Cruise port excursions, your advice/ experiences

[Bbddl]

My wife and I are on a cruise from Miami to Los Angeles in January that goes through the Panama Canal with numerous ports. It’s time to look into excursions. We stay away from the cruise line excursions and typically book on our own with smaller tour companies. We have found that the level of service is superior and much more educational/enjoyable. Can you offer suggestions for the following locations? Thank you. FYI we recently retired!!!!

These are in Mexico;
Cabo San Lucas
Mazatlan
Puerto Vallarta
Manzanillo
Acapulco

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

Panama City, Panama

Cartagena, Columbia

We are also cognizant of some of the violence and issues in some of these areas, and will refer to the US State Department to view their travel advisories.

[fabdog]

There are many cruisers on the board, and some may have experience in your destinations.

Cruisecritic.com is the best source for these types of questions

Mike

[smitcat]

Agreed, Cruisecritic is the best source for this. Please stay informed about the current Panama Canal restrictions and how that may or may not affect your plans.

[firebirdparts]

I can only speak to the Caribbean.

At the Canal, you do want to see the canal, but you'll see all that on board. The history of the canal is really interesting.

We had a really good excursion on the Atlantic side that went down to Portobelo with a good guide who talked a lot about the history of the whole country. Was just fascinating. I could tell you all the reason it's interesting, but there's too much breadth and it's triggering, really.

Cartagena really is just bad; it's a big metropolis out on former islands and so the metropolis is between the ship and Columbia. We had a very good tour there, "highlights" basically, but you will generally be in an ocean of street vendors and street performers. People do go there for vacation, and I guess they have a better time as they don't go somewhere that a tour would be. Nice city, lots of good food, architecture, coffee, but we just drowned in an ocean of people. I would stay with approved tours. I think it might be fun to get past Categena into the interior of Columbia, but I don't know what the options are.

[ResearchMed]

On www.CruiseCritic.com --

Look at the Ports of Call sections for your, well, ports of call.
There will be reports from other who were there or are planning to go.

Also do sign up for your Roll Call.
This will include others on your specific sailing.
They often organize private excursions and invite others to share.
(We almost always do private excursions/tours. When we do something like hire a large catamaran with crew and BBQ lunch, etc., we invite others on our Roll Call. There's plenty of room, and that makes it more fun, plus sharing the cost. This is something where there aren't issues about someone wanting to stay longer or rush through some sights, etc.)

Sometimes the private excursions are very similar to the cruiseline tours, but with much smaller groups and for lower cost. Win/win.

As for the Panama Canal and water restrictions, last I heard was that cruise ships weren't affected because they pay hefty surcharges for specific time slots. The big freighters are the ones most affected.

Enjoy!

RM

[AlohaBill]

I think you should probably be more worried about the violence in Miami and Los Angeles as much as in the other ports.

[CardinalRule]

Agree on the cruisecritic.com suggestions.

Excursion costs are higher when you go with those brokered by the cruise line. One benefit is that that the ship won't leave you behind if you get lost or your return from the private excursion is late.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/s ... ht-for-you

[crefwatch]

I'm a big fan of using the cruise company's trips. I've been on at least three of them that were quite late in getting back to the port, and in one case, the ship had to move to a different port because they had to give up the berth they were in. It was all handled by the tour guides. (In one case, three busses full.)

I particularly note that you have a stop in Guatemala. Most people are very price sensitive, but when we were at a stop in Belize City, we spent hundreds of dollars a person (I forget, but let's say $550, fifteen years ago) for a cruise-company excursion to Tikal (in Guatemala, but much closer to Belize than from your port.) This included a scheduled air flight (and back) in a modest-sized plane. The excursion, which included a private safe hot buffet lunch INSIDE Tikal was worth EVERY PENNY. It was incredible! We were back in time for the LONG TENDER-BOAT RIDE back to the (anchored) ship.

I might comment that the local guide gave us a stern "teacher talk" before we left. He said (paraphrased) "This is a long trip, but I do it every week, sometimes multiple times. If I tell you to do something, don't question me, do it exactly as I described. If I say "Walk through this magnetometer and don't stop for any reason until you go through that door over there, I mean you should do exactly that." The point is, the guards know him, and maybe he takes care of them.

Edit: Based on following Shocked reply: I wasn't trying to make the trip sound unsafe or lawless. I was bowing to the guide's experience, and knowledge of pushy Americans who can't keep their yaps shut! He spoke with the exact, Sergeant Rock affect, of a Normandy D-Day Beaches guide. It was a time and mileage-consuming trip, and he knew/arranged exactly how to "make it happen". As I said, it was worth every penny. (Some of the Tikal pyramids appear in the first Star Wars movie, as guard posts above the jungle.)

[ResearchMed]

I might comment that the local guide gave us a stern "teacher talk" before we left. He said (paraphrased) "This is a long trip, but I do it every week, sometimes multiple times. If I tell you to do something, don't question me, do it exactly as I described. If I say "Walk through this magnetometer and don't stop for any reason until you go through that door over there, I mean you should do exactly that." The point is, the guards know him, and maybe he takes care of them.

RM

[ResearchMed]

Agree on the cruisecritic.com suggestions.

Excursion costs are higher when you go with those brokered by the cruise line. One benefit is that that the ship won't leave you behind if you get lost or your return from the private excursion is late.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/s ... ht-for-you

This is usually true, but NOT always.
There are factors beyond the ship's control, such as the tides.
(In some locations, such as Bordeaux, the ship may have to move to a different nearby port, and you'll be taken there, by advance planning or not...)

There was a relatively recent (Holland America??) cruise along Mexican coast, with a Canal transit.
There was also a HORRIFIC rainstorm such that some trails got washed out.
(The photos showed really unpleasant, difficult trekking, unexpectedly...)

My recollection (from reading first hand report, not "being there"): The ship could *NOT* wait, as it had paid their regular high fee for a guaranteed slot through the canal. If they missed that, they'd have to queue up or such (?).

Anyway, the passengers on that excursion WERE "taken care of", but that's not the same as "the ship WILL wait".
They were flown on a small plane, once they got back from the "hike", and met up with the cruise much later.

The cruiseline *will* take care of you (assuming you weren't negligent, etc.), but they can't work miracles.

RM

[goingup]

We usually book excursions with the cruise line (Celebrity) for the reasons mentioned above. The company takes responsibility for the timeliness and quality of the excursion. Our Panama Canal excursion was entirely refunded because the boat we were on had engine problems which impacted the tour.

When the ship will be in port for 2 days. I'm comfortable using Viator or TripAdvisor for an excursion on the first day. If there's a delay on the return to ship we don't have to sweat it.

[FlamePoint]

We did a Panama Canal cruise in January, however had a little different itinerary than yours. For Puerto Vallarta i can recommend the following taco tour:

https://www.vallartaeats.com/get-to-know-us/

Tons of fun and some amazing food. Go hungry!

We also did a private city highlights tour in Cartagena that was organized by another individual on board (I learned about it through Roll Call on Cruise Critics). I’m not sure of the name of the tour company, but there were about 12 of us in a private van. We got a good tour of the city and felt very safe the entire time.