Our family 2 50ish parents and 2 early 20s kids are taking a cruise on Royal from Venice to Croatia to the Greek islands. The excursions look very expensive( min of 225.00 for the cheapest ones (4 adults)that are 2-3 hours. Has anyone been on this cruise and can suggest excursions that were worth the money? We have no issue driving in a foreign country. Should we rent a car and explore ourselves? We are normally pretty adventurous on vacation ourselves. We thought the cruise would be best with the kids.
Thanks for any tidbits...
Marlene

This subject has been well discussed recently. Type Excursion in the search box and see what you get/

I think you can save tons of $$ by either renting a car or simply hiring a private car when you disembark. There are normally plenty of cabs just waiting at the pier for customers. We did this on our Med. cruise, which was also our very first cruise BTW and found it worked very well. For example the excursion in Rome offered by the ship, also RCI, was $170.00 pp. We hired a cab, saw all the sites we wanted to see and it cost $200.00 so for the 3 of us thats quite a savings. Just do a bit of research about ea. port, make a laundry list so to speak and you're on your way. Just be sure to allow enough time to return to the ship. If people on a private tour miss the ship its tough luck. Be on time. I would love to do the Greek isle one day. Cheers, Larrry

We did Venice to Istanbul in 9/06 which included the Greek islands.

First of all for Venice I don't think you need to do an excursion. You can walk around yourself or take the vaporatti (sp?) water taxi 1 up the grand canel and see the sights.

If you're going to Dubrovnik - again no need to take an excursion. We took a cab to the old walled cited and walked the wall and walked around ourselves. There is an ATM right out of the old city you can get the local currency because they don't do Euro's.

As for the Greek islands - we did private tours on Rhodes, Santorini and Athens. Didn't feel the need for a tour on Myknonos cause you could walk to the windmills yourself.

Agree with jacketwatch - private tours are so much better and not only because you don't deal with the 40 people on the bus issue - most private tours charge by the car/small van, not per person. Let me know if you want the names to the private guides we used - will be happy to provide.

Another plus for using a private tour car is that you can simply return to the ship when YOU are ready. This is particularly important if you are going in the summer when those ports can be pretty warm. You may just feel like cutting it short.

Yes, I absolutely agree about doing private tours in ports. On the last few cruises that I've done, I've taken the ship shore excursions and wasn't very happy with the cost or the experience. So, I am now encouraging clients to do private or semi-private shore excursions instead of the cruise line shore excursions. I am doing the same thing with my personal cruise shore exs, too.

There are several independent shore excursion companies that are doing an outstanding job with these shore excursions. The tours and ports being offered are increasing all the time. You can also work with a Virtuoso travel agency, because we have worldwide contacts with reputable on-site tour operators in more than 65 countries. In any case, I would suggest making your arrangements before you leave on your cruise so you are working with a reputable company.

There are lots of options for doing shore excursions, but just make sure that you know boarding times on the ship so you don't miss the ship!

Best Regards,
Julia

If you go to viator tours you can book tours as well. The book Cruise Vacations for Dummies tells you how to do independent tours as well. We are going in June & plan to do most on our own.

THANK YOU ALL. WE DECIDED TO BOOK ONE EXCURSION IN OLYMPUS-THERE ARE 4 CRUISE SHIPS IN PORT THE SAME DAY THERE. OTHER THAN THAT WE ARE GOING TO FIND EXCURSIONS OR RENT A CAR OFF THE SHIP. I APPRECIATE EACH RESPONSE.