RC private tours

[Stephanie]

Has anyone ever used Royal's service to book private shore excursions? Curious if it's worth the price vs researching and booking my own tours outside of RC. I do kind of like that it's still a "RC" excursion, so if something came up & you're late getting back to the ship or you miss a port, you're still covered.

[OCSC Mike]

Only you can determine your comfort level, no judgment, but I haven't even looked at a RC excursion in forever (barring one unique circumstance while already in Alaska and had to replace something that was cancelled due to weather). I only book reputable independent excursions after researching them on cruise forums, TripAdvisor, etc. Never had a problem.

[Gilley]

@OCSC Mikethanks for sharing your excursion experience.  I was skeptical about booking excursions outside of RC.  I’m going to give it a try aboard Icon next year.

[OCSC Mike]

35 minutes ago, Gilley said:

@OCSC Mikethanks for sharing your excursion experience.  I was skeptical about booking excursions outside of RC.  I’m going to give it a try aboard Icon next year.

Just use common sense. I only book highly rated ones from companies who e-mail me back quickly when I reach out, I've only scheduled one that was returning close to "back onboard time" b/c he had such an amazing reputation, most have wiggle room in case something were to cause us to be late, etc.

Happy hunting!

[Stephanie]

It's not so much a comfort level as not wanting to do all the research myself. I've booked both independently and through RC before. What I'm asking about, specifically, is the "travel made personal" where you book independent tours via RC.  For example, in Alaska, I booked a whale watching tour thru an independent company so that I could have a small, private tour. Whereas, the tours through RC have 50+ people on the boats. I was just curious if anyone had used the RC service to book those smaller, private tours.

*Also, I've experienced a tour getting caught in traffic & being late getting back to the ship. In that scenario, we were in Rome. Fortunately, the tour was booked thru RC, so the ship waited for us. Otherwise, we'd have been on our own getting to the next port.

[jbrinkm]

We almost always book excursions now that are not through the cruise line, but leave a large buffer to get back to the ship on time. I know things could still happen, and we also buy insurance. 

However, we did have an issue way back in 2017 booking a non-Royal excursion. We wanted this very specific place with our kids and I stalked the Royal website for months before the cruise. I knew the excursion existed because they used to have PDFs that you could download that showed all of the possible excursions available but then you could book online. It didn't ever appear before the cruise, so about 2 weeks before we left, I contacted a local transportation company for a private driver for the day. I contacted the excursion site myself and made a reservation for the time that worked with port stop times. I had to do it via fax because the excursion site didn't have email at that time.

Two days after we were on the ship, I went to guest services for something, and that must have also been where they did excursions at the time, because they had a list of all the excursions available for the sailing, and the one I wanted was listed - but also sold out. It NEVER appeared on the website but it must have been offered on the ship. I had no internet or phone service to even try to contact anyone, and we were going to do some other things with our private driver, so I just chuckled and kept our existing plans. 

When we arrived at the location, they told me I was booked for a different time. I pulled out my booking paperwork and showed them my time. They said that was reserved only for cruise guests. I said that I am a cruise guest and I can't do the later time because I'll miss the boat. They started chastising me about how I shouldn't try to avoid the cruise fee, why didn't I book with the cruise line, I must be trying to trick everyone to get the lower price, etc. etc. I was in tears - they were "scolding" me very harshly in front of my kids and our driver and all of the other guests. And this was an island that was known for hospitality! They didn't even bother to ask or find out what happened. I had to walk away, and my husband was able to talk them into including us for a surcharge to match the increased cruise price (which included transportation that we didn't use) so we did get to do the activity but it left such a bad taste in my mouth. 

I hope that wouldn't happen nowadays because of better electronic communication. 

[Luly]

I have used this service. It was back in the day when you couldn’t get off the ship unless you were vaccinated and kids couldn’t vaccinated. So then kids couldn’t get off the ship unless it was with a royal excursion. What I did was found the exact excursion I wanted through a third party, then emailed the private shore excursions desk and told them exactly what I wanted to do. They quoted it for me and confirmed all the details. The day was perfect and it was JUST US! Worth every penny. Honestly I can’t remember the price tag but I remember thinking the price wasn’t bad, and was totally worth my kids being able to get off the ship and not be with hundreds of people on a stuffy chartered bus.