After the fatal accident that took place in Chile, while Celebrity Cruise Lines passengers were traveling independently, I thought I’d share an excerpt from our book, How to Make “Your First Cruise the Best Vacation” of Your Life. After reading our tips in this excerpt, see my comments on the part and the crash below.

What about the tours? (Except the eBook)

Tours can be purchased through the cruise line, done on your own, or you can combine the two. Booking it through the lines has some advantages. Some of them are obvious. The cruise line has thoroughly vetted the places you’ll be taken to and will rate them based on difficulty so you’ll know ahead of time if this is the right tour for you. They are always run by local tour companies and these companies want to keep that business.

Their team is A-one and they always have English speaking tour managers. (They also provide guides in other languages). You’ll never have to wait in line to get into museums or other attractions – a huge time saver. And, of course, all the work is done by the tour companies and the cruise line. And it’s safe. Cruise lines would never put you in a dangerous situation. There are always a couple of cruise line employees on the tour to make sure no one gets lost and the bus leaves with the same number of people it started with.

When going to a new or exotic port, I would recommend cruise line excursions. Some of the most wonderful excursions we have taken were cruise line tours. Imagine flying the Spruce Goose over the mail route to the salmon fisheries outside Alaska or visiting all the highlights of Rome in one day, or going to China Beach in Vietnam. These are things we could never have fixed on our own.

Each country has an embassy or a tourism web page to give you information about destinations, festivals, parties or Carnival days in Buenos Aires.

The shore excursion brochure will also provide you with information on the difficulty or ease of the excursion. This is especially important for people with some type of disability. Journey time and stops along the way are included, and on many, lunch is part of the tour. When you travel to foreign ports like Russia, you will dine on the regional food.

Really, for a first time visit this is the way to go. And if you choose this option, when the guide tells you to be back on the bus at a certain time, you will be there. By being late, you are inconveniencing everyone else on the tour and jeopardizing the remaining stops that are scheduled. The tour company has a designated time to get you back to the bus and they always stick to it. When you return to the ship, look around your seat for your belongings, and don’t forget the overhead rack.

A little etiquette when riding a bus: Leave the front and back seats for people who use canes or have difficulty walking. It’s hard to get through the bus aisles when you have a handicap.

On the other hand of the cruise excursions, you will travel on buses with a lot of people. Here you will find wasted time loading and unloading a lot of people. It will always be more expensive than doing it on your own. You are paying for the work that has gone into the sites visited and the experience of the guide. Then there is the problem of people who want to go shopping and those who just want to see the cultural sights. And while this has never happened to me on 50+ cruises, you may get a guide that is hard to understand.

When doing the tour on your own, make sure you have the port agent’s name and number in case of an emergency. (This is quite useful if you lose the ship.)

In most cases, the cruise lines will tell you how much a typical taxi ride will cost if you’re just going into town. Always negotiate the cost of the tour before the taxi ride. Be sure to speak to the tour desk to find out if there are any areas that are not safe to visit.

There have been a couple of times where we’ve toured independently, but we used the cruise line’s list of excursions as a guide to what to see in that area of ​​the world. If you meet fun people on the cruise, befriend them on the taxi ride to lower the price. If you are going to book excursions through the cruise lines do it in advance or better yet do it before the cruise. Most lines will allow you to do this.

Comments after the Accident.

Although all of the above is sound advice, I would add a caveat. In the poorer areas of the world, I think it’s much safer to go with the cruise ship excursion options. Cruise lines only hire companies that have been thoroughly vetted and have a top team. In third world countries, by using local companies you do not have this guarantee. I’m not saying the tour company involved in this accident was substandard, as accidents happen, but I do question the route they were taking. A local Chilean official said the road was very dangerous, curvy and narrow. I don’t think a tour group from a cruise company would have taken that route.

You must use the common post when booking tours. Of course, it will be safer to travel with the cruise lines in places like Vietnam or China or even Africa. On the other hand, you might feel perfectly safe taking an independent tour in the Caribbean or Alaska. For more information on the “First Cruise, Best Cruise” eBook, see the website below.

Copyright © 2006 Maria Hanna All rights reserved.

This article may be freely distributed on your website and in your ezines, provided this entire article, copyright notice, links, and resource box remain unchanged.