Another consideration is the direction your ship
goes.(East to West or West to East) Easier to gain time every day as you go and
loose an entire day (that just gets skipped) vs. losing time every day which is
hard on crew and passengers alike. Though of course people do it both ways and
I’m sure are happy with their decision.
At first the prospect of planning what to do in about 50
places was daunting. So, I started working them in small batches. We prefer
smaller private tours rather than the big bus tours that the cruise lines
offer. Many people enjoy ship tours and we have enjoyed some as well, but
whenever possible we try to research ports and read reviews of various
excursion operators on TripAdvisor and Cruise Critic and book our own.
Generally, we can see more with only a few people on the tour and we can pick
what we want to see and how long to stay at certain places. Often, the big bus
tours have mandatory shopping stops and it takes a long time to get about 30 people
on and off a bus at each stop and often times are 2 to 3 times the price of the
private tours. I don’t think there is a right or a wrong way to tour, but we
have learned what we prefer. Everyone has a different comfort level. There is
some risk involved with private tours in that if a ship tour is late getting
back, they ship will wait for them, they won’t wait for your private tour.
However, the tour operators are experienced in working with the cruise lines
schedules.
We decided to do a combination of touring ports on our
own with and without a guide, renting cars and touring on our own, and for our
overland tours we used tour companies. For the guided tours we booked many with
small groups of people from our roll call on Cruise Critic and some we chose to
do with “just us”. We booked 1 ship tour for the Great Barrier Reef because the
port times conflicted with any I tried to book locally.
I started contacting excursion operators and working
out the details of what we wanted to do and pricing based on a small group of
people. Then, I posted the description of the tours on our roll call on Cruise
Critic to see if others wanted to join. We were very lucky in finding people to
fill the tours to enjoy seeing the sites together and split the costs. Thank
you all that are joining us on this amazing journey! We look forward to meeting
“new friends”.
Jargon for those not
familiar with some abbreviations I may use:
CC = Cruise Critic (website for cruisers to research
ports and ships etc.)
Roll call = an area on the Cruise Critic website where
a group of Cruise Critic member's that are going on the same cruise can
exchange ideas and talk about the cruise.
HOHO = hop on hop off double decker buses used for
touring.
DIY – do it yourself
Immunizations:
For this particular cruise there are no required immunizations. We both already
have had Hepatitus A&B (Twinrix), Yellow Fever and Typhoid vaccinations and
always get flu shots. It’s always a good idea to at least talk to your
physician or a travel clinic to see what is required or recommended for the areas
you will be visiting.
Passport pages
& visas:
For this cruise we had to have extra pages put in our passports to have room for the various visas needed. It is also important to have at least 6 months remaining after your visit before the passport expires. Mine just needed extra pages and Greg sent his in to be renewed and have extra pages added at the same time. The India and China visas needed to be obtained in advance. We used CIBT Visa Services. Princess will obtain the ones we need for Vietnam, Jordan, Qatar, Australia and Egypt on board and charge to our onboard accounts.
Currency:
For the ports that do not accept USD, we generally use
ATMs in the port to get local cash. Finding a bank that reimburses for ATM fees
is a big plus. (hey, every little bit helps!) Use of credit cards wherever we
can helps as well. I try to have the guides give us a guestimate of what
lunches cost to help with planning on how much to take out of the ATM.
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