We, a family of 5 are curious about the shore excursions. Should we look into booking our own off ship, or use the ships offerings? Any recommendations for shore excursions? We will be on the Carnival Spirit and our ages are 40's, 22,19 and 16. Thanks for the help.

I am lazy and do not feel like researching the Spirit's itinerary. Post the ports of call that you will visit and you will get feedback. Better yet, do a search for excursions and each particular port of call and you will find hundreds of posts (if not on this webpage, then certainly on Cruise critic and cruise addicts and cruise mates.

I prefer the ship's offerings.
That way if the shore excursion is delayed they will hold the ship.

If you book your own, tough luck!
You may be stranded and have to pay your own way back to the ship which can be very, very, expensive.

We prefer doing our own shore excursions. It's less expensive than a ship shore excursion, even for 2 people. For 5, it should be a bargain. I research each place we're going to stop, select several things I want to see, and negotiate with a cab driver (in the Caribbean, often licesned by the gov't as a guide). We get to see exactly what we want to see, for exactly how long we want to see it, without having to waste time herding people on and off a bus, and waiting for stragglers. If you post your questions on cruise critic, by port, you'll get lots of advice.

Lydel is an example of how the cruise line's propaganda influences their customers. If there were statistics of how many passengers get left behind in ports because they were late and on their own, my guess of the 50,000 cruise passengers that visit St. Thomas EVERY WEEK, maybe 5 get left behind. You have to keep in mind that the taxi drivers and private tour guides make their living toting cruise ship passengers around their island. They aren't going to take a chance and develop a reputation of missing ships. The cruise lines use this scare technique so they can make more off shore excursions than the cruise itself thru kickbacks from the "preferred excursions".

Well worth saving 50-75% of the ship's excursion for the very same thing on your own don't you think?

Peter