Are The DCL shore excursions good value?

[MJ6987]

We are going on a first Cruise next August (4 night Med) from Barcelona (we are in the UK). So, are the Disney shore excursions good value?

As a follow on question, do most of you book these excursions or book your own with local companies, etc? I assume this would be cheaper but seems a bit "risky".

Finally, has anyone got any recommendations for shore excursions in Viilafranche? There will be me, my wife and daughter aged 14.

Thanks

 

[Valencia Joe]

To put it bluntly, no the excursions offered by Disney are not a good value whatsoever. You are better off arranging one yourself and, in turn, saving yourself a lot of money. The only true benefit of booking an excursion through Disney is that if for some reason the excursion is late returning to the ship, the ship will not leave. However, if you go on your own, you assume the risk of missing the boat if you come back late. I had a situation where the Disney excursion came back about 30 late, and the boat was still there.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We are going on a first Cruise next August (4 night Med) from Barcelona (we are in the UK). So, are the Disney shore excursions good value?

As a follow on question, do most of you book these excursions or book your own with local companies, etc? I assume this would be cheaper but seems a bit "risky".

Finally, has anyone got any recommendations for shore excursions in Viilafranche? There will be me, my wife and daughter aged 14.

Thanks

While the cost of a DCL excursion vs an independant one is higher, so far we have opted for the DCL excursions.

Especially, on our Med cruise for just a reason as PP stated: we were almost an hour late on our Florence excursion, but they did wait for us. The distances that generally need to be traveled and the traffic problems related to this can definately hold up excursions.

When we travel to some place for the first time, we usually take a tour, when we return, we're a little more comfortable about arranging something independently.

 

[Praying Colonel]

On our recent DCL cruise we booked through DCL. We probably paid more than if we had booked it through a private company, but the ship was in port for a relatively short period of time for 2 of the 3 excursions and we wanted to make sure we wouldn't have a problem with our return time. We saw it as a type of insurance against being left behind, and it was worth it to us in this circumstance.

 

[jlwhitney]

No they aren't for the most part.

When we did the 11 night Med in 2010 we did a bunch of days on our own and in the end realized that only 1 port we couldn't have done on our own for what we wanted to do.

The only time I see them worth it is if you can't do it on your own due to logisitics. It takes some planning but very easily doable, just plan extra time to get back in case of something going wrong.

 

[Melissa S]

I book through DCL for two reasons. The first is what PPs have mentioned about the boat waiting. The second is for safety in areas that I am not familiar with. My cousin and her friend booked an excursion independently when they were in Mexico. They hopped in a cab and trusted that the cab driver was bringing them to the right area. He really brought them out to the middle of no where, stopped the car, and demanded a $100 if they wanted to get back. Of course this is an isolated incident and many people book on their own and have no problem. However when travelling with a baby I am not taking chances. Next cruise we are stopping in Key west and we will book on our own, but in other countries we pay a little more for DCL to get us there safely.

 

[mkmommy]

I have done some great DCL excursions, especially in the Med. Lots of people feel doing on your own is better, but I have never come back disappointed in one. They are generally well run and they are easy and relaxing as you do not have to worry about getting lost ( my kids always bug me about getting lost)

Last summer in Palma DCL offered a bike tour and it was a wonderful way to tour the Old Town, and it was very reasonable price wise.

I also did the post cruise Excursion in Barcelona to Montserrat, and price wise it was less expensive then you could do on your own, and then got dropped off at my hotel at the end of the tour.

Ville Franche I did one that went to Monte Carlo and Eze. We were there on a Sunday so the busses to Eze are very few so that would have been hard to do on your own. Eze was one of tha highlights.

The 4 day cruise out of Barcelona will be a great trip.

 

[NancyIL]

I have been on ship excursions that arrived late, but I have never been on a private tour that arrived late. Private vendors know they'll lose a lot of business if their customers "miss the boat." I witnessed a couple "miss the boat" in a port where they had been on a ship tour. When the tour ended, they wandered off instead of immediately boarding the ship

Whether I choose a ship tour or a private tour depends on the availability of private tours in an area, the difference in price, the length of the tour, and the distance to the next port. My DH and I were on a Med cruise last month that visited 9 ports. We did 5 private tours, 3 ports on our own, and 1 ship tour. After that I cruised solo to Norway, where there aren't nearly as many private tour options. In the 7 ports I visited, I went on 4 ship tours, 1 independently booked tour, and walked around 2 ports on my own.

 

[kcashner]

No, they are not a good value, but they are a good safety. In Mexico....especially out of LA--do DCL.

In Europe, we did a mixed bag depending on whether we could get what we wanted on our own. DCL doesn't use the "main" ports for some areas, which really restricts your options. For instance, in Cherbourg there is a tour offered by the Museum....but we couldn't negotiate the logistics from our port as it operated only from the other port. Thus, we paid twice as much for less of what we wanted.

Florence--they again, use a farther away port than many lines. We did the DCL tour.

Ville Franche we did on our own--easy. The train was simple, I don't know about the bus. But the, I speak enough French to get by, so that can be a help.

 

[gotomu212]

In the Caribbean we did all our own planning and tours. In Mexico, I echo others and say we did DCL some for the safety but more because we knew we would get what was advertised. In a lot of the ports there we saw tours that were a lot cheaper but you ended up getting what you paid for.

In Europe we did both dcl and some things on our own. When we wanted to see a lot of things in a shorter time I thought dcl did a good job of getting you to them but it's the typical tour bus on and off.

I think it depends on where you are going and what you want out of that port.

 

[taaren]

It depends on what the shore excursions are ... sometimes they are combinations that are not offered by private vendors. For our last trip I wanted DS4 to see two places in particular that I had been before he was born at a port, and could book them separately through a vendor or just rent a car/take a cab between the two but the hassle of working all that out was just not worth the few dollars I would have saved. The convenience of the transportation was worth the $30 per person that we paid (the excursion was $87, the entry tickets to the two places would have been $55ish), even though a cab to the first place, then to the second, then back to the ship may have been less than $90.

If I had only wanted to do one of those places it would have been cheaper and easier to go through a private vendor, which many from our meet thread did.

So basically it depends, figure out which excursion you want first then figure out if its possible to do it through another vendor or if you'd have to do it on your own and whether or not its worth it for you.

 

[lbgraves]

If the ship excursion is running VERY late, the ship will leave and DCL will arrange to get you to the next port at their expense. With a 14 yo, the prices won't make a huge difference but we have found that once the kids turned 9 there was a big difference in the pricing of excursions between private vendors and DCL. Most vendors charge a kid rate for kids 12 & under, but with DCL once your child turns 9 you will pay the adult rate. Some even offer kids free with a paying adult, like the trolly in Key West.

 

[Illini_Fan]

Are there any good non-DCL excursion providers? Or for those that book their own, do you have to just do lots of research about what is offered at a particular location?

 

[jlwhitney]

Are there any good non-DCL excursion providers? Or for those that book their own, do you have to just to lots of research about what is offered at a particular location?

A lot of it depends on where you are.

Alaska was super easy to find good tour providers between the boards and trip advisor

In the Med a lot of the time you could take the trains into the city and explore on foot like most people do when they tour an area when they just stay there

I'm doing the califorina coastal cruise and that is super easy to do on your own,San Fran and San Diego. US cities and such.

Carribbean is a little harder. Some things are easy but not others. Like in Cozumel, we have both times gone to the mainland, would never do that on our own...too tight of time frame.

 

[wendyoconnor]

Join your cruise meet and see what they have planned. Fellow DISer's have joined together and booked their own excursions as a group.

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85

Our personal experience has been we have booked with DCL for the excursions because we didn't know the area and I didn't have to take the time to do the research. We feel safer, the extra cost is like trip insurance for us.

 

[Gdes1]

To give you a comparison...on Grand Cayman we did the Boatswain's Park (turtle farm) with DCL. I know others did it independently. I think we paid about $20 more per person for the DCL excursion. The "independents" were able to just get off the ship, find the bus, get on, and go. We had to wait in one of the lounges for our group to be called, then were led off the ship like kids on a field trip, then bussed to the Park, etc.

We got on one of the last buses back to the ship and it got stuck in traffic. We were not "late", but did get to the last tender just in time.

So, the trade off was that the independent folks got to the park earlier, but I'm sure they had to then leave earlier to make sure they didn't miss the ship. We were able to take the last bus back and rest easy, knowing the ship would not leave (or DCL would get us to the next port).

 

[candmfox]

Usually my family chooses to explore on our own and it is successful. The one time it was not was when we stopped at Tortola. It was not a disaster, but it could have been better. We chose to take a private charter to Jost Van Dyke to experience the Soggy Dollar Bar (among other places), and the "vessel" - this is a gracious description - was what you would expect your crazy uncle to own and pilot. The (adult) drinks were in a cooler - SCORE! - but had no ice - FAIL. The "vessel" was old, not kept up, falling apart, etc etc etc. The engines, thank God, ran smoothly, but I was concerned that I might have exposed my two kids (10 and 8) to something that was a potential problem. There was no issue at all from the entire experience at the end of the day - we tipped the crew, got back on board the Magic, and decided that Jost Van Dyke is truly paradise. We also decided that we needed more '411' on excursion vendors than a standard website and standard promises.

The vetting process that Disney *should* participate in is something that has no monetary value. You might be herded like cattle, but you are herded safely. If you are OK with a $20-$30 pp/savings on an excursion, then feel free to book without DCL. If, as other have said, a premium of the same amount fits your budget to know that Disney *should* vet the vendor and provide a *superior* experience, then go for it. Just understand the risk/reward of your choices (not a negative remark, just reality) and then, shoot, have fun!

In the end, and this is kind of silly, I'm writing this post because I "survived" both a non-DCL excursion AND a DCL excursion.

Betcha you will do both as well. It's all a matter of your particular comfort level and budget.

Cheers!

 

[Illini_Fan]

A lot of it depends on where you are.

Alaska was super easy to find good tour providers between the boards and trip advisor

In the Med a lot of the time you could take the trains into the city and explore on foot like most people do when they tour an area when they just stay there

I'm doing the califorina coastal cruise and that is super easy to do on your own,San Fran and San Diego. US cities and such.

Carribbean is a little harder. Some things are easy but not others. Like in Cozumel, we have both times gone to the mainland, would never do that on our own...too tight of time frame.

thanks -- I should have been a little more precise. We are heading to the Western Carribbean.

 

[smile750]

Are there any good non-DCL excursion providers? Or for those that book their own, do you have to just do lots of research about what is offered at a particular location?

I book all of my own excursions - I'm on the Aug 18 western fantasy this summer however this is my first disney cruise. I've only cruised with Celebrity before (3x) though that shouldn't make a difference.

For Grand Cayman, I booked Captain Marvins for a snorkeling/stingray city tour. They get 100's of outstanding reviews on trip advisor as well as this forum and cruise critic forums.

For Cozumel, I booked Two D's Diving and Tours for a snorkeling excursion (3 stops). Again, outstanding reviews on trip advisor (over 100).

I'm pretty serious about my research, however it's quite easy to do online especially with trip advisor. We are a family of 5 - 3 adults (DH, me, and my sister) and DS5, DS7. Disney won't let kids sign up for snorkeling under the age of 8 so I couldn't sign up with them even if I wanted too.

You'll find a lot of the time when you research and book with the operators that get the most and best reviews - they are the ones that Disney has also contracted with (as do many other cruise ships). They have to contract out to several operators because when several boats are in port, one operator can't handle them all. So, sometimes you will be on an excursion that includes the official cruise excursion participants (except you paid less )

 

[Illini_Fan]

I book all of my own excursions - I'm on the Aug 18 western fantasy this summer however this is my first disney cruise. I've only cruised with Celebrity before (3x) though that shouldn't make a difference.

Cool - do you basically start your search with Trip Advisor to find activities in the specific ports? I hadn't thought of starting my search there, I typically use the reviews after I've identified a few possibilities, but I'll have to try the reverse approach if that is working well for you..

thanks