Poll: Book excursions through DCL or on own?

[christianweecare]

For you DCL veterans:
Do you recommend booking excursions through DCL or on your own and why? Trying to decide how we should book for our Sept. 2005 cruise!

 

[Masonpips]

If you're doing Western, everything I've heard has been DON'T book through DCL - you'll get huge group son boats going to see the stingrays. We did Captain Marvins and were thrilled with the service

Key West: no excursions.
Grand Cayman: stingrays w/Cptn Marvins
Cozumel: no excursion

St. Maarten: took taxi to Orient Beach, wandered on our own, returned to town to shop
St. Thomas: independent daysail


So, I've never booked a DCL excursion preferring to research and explore on our own.

 

[christianweecare]

We are doing the Western. We would appreciate advise and suggestions!

 

[jlawall]

I've done both, DCL tours are usually well-run, excellent programs. Sometimes, we find out through these boards, about more fun experiences so we schedule them ourselves.

 

[Laurarn]

We booked an excursion on our own called "Lawrence of Antigua". I read positive experiences with him on the "cruisecritic" boards. I emailed him ahead of time to set it up and he has been very prompt in responses, where to meet, etc. It was us and maybe another 2 families on his tour. He took us for a tour around Antiqua in his vans. We made a few stops for panoramic pictures and historical info. We even watched a short program about Antiqua's history and culture. After the tour, he took us to a nice uncrowded beach that had a place to eat and restrooms. The service at the eatery was slow and expensive, so I'd recommend packing a lunch, but other than that, it was a great excursion. We swam and snorkeled on the beach for a few hours and then he returned us to the ship. Lawrence was great!

 

[aprilgail2]

I've done both...in Freeport we booked a beach day through Disney, the place was wonderful but all the standing in line with the excursion was a bit much for me. This last cruise we booked everything on our own and it worked out wonderfully. We booked the Key West Trolley online for lessthan Disney charges, Did Captain Marvins on our own and had a boat that was much emptier than the ones Disney packs you in and in Cozumel we walked around and went on a horse and carraige ride. We were goi nto go to Mr. Sanchos but we were so sunburned form Grand Cayman that we didn't want to bakein the sun anymore until CC.

 

[NJ Cruisers]

We always do the beach excursions on our own. And I would use reputable services for snorkling excursions as long as there was plenty of time to get back to the ship - e.g. do the excursions in the morning.

 

[RKB]

My first cruise we booked DCL excursions. With these you have to meet in a group, wait in a group, be escorted in a group.... You then have more crowded conditions at the actual excursion. Often the excursion you want to do is sold out or not as good as what you can book on your own (dolphin encounter vs actual dolphin swim), and more expensive then what you can do on your own. On my second cruise we did all of our own excursions and everything went great: Key West - Conch Train and then Butterfly farm, southernmost point then key lime pie at a restaurant. Grand Cayman - Captain Marvin's stingrays, Cozumel - Chankanaab park (by taxi $10.00), dolphin swim, fake mayan ruins, excellent snorkeling...

 

[kcashner]

In general, we've found that booking on our own provides excellent service with smaller groups and way less crowds than booking thru DCL. If you know the vendors (you can find out thru the boards), you can make advanced reservations to be sure of a spot for the day. This is good for things like Captain Marvin's. It is not needed for things like the Butterfly farm. Generally, booking on your own is a little cheaper.

 

[*Fantasia*]

How do you go about booking it yourself? Is there a tourist booth right outside the dock?

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

My only advice from reading the many hurricane threads--

Make sure the excursions you book are refundable if the itinerary of your ship changes due to weather (or changes for any reason for that matter).

Heard from those threads that some vendors were more than generous with this.

 

[MarkRG]

There's really no absolute answer to this other than this.

Research what you're interested in at the ports you are going to be stopping at. There are excursions I would never book outside of DCL. Any tour that takes you very far from port would probably be a thru DCL excursion. The reason being, if you are late getting back, the ship will wait for the tour to return if it's booked thru the cruise line. They will not wait for others just being late returning. Also you are absolutely guaranteed a refund if it's thru DCL. It's up to a tour operator if you book direct. We did have a near miss once with this. I've been on both the Eastern and Western.

All I can tell you is what we did.

-St. Maarten, the island and semi-subersible tour. We rode in very nice airconditioned buses to the SeaWorld Explorer semi-submersibles and it was very nice. I don't think I'd do that myself, as it was quite far to get there.

-St. Thomas, we did the Coral World and island tour. We're doing this ourselves in December and going right to Coral World. I wouldn't do that thru DCL again, it's not too far and there are ready taxis all over to run people back and forth. Coral World itself is worth going over for it is very nice. Going up to the highest point of the island was ok, but no big thrill. Better to do the Paradise Point Tramway. When we did the DCL tour the open air bus we were in broke down on the way back to the port. Thankfully, it wasn't anything terminal, and we did make it back, but the driver did call ahead to warn them and they confirmed they'd wait for us if we were late.

-Key West. You really don't need a tour to travel here, you can walk from the port to the southernmost point all by yourselves, which is a long walk, or take the trolley which is more like an unlimited shuttle service around the island with narrative. You can get on/off trolleys wherever you want. You can get discounted tickets right from the operator here for the trolley: http://shophta.com/acb/stores/15/product1.asp?SID=15&Product_ID=13&kc=y Key West is also a good place to pick up anything you want to bring snack beverage wise onboard instead of before sailing on the Western. There's a grocery store about 5 or so blcoks down east off Duvall you can see it from the corner.

-Grand Cayman. We took the tour to the Turtle Farm, Hell and Stingray City and enjoyed this tour a lot. Yes, Hell is a tourist trap, but fascinating for the little time you spend there and you can send yourself a postcard from Hell. Kids love the turtles, and of course the Stingrays are not to be missed. We didn't go out on that big or crowded a boat. Maybe the stingray only excursion thru DCL is more crowded. Had lots of time to interact with them and were quite satisfied with our time spent there. if you're only interested in Stingrays, Captain Marvins is the one recommended over and over here.

Note, right now Grand Cayman is still recovering from Hurricane Ivan; it won't be open to cruise ships until sometime in November if not later, and a lot of the island is still many months till recovery, if not longer. Some resorts are saying 6 months and some no longer even exist.

-Cozumel. We did the San Gervasio ruins, island tour, and time at Playa Sol. Having never visited ruins anywhere before, it was interesting. The real ruins are over at Tulum, but I would warn, it's an all day excursion, and the ride to/from can be rough and long, small kids won't be too happy. The island tour was ok, the beaches on the ocean side are cool with all the rock formations. The time at Playa Sol was ok. One thing about Cozumel, LOTS of pushy salespeople everywhere. Even going in and out of Playa Sol. All that said, next tiem we're there, the two of us are going to do the Tulum tour. Personally, for kids, Chakanaab sounds like the most fun.

-Nassau. You can book almost anything yourselves here if you want to . You can definitely go visit Atlantis on your own, the Pirate Museum and some others. For Atlantis, to use their water recreation, you need to have a room booked at Atlantis or Comfort Suites which is right next door. To tour the Atlantis resort otherwise, you can get a wristband for walking access to everywhere right as you get there. The only bad excursion I've heard of here was the glass bottom boat tour.

 

[dinnysuw]

hi-for cozumel we booked through shoretrips.com for the dolphin swim-actually swam with small group with dolphins-absolutely incredible. we took taxi from port 10.00 plus tip each way readily available. i know the disney excursion was just as much but only got you in waist deep. it was 99.00 per person for us. and well worth every cent!