Cruise Ships - best way to settle the bill

BarryBlue

daveyjp wrote: »

I disagree about NEVER using a ships tour. We have done Fjords trips and DIY opportunities are very limited, especially from ports such as Adnalses which is no more than a dock and single street.

With larger ships now visiting the fjords tickets for some transport, such as Flamm railway can all go to the cruise companies leaving none for DIY customers.

I also did a Bruge and WW1 Battlefields trip and the knowledge of the guide was worth the very reasonable charge for a full day.

Like all things do your research.

We used a zero charge foreign exchange credit card on Princess, billed in dollars.

We've been to the fjords a couple of times and you can certainly do trips at a fraction of the cost of ship's tours. Flamm is a good example. We did our research and found the ship "tour" was over £70. This, of course, included being escorted from the ship to the station. We booked our train tickets online in advance for less than half of that. Of course, we had to escort ourselves to the station, a stroll of about 200 yards. The ships tend to book an early train, leaving the one an hour later for everyone else, so we found it much quieter with plenty of availability. Again, research pays off.

Another good example is Reykjavik, where everyone wants to do the Golden Circle tour. It was priced at over $200pp on Princess. We booked with a local company whose coaches went from the same area of the dock. Did the same tour but in the opposite direction so missed the crowds. The attractions in Iceland are all free to get into anyway. It cost us under £40pp.

The best example, however, was St Petersburg. The ship's tours were all half or full day tours, as they wanted you to mix & match and pay a fortune. We booked in advance with a superb operator that had been recommended to us. For the cost of a ship's day tour we had a two-day guided tour with our own driver and guide for just the two of us.

We've been to many WWI battlefield sites but not via a cruise, we drove there. We found that many sites have guided tours anyway, often for free. I particularly remember the Canadians at Vimy who would not even accept tips from anyone.

We used Halifax Clarity on Princess for the same reason as you.

PompeyPete wrote: »

Plenty of very strange people on MSE too, with personal agendas, gripes, and their own, often blinkered, version of the facts.

You make a reasonable assessment, of course. Certainly it has moved towards that in recent times. But I can assure you that a section of those cruise forum regulars are something else. The P&O forum had to be shut down because of about a dozen or so serious fruitcakes who communicated through closed groups to gang up on people. It made the MSE clique problem look like a kindergarten.

PompeyPete

BarryBlue wrote: »

You make a reasonable assessment, of course. Certainly it has moved towards that in recent times. But I can assure you that a section of those cruise forum regulars are something else. The P&O forum had to be shut down because of about a dozen or so serious fruitcakes who communicated through closed groups to gang up on people. It made the MSE clique problem look like a kindergarten.

I remember that I think. Threads about now that P&O cruises are becoming more affordable, they were attracting the wrong sort of passengers, and upsetting the regulars. People with tattoos, drinking too much, and with loud northern accents, and that sort of thing.:)

BarryBlue

PompeyPete wrote: »

I remember that I think. Threads about now that P&O cruises are becoming more affordable, they were attracting the wrong sort of passengers, and upsetting the regulars. People with tattoos, drinking too much, and with loud northern accents, and that sort of thing.:)

There are a few like that without doubt. But they are thankfully in a small minority and tend to be around during school holidays when we tend not to travel. Also, it is easy to avoid them as they frequent different venues from us. It is not a regional thing though, there are also loud southern accents, presumably Essex and East London.

P&O do have adult-only ships which tend to avoid the problem. Also, too many complaints and they dump the offenders off at the next port. The worst-behaved people we have ever seen on a ship were American teenagers on a Princess cruise a couple of years ago. Many American adults also show some dodgy behaviour around the dining areas, watching them eat is an experience!

joerugby

Cruising can be amazing value. Last year we visited China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and India on a two week cruise. It was amazing and it would have cost far more to do it independently.

With regard to ship's tours, for us the main benefit is that if the tour is late back the ship will wait. If you do your own thing and are late back the ship will leave without you.

Andypandyboy

joerugby wrote: »

Cruising can be amazing value. Last year we visited China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and India on a two week cruise. It was amazing and it would have cost far more to do it independently.

With regard to ship's tours, for us the main benefit is that if the tour is late back the ship will wait. If you do your own thing and are late back the ship will leave without you.

Then you make sure you build in contingency so that you are back.

Honestly, the cruise trips are so over priced that anyone who pays for them is crackers.

harz99

Andypandyboy wrote: »

Honestly, the cruise trips are so over priced that anyone who pays for them is crackers.

Such a sweeping statement is not helpful. There are some small cruise ports in certain parts of the world where ALL the local tour operators are contracted to the cruise lines, in addition there are other ports where language barriers really make diy tours impossible.

So whilst I agree the cruise lines tours are overpriced, and for that reason I rarely use them unless I have OBC to use up, there are times when there is little alternative.

bigadaj

joerugby wrote: »

Cruising can be amazing value. Last year we visited China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and India on a two week cruise. It was amazing and it would have cost far more to do it independently.

With regard to ship's tours, for us the main benefit is that if the tour is late back the ship will wait. If you do your own thing and are late back the ship will leave without you.

Interestingly how much did you pay?

It could be considered value no doubt, but visiting 7 countries in two weeks wouldn't appeal to me, I'd prefer to do one or two and see some depth.

South east Asia is a very cheap area to travel in, so it's an area where a cruise would struggle to compete I would have thought.

joerugby

Andypandyboy wrote: »

Then you make sure you build in contingency so that you are back.

Honestly, the cruise trips are so over priced that anyone who pays for them is crackers.

You can build in as much contingency as you want. If you are stuck in traffic in Bangkok and then your driver says he has a puncture you are in real trouble. Forget insurance, you are on your own. Make your own way to the next port (in Cambodia) by tomorrow. And all for the sake of saving maybe fifty quid.

Make your own mind up.

hollydays

PompeyPete wrote: »

I remember that I think. Threads about now that P&O cruises are becoming more affordable, they were attracting the wrong sort of passengers, and upsetting the regulars. People with tattoos, drinking too much, and with loud northern accents, and that sort of thing.:)

Omg I though this was an ironic comment, you're serious!

joerugby

bigadaj wrote: »

Interestingly how much did you pay?

It could be considered value no doubt, but visiting 7 countries in two weeks wouldn't appeal to me, I'd prefer to do one or two and see some depth.

South east Asia is a very cheap area to travel in, so it's an area where a cruise would struggle to compete I would have thought.

We paid about £4,000 for two persons (excluding travel from UK).

Try pricing up two weeks full board in five star hotels in prime locations such as Hong Kong, Singapore, KL and Mumbai plus seven business class flights for two persons and see how far you get.

Of course you might be able to do it cheaper with fewer locations and lower quality travel and accommodation, but this was top quality and great value