Excursions - worth cost?

[jmf32966]

For those of you who have done Disney sponsored excursions, are the beach only trips worth the cost for the aggrevation you save? It seems like you could do the same thing yourself for a lot less, but I also don't want to have a lot of hassle or worry doing it myself. So I guess the question is, in general, is it easy to get cabs, get to beaches, get back and not miss the boat with two kids in tow, in Carribean ports? We will be doing Grand Cayman and Cozumel. If it is too stressful, I will just pay for the Disney excursion.

Any thoughts appreciated!

 

[Wonderwoman1982]

In MHO, I think Disney's trips are WAY too expensive. We did our own "excursions" for a fraction of the cost, and it was no hassle for us, and very easy. We rented cars at our ports and did our own thing. We saw more, went at our own pace, and had a ball doing it. We had kids with us, 4 adults, 2 kids ages 6 and 5, and a BABY to top it off. Just plan your day, make sure you get out early enough and watch your clock. You'll pay about $50 (sometimes more) a person. We paid about $45 the DAY for a car that we ALL got into. If we did an excursion, it'd have been $300 PER PORT stop. We ended up spending like $70 in St. Thomas between the 7 of us, and only like $40 in San Juan (we went to San Juan instead of St. Maarten due to storm)So, see my point? And we had WAY WAY more beach time doing it on our own. Several HOURS as a matter of fact. Compared to the 2 hours you might get with Disney. But, do what is comfortable for YOU. I'm surprised at how many people are So opposed to my idea of renting a car. They get all scared about driving cars in foreign places, etc.. When we go do the Eastern cruise you are doing (hopefully this summer) I plan on car rental in all our port stops as well...

 

[Dave_from_Marietta]

My observation has been that there's no problem finding taxis anywhere.

 

[IrishCowboy]

We did Trunk Bay on our own in January 2002 and had no problems at all. Taxis were very plentiful and always available. I believe that we saved about $30 per person over the Disney excursion and had more time on the beach.

 

[peter pans family]

We rented a jeep in St Martin for $60.00 and it gave us a great deal of flexibility. We were able to go to Mallet Beach, Orient Beach, the shops and take our own tour of the island and still made it back to the ship with plenty of time to spare. On St THomas we rented taxis and the same man dropped us at Coki Beach for snorkeling, picked us up and dropped us at Magens Beach and then picked us up again and took us to the shopping area..no hassle whatsoever