Staying on ship on port days

[Mukta]

Going on my first cruise this September. Between the concierge lounge, spa, restaurants, hot tubs, wine tastings etc, it seems like there isn't enough time to enjoy the ship if I am spending a lot of time on excursions.

How long are we off of the ship for excursions? Can I go back to the ship whenever I want? Can I stay on if I want to?

 

[DisneyJoe]

1 - How long are we off of the ship for excursions?

2 - Can I go back to the ship whenever I want?

3 - Can I stay on if I want to?

1 - Depends on the excursion, anywhere from an hour or two to 5-6 hours or more.

2 - Yes.

3 - Yes.

 

[MaryJaneP]

We have spent whole port days on ship (i.e. Palermo, St. Maartens). We have also returned to the ship whenever we wanted if we were doing our own excursion (i.e. we walked into town in Malta returned when we wanted). We have done half day excursions (Pompei). However, please note that if you are on an excursion that is some distance from the ship (i.e. Florence/Pisa was 2 hr commute into city and 2 hrs back), if makes less sense to cut short an excursion and taxi back to ship. Thus, you control your own schedule but be careful you keep your eyes open to what each decision means in regards to returning to the ship. We would sign up for excursions to avoid losing a spot if the excursion sells out. We really wanted some excursions as first choices. Sometimes, there were no excursions that we wanted for that port so we just stayed on the ship. This also gave us an opportunity to cancel an excursion if situation warranted (i.e. sick/tired). Best of luck with your cruise.

 

[Phonedave]

There was a stingray excursion in Nassau (I don't think they offer this particular one anymore) that was horrible. You went out to an island, maybe 30 min by boat, and you did the stingray thing. Then you were stuck on the island for hours, until the next boat back. We wasted so much time with that.

The excursions to Blue Lagoon Island (dolphin and sea lion encounters) in Nassau were great. They had boats going back roughly every hour, so you could stay or return on your schedule.


-dave

 

[216bruce]

Agreed on Blue Lagoon. It exceeded what we thought it would be and we learned that sea lions have really, really bad breath.
Shore days can be a huge variety in duration. Our upcoming Northern Europe cruise spends only a few hours in Estonia but two days in St.Petersburg, Russia. My suggestion is to at least get off the boat and wander the portside community a little bit (unless there is NOTHING there) and if you want to, you can get right back on the ship. We were a little timid on our first cruise about going ashore since it can be intimidating, especially in a foreign/non-English speaking country, but keep in mind that there's a lot of other tourists around and the locals are pretty used to us.
On the plus side of 'staying on-board'- you'll have the pools, Aqua-Duck, movies, etc. pretty much to yourself and it's very quiet (relatively speaking).
I get the fact that there's a lot to do on board, but everything you list- wine tasting, spa, etc, can be 'done' at home. Going to other countries...can't.