Taking a planned cruise excursion

When we take our cruise holidays we have various options on what we can do when we reach our land based destinations. We can either go off alone or we can take advantage of the planned excursions that the cruise lines offer

Although excursions are not to everyone’s liking the cruise lines do offer a vast array of different things for each port of call, I have done a few in my time and if there is something you really want to see or do it can be worth going with the planned excursion as sometimes they take priority over the individual tourist

Another benefit of an organised trip is the fact that should your tour run late or face any problems that delay you then the ship will wait for you to return, essentially it has too but, should you go off on your own and time run away from you there’s a possibility you may return to the dock to find the ship has sailed without you.

If this were to happen it will ruin your holiday and obviously catching up with the ship will come out of your own pocket. On a cruise I took 3 years ago this did in fact happen to one man. He travelled into Naples but ended up taking the wrong train coming back, when he did finally get to the dock the ship had in fact left without him. He was incredibly lucky however that the ships next port of call was Civitavecchia so he boarded a train and slept on the dock whilst he waited for the ship to arrive the following morning. Should this happen to you and the ship be travelling to another country and you left your passport on board it could be very expensive and a huge hassle trying to actually catch up with your ship

Always consider the planned trips unless you are familiar with the area and you have more than enough time to fit in what you need to do and get back to your ship