Shore Excursion in Alaska Ports of Call
A big part of your cruise experience is the shore excursions available in the various ports of call you will visit on your Alaska cruise. Indeed, these can add a lot of fun and excitement to your trip as well as giving you the opportunity to experience different cultures and see some interesting places. They can also add significant cost to your trip. Many travelers question whether they should book their excursions with the cruise line onboard the ship or do them independently. One thing is for sure if you’re doing it on your own, there are some sharks out there so be careful! Here is some useful information to help guide you.
In a nutshell, consider these pros and cons of booking excursions with the cruise line.
PRO's
- Booking on board or in advance of your cruise is convenient and relatively easy.
- If there is a problem or inclement weather, you can usually get an instant refund or credit.
- Vendors are prescreened by the cruise lines. This is important for safety reasons and reliability as well as overall quality of the tour.
- These are usually a fairly good value.
- The tour operator is usually attentive to the ships schedule.
CON's
- They are sold to capacity and overcrowded much of the time which can diminish your experience.
- They can be a little pricey. Ship approved tours are approved because the vendor is paying a fee to the cruise line for the privilege of being sponsored. That cost is passed on to you.
- They tend to be highly scripted and very "touristy"
- Most of the time there will be the “shopping stop” which is designed to get you to part with your money.
- T “assembly line” approach is not very personalized and sometimes limits what you can see and do. It can feel like the "Chevy Chase European Vacation" style of touring.
The shore excursions provided on the ships can add a lot to your cruise experience, and in many cases, particularly for the inexperienced traveler are well worth the price. Here are some broad guidelines that may make your excursion experience more enjoyable:
* Do some homework. The one question we hear over and over is, "What is there to see in [name of next port]?" Buy a good guidebook (Fodor's offers a good general series of guides; the Insight guides are strong on historic, culture and art.) One of the best guides in Alaska by Cruise Ship available through Amazon.com.
When you choose a cruise, ask your travel agent for a brochure of shore tours. After you get it, read the guidebook and compare the sights in the ports of call with the attractions the tours will visit. Are they what you are really interested in? If there is something else - - a museum, a historic palace or church - - that strikes your fancy but isn't on the tour, is it possible to make your own way to that place? And before making that decision, make certain your desired attraction will be open during the day of your visit.
* Ask whether the tours include admission prices to the attractions on the tour. (It should.) If it is a daylong tour, does it include lunch? If not, what luncheon arrangements are available? Will the bus or minivan carry water or drinks?
A good travel agent should be a wealth of information on things to do in ports of call. While an agent can’t go everywhere, there are programs out there for agents to educate themselves on those topics. Most travel agents do familiarization tours where they can experience first-hand the things to do in ports of call. If you are having trouble getting this information from your travel agent, you may want to reconsider whether you want to do business with them. A travel agent who can’t provide good advice and assistance is little more than an order taker and is of little value.
Independent tours can be exceptionally good because they often times have smaller groups, more experienced and knowledgeable guides, go places the cookie-cutter tours don’t go and can be less expensive. Just use good judgment and caution when arranging your own tour.
