Cruise Ships - best way to settle the bill

Andypandyboy

joerugby wrote: »

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.

There are always ways of getting back to the ship if you plan ahead. It is not about the money either necessarily. Being herded from place to place with 30 others and taken to stop offs which the cruiseline get kick backs from is not seeing the real wherever.

harz99 wrote: »

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.

Could you name these places? We have travelled widely and never encountered that.

joerugby wrote: »

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

We cruise a lot but I can accept that it only gives you a flavour of the places visited not an in depth experience. I don't think that cruising can ever replicate "slowtravel", that is on the ground travel and immersion in the culture of the place visited. I think this is especially true of the places you mention. We often cruise and then go back to do land based holidays to the places that have piqued our interest.

bigadaj

joerugby wrote: »

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

So you're excluding flights, I prefer having a decent look at a country than a day in port and then move on, but that's personal preference I suppose.

I prefer to vary accommodation, so over a fortnight might vary from a few nights in a beach shack, to some mid range hotels to five star hotels where they were interesting and offered value.

Including flights I don't think we've ever paid more than £2500 for two people, there is incredible value in Asia particularly.

We were in India about ten years ago, stayed in Kolkata at the beginning and end, Oberoi when we arrived and taj at the end, fantastic service, including arrangement of onward travel at a cost of £75 a night, plus maybe twenty quid a day for meals.

harz99

Andypandy, we've also travelled a lot, so just off the top of my head - some of the small Norwegian Fjord stops, and Sochi as an example of each of the things I quoted.


I get that you don't like ship tours, and as I said we are not keen ourselves, but some times needs must.

PompeyPete

joerugby wrote: »

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.

Bangkok Port is two hours by road from the city, travelling through a mainly industrial landscape. So that's at least 4 hours on the road, probably more, when the ship is only alongside for about 12 hours.

Then there's the traffic in Bangkok, and the probability that the sights that you're taken on the expensive ship excursion are packed with tourists waving their cameras round and getting in your way. The restaurants you'll be taken to are probably those that savvy tourists avoid, and the shops will be overpriced.

On the other hand, stay in Bangkok for a few days, and you can see things that you really want to see, and at your own pace. Eat and drink where you want, when you want, some of the street food is fabulous as well as v.cheap.

Walk out of your hotel, and provided you've picked the right location, ie near a Skytrain or Underground station, or by a ferry pier, then you can get to where you want quickly. No need for long, boring bus journeys, and being herded round by a clock watching guide.

Ho Chi Minh Port in Vietnam is the same. Miles from the city, and you're not going to get a proper appreciation of the place on a rushed, expensive day trip.

No doubt a lot of other SE Asian ports are in inconvenient locations too.

Definitely better to take it slowly, create your own itinerary, stay in some fabulous inexpensive places, eat and drink with the locals, and experience the true Asia.

PompeyPete

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.

You only got glimpses.

joerugby

PompeyPete wrote: »

Bangkok Port is two hours by road from the city, travelling through a mainly industrial landscape. So that's at least 4 hours on the road, probably more, when the ship is only alongside for about 12 hours.

Then there's the traffic in Bangkok, and the probability that the sights that you're taken on the expensive ship excursion are packed with tourists waving their cameras round and getting in your way. The restaurants you'll be taken to are probably those that savvy tourists avoid, and the shops will be overpriced.

On the other hand, stay in Bangkok for a few days, and you can see things that you really want to see, and at your own pace. Eat and drink where you want, when you want, some of the street food is fabulous as well as v.cheap.

Walk out of your hotel, and provided you've picked the right location, ie near a Skytrain or Underground station, or by a ferry pier, then you can get to where you want quickly. No need for long, boring bus journeys, and being herded round by a clock watching guide.

Ho Chi Minh Port in Vietnam is the same. Miles from the city, and you're not going to get a proper appreciation of the place on a rushed, expensive day trip.

No doubt a lot of other SE Asian ports are in inconvenient locations too.

Definitely better to take it slowly, create your own itinerary, stay in some fabulous inexpensive places, eat and drink with the locals, and experience the true Asia.

We didn't bother with Bangkok - been there before

It's down to personal preference really - we loved it

joerugby

PompeyPete wrote: »

You only got glimpses.

We had enough to make it an amazing trip and to make us want to go back for more

BarryBlue

Andypandyboy wrote: »

There are always ways of getting back to the ship if you plan ahead. It is not about the money either necessarily. Being herded from place to place with 30 others and taken to stop offs which the cruiseline get kick backs from is not seeing the real wherever.

This is true in our experience. The bottom line is that the private tour companies would not be in business long if they failed to get people back to the ship on time.

I do so agree with what you say about being herded around too. Ship's tours tend to be on 50-seater coaches which take forever to load and unload, especially given the ages of the people involved, and this is a common gripe when you talk to people who do these trips. In St Petersburg we were promised there would be no more than 10 on our tour, but it ended up being just the two of us. This meant that over the two days we added in extra places because we had the time.

Andypandyboy wrote: »

Could you name these places? We have travelled widely and never encountered that.

Neither have we. In our experience there are always better deals to be had. We just do our research. For example, we booked a walking tour of Bergen with the local tourist office, online before we went, and it was excellent. I've mentioned Flamm already where the ship's tours are a scam.

In places like Olden or Geiranger we just chill for the day and take in the location. In the Caribbean there are lots of options, far cheaper and in smaller groups. Likewise Iceland. I don't see why some people feel they have to do a tour at every port. We usually prefer to see the place for ourselves wherever we can.

Andypandyboy wrote: »

We cruise a lot but I can accept that it only gives you a flavour of the places visited not an in depth experience. I don't think that cruising can ever replicate "slowtravel", that is on the ground travel and immersion in the culture of the place visited. I think this is especially true of the places you mention. We often cruise and then go back to do land based holidays to the places that have piqued our interest.

We have done this in several places. Earlier this year we did a Caribbean cruise as we didn't know if we would like it there. We loved it and now plan to go back for longer when we can decide on which island.:cool:

stoneman

Back on topic. Be careful when you give them your credit card details and sign the agreement. We got caught on this the first time we cruised because we agreed to use the cruise lines conversion which had an automatic 3% load. (in the excitement of it all i didn't read the declaration Properly) This is with NCL.
We know better now and decline the agreement and opt to use our own bank conversion which works out much better. They usually argue over this saying that we have to use theirs but if you're forceful then they have to accept what you want

stoneman

I agree that a cruise subforum would be a good idea. Over on Cruise critic it is full of Americans asking the most inane questions.

No word of a lie I have people ask if they do Sweetex on board and what sort of iced tea they serve, oh and do they still do pretzel sticks.

And if you really want to get slaughtered start the tipping argument.