over the years. I usually search them all to see what they’ve got to offer. It is more simple to have everything booked in one platform though, so once you narrow it down, it might be worth picking one platform for your trip if possible.

Although it can be a risk, the reward is worth it! For what it’s worth (knock on wood), we’ve never had any issues booking this way.

Be Prepared

With sometimes minimal phone coverage and Wi-Fi while on the ship, be prepared with information about your excursion. I always print paper copies of my receipt, details about where to meet up and contact info for the tour.

There have been 2 times where we ran into some issues, and this came in handy. Both excursions, booked through Expedia, were great about accommodating us. One time in Santa Marta, our cruise ship was super delayed letting people off the ship because they were having trouble clearing the customs procedures once they docked. Our guide waited on us before leaving for the day. Another scenario in Aruba, we were also delayed getting off the ship, and the tour company sent a person to come get us and helped us meet up with the rest of the group. We were OK in these scenarios because I had written down phone numbers and contact info for the companies ahead of time.

My overall take…

I would always recommend booking with a 3rd party vs booking with cruise ship. You’ll almost always save money… sometimes a ton of money. AND – sometime the tour is nearly the same thing you get on the cruise, just cheaper!

You’ll also get a much larger variety of experience options. Often the cruise will have 5-7 options for you to pick from. Most of the time they are things like ‘Beach Transportation’ which is nothing more than them charging to drive you to a beach, or ‘City Tour’ which is giant bus that drops you at various locations then drives you back. Whereas if you book through a 3rd party, you’ll maybe get 30 options to pick from that are all different and interesting and most custom to what you want to do.

Finally, you’ll avoid giant tour busses of cruise ship passengers. The times we have booked with a cruise ship, we were immediately annoyed with the giant group of people piling into one of a dozen tour busses.

It’s not too much extra work to do this on your own, and if you follow my tips above, I really believe you’ll add to the experience of your cruise by finding amazing excursions for your family.

So…What are some of your favorite excursions?

Check our more of our time on cruises below: