After the deadly accident that took place in Chile, while passengers from the Celebrity Cruise Lines were touring independently, I thought I would share an excerpt from our book, How to Make Your First Cruise the Best Vacation of Your Life. After reading our advice from this excerpt, please see my comments on the piece and the accident at the bottom. What About Touring? (Excerpt from the eBook) Tours can be purchased form the cruise line, done on your own or you can combine the two. Booking it through the lines has some advantages. Some of them are obvious. The cruise line has thoroughly examined the places they will take you and will rate them according to their difficulty so you know ahead of time if this is the right tour for you. They are always run by local tour companies and these companies want to keep that business. Their equipment is A-one and they always have English speaking tour directors. (They also supply other language guides.) You never have to wait in line to get into museums or other attractions- a big time saver. And of course, all of the work is done for you by the tour companies and the cruise line. And it is safe. The cruise lines would never put you in a dangerous situation. There are always a couple of cruise line employees on the tour to make sure no one gets lost and that the bus leaves with the same amount of people that it started with. When going to a new or exotic port I would recommend the cruise lines excursions. Some of the most wonderful excursions we have taken were cruise line tours. Imagine flying the Spruce Goose over the mail route to outlying salmon fisheries in Alaska or hitting all the highlights of Rome in one day, or going to China Beach in Vietnam. These are things we never could have arranged on our own. Every country has an embassy or a tourism web page to give you information on destinations, festivals, feast days, or the days of Carnival in Buenos Aires. The shore excursion booklet will also provide you with information on how difficult or easy the tour is. This is especially important for people with any sort of disability. The duration of the trip and any stops along the way are included and on many, lunch is part of the tour. When traveling in foreign por |
