Private Shore Excursions: A Timely Warning and Reality Check for Cruisers

Spending time exploring new cities and towns is one of the perks of cruise travel. As any seasoned cruiser knows, cruise line shore excursions can be prohibitively expensive - especially for larger families and groups. In some instances, excursions can cost as much as the cruise fare itself.

For this reason, many travellers enjoy selecting private shore excursions when they cruise. These often result in more intimate experiences with a local flavour that is difficult to match on larger-format coach-tours that cruise line excursions typically take - but buyer beware.

Click here to watch my video on this topic, or continue reading below.

Cruise line shore excursions, for their price, include some pretty neat inclusions. The first one is convenience. Typically, these tours commence onboard the ship where travellers meet at a specific time before being escorted to waiting buses or shuttles. They also guarantee your return to the ship.

When it comes to private arrangements outside of the cruise line’s control, it’s all over to you. Travellers are free to make whatever arrangements they prefer while in port, but they bear the responsibility to ensure they return to the ship in time for departure. As we’ve seen highlighted time and time again in various media reporting, cruisers have a bad habit of ‘missing the boat’ and then complaining about it to anyone who will listen (queue slow news day coverage).

While I am a huge proponent of independent touring, there are just some places and circumstances where it’s not the wise choice. This might be because of limited time in port, poor local infrastructure, limited access to phones or internet, or unfamiliar languages or local customs.

The confines of a cruise line shore excursion may not suit the relative ease of travelling in developed nations like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Japan or the United States; but in less developed countries like Angola, you might prefer to opt for the sheltered experience of a set excursion - whatever the cost.

This was the experience of Nancy and Mike of the YouTube channel, Living Phase 2. The couple is travelling onboard Royal Caribbean’s first ever world cruise. Dubbed the Ultimate World Cruise, the 9 month voyage across the globe began in December 2023 when Serenade of the Seas departed from Miami, Florida. En route, the ship’s planned itinerary was thrown into disarray due to unrest in the Red Sea region. As a result, passengers voted on three new itinerary plans and the winning choice was the Immersive Africa itinerary - which saw Serenade of the Seas and her passengers suddenly on their way to a series of countries most probably never thought they’d see in their lives. With this fantastic opportunity at their feet, cruisers had to make plans on the fly.

While Royal Caribbean provided shore excursion options, some of these cost as much as $500USD per person so many did the logical thing and after much research, selected private excursions. Nancy and Mike elected to take a tour sold through Get Your Guide, but things started out on a sour note and only got worse from there.

The full story can be viewed on Nancy and Mike’s YouTube channel, but a late start, wasted time at a petrol station, missed destinations, a safari that never started and a bus that was likely not roadworthy are the ‘highlights’. A passenger mutiny of sorts eventually saw the tour end, to ensure the travellers could return to Serenade of the Seas ahead of her all aboard time of 5pm.

This experience ended positively for Nancy, Mike and the other travellers but it could just as easily have been another news headline - “Cruisers Abandoned in Angola”.

It’s a lesson for all: do your due diligence, understand the rewards and the risks and choose wisely when touring off-ship.