Kennedy space center shuttle 400💵?

[RCIfan1912]

We are sailing the beautiful Anthem of the seas in late February 2024. There is only one excursion we are gonna do on the whole trip and that's Kennedy space center but good god it's almost 400 bucks for the 4 of us and one is just 2 years old. 

It's only like 68 bucks each to enter Kennedy I think. Should we just go on our own? I mean 400 bucks is a bit steep no? Is it easy to find your own ride to and back from Kennedy? Thanks. 

[twangster]

If KSC is $68 then $32 remains for the transportation portion, or $16 each way per person.  For a party of one that is probably a good deal.  For a party of eight not so much.  You are in the middle with a party of four.  

Royal excursion pricing doesn't have a bulk rate or volume discount for larger parties.  

You can rent a car and drive or look towards Uber/Lyft/Taxi.  There has to be some profit in it for Royal or it doesn't make sense for a business to offer it.  You can pay for the convenience of not having to figure out your own transportation or do it on your own.  Your call, no judgement either way, just stating the facts.

 

[RCIfan1912]

8 minutes ago, twangster said:

If KSC is $68 then $32 remains for the transportation portion, or $16 each way per person.  For a party of one that is probably a good deal.  For a party of eight not so much.  You are in the middle with a party of four.  

Royal excursion pricing doesn't have a bulk rate or volume discount for larger parties.  

You can rent a car and drive or look towards Uber/Lyft/Taxi.  There has to be some profit in it for Royal or it doesn't make sense for a business to offer it.  You can pay for the convenience of not having to figure out your own transportation or do it on your own.  Your call, no judgement either way, just stating the facts.

 

I get that it's a business and they need to make money. That I don't have a problem with. 400 bucks for a 30 minute ride is a bit steep. The baby is free and it's still 392 bucks. Kennedy is only 200 bucks to get into as far as I can feel for the 4 of us. 

[twangster]

14 minutes ago, RCIfan1912 said:

I get that it's a business and they need to make money. That I don't have a problem with. 400 bucks for a 30 minute ride is a bit steep. The baby is free and it's still 392 bucks. Kennedy is only 200 bucks to get into as far as I can feel for the 4 of us. 

Royal doesn't offer baby excursion pricing.    

KSC normal rates are $75 per adult, $65 per child.   Royal doesn't get to take advantage of promos and discount codes that KSC offers to the public.  

If you can piece it together cheaper then do it.  With a baby the Royal excursion doesn't make sense.  

[twangster]

There are only so many seats on the bus.  If they gave your baby a seat for free that represents a seat they can't sell to another adult who is willing to pay for it.

In your situation I don't blame you for doing it on your own.  

[RCIfan1912]

4 minutes ago, twangster said:

There are only so many seats on the bus.  If they gave your baby a seat for free that represents a seat they can't sell to another adult who is willing to pay for it.

In your situation I don't blame you for doing it on your own.  

But the baby is free, that's what I was saying. The one good thing about the excursion is the baby is free. 

In fact he is free on all the excursions we have booked for Liberty this October too. 

[RCIfan1912]

Actually its not that ridiculous a price. Its 78.75 to enter per person of course. It doesn't say on the KSC website if kids under a certain age are free but even if he is free the price for 3 alone just to enter is 236. This actually looks like a slightly better deal now. For the convenience and ship guarantee not to leave without us I think we will do it this way. No fuss in the end I guess is worth the extra money. 

[FionaMG]

We did this tour on our Anthem cruise last April. Booked well in advance, I got the tickets for $71 pp, which was actually cheaper than the normal KSC ticket price. By a couple of months before our cruise the price was up to over $100 pp. Since you're not going till February, keep checking the prices. You never know when a real sale will come along and you still have time to cancel and re-book if it does.

Assuming you're on the itinerary that only gets you into Port Canaveral at lunchtime, which means you're not going to have a huge amount of time at KSC, booking the excursion has the added benefit of getting you there about as fast as possible. You're escorted off the ship onto the waiting buses with no faffing around looking for taxis, ubers or rentals.

You're not going to have time to see everything at KSC since it closes at 5 pm, so as soon as you get there head straight to the bus tour which takes you out to the Saturn V Centre. That's where most of the interesting stuff is. If you leave it till later, you might not get the chance to do it at all.

[RCIfan1912]

4 minutes ago, FionaMG said:

We did this tour on our Anthem cruise last April. Booked well in advance, I got the tickets for $71 pp, which was actually cheaper than the normal KSC ticket price. By a couple of months before our cruise the price was up to over $100 pp. Since you're not going till February, keep checking the prices. You never know when a real sale will come along and you still have time to cancel and re-book if it does.

Assuming you're on the itinerary that only gets you into Port Canaveral at lunchtime, which means you're not going to have a huge amount of time at KSC, booking the excursion has the added benefit of getting you there about as fast as possible. You're escorted off the ship onto the waiting buses with no faffing around looking for taxis, ubers or rentals.

You're not going to have time to see everything at KSC since it closes at 5 pm, so as soon as you get there head straight to the bus tour which takes you out to the Saturn V Centre. That's where most of the interesting stuff is. If you leave it till later, you might not get the chance to do it at all.

Oh wow, thanks! Excellent information! Yeah I think the bus ride alone starts at 12:30 so assuming it's actually 30 minutes we get there at 1 so we have probably less than 4 hours. I didn't think of that side of this. That's not a ton of time like you said. Hmmm now I'm really thinking. I mean we have to do something in Port Canaveral and this is the only appealing thing to us. 4 hours though it's kinda tough. Thanks again for the info and suggestions. 

[Rackham]

9 minutes ago, RCIfan1912 said:

Oh wow, thanks! Excellent information! Yeah I think the bus ride alone starts at 12:30 so assuming it's actually 30 minutes we get there at 1 so we have probably less than 4 hours. I didn't think of that side of this. That's not a ton of time like you said. Hmmm now I'm really thinking. I mean we have to do something in Port Canaveral and this is the only appealing thing to us. 4 hours though it's kinda tough. Thanks again for the info and suggestions. 

Another tip is there are preshows to the exhibits when entering most of the buildings. They're really well done, but if you're looking to save some time, you're able to enter through the building's exit (might be disguised as a gift shop). YouTube should have recordings of all of them if you're wanting to watch before arrival to see what you'd like to skip or wait for.

[FionaMG]

5 minutes ago, RCIfan1912 said:

Oh wow, thanks! Excellent information! Yeah I think the bus ride alone starts at 12:30 so assuming it's actually 30 minutes we get there at 1 so we have probably less than 4 hours. I didn't think of that side of this. That's not a ton of time like you said. Hmmm now I'm really thinking. I mean we have to do something in Port Canaveral and this is the only appealing thing to us. 4 hours though it's kinda tough. Thanks again for the info and suggestions. 

I guess it depends on how easy it is for you get there on an another occasion. Coming from across the pond, we didn't know when or even if we would get another chance. We still managed to see a lot in that time, so for us it was definitely worthwhile.

However, if you could foreseeably do a cruise that starts at Port Canaveral in the future, where you could go a couple of days early and get a full day at KSC, that might be worth considering.

If you do decide to go, be sure to take a stroller for your little one because there's way too much walking for a small child and he'll get tired.

[RCIfan1912]

Well I think we kinda decided we'll do the excursion through Royal Caribbean. I mean it is the only excursion we are doing on the cruise. Coco Cay we only do the free side and stuff and holy cow we had an awesome time last August not spending an extra dime at Coco Cay. Nassau I think we might actually get off the ship and explore just a tad. I saw videos of the new port and it looks very nice and safe. So this will be our only excursion expense.