Day 40: At Sea … Planning Shore Visits or Winging It?

Wednesday, 15 February 2017
At Sea — South Pacific … En Route to Vanuatu

Stats @ Ship’s Time 2:00p (VUT) … UTC 3:00a (same day)
Temp: 81F (27.2C)
Position: 17.37.46S / 172.07.49E

To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to
experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position
in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.
~ Bill Bryson ~

We gained another hour overnight and are on Vanuatu time now.  That puts us one hour closer to Eastern Standard Time in Miami than we were yesterday … 17 hours instead of 18 hours.  We are now also 9 hours ahead of our families in Turkey … meaning we have to pay more attention to the time when we check in ;-)

It’s a quiet day at sea — lots of sunshine on the veranda in the morning, so I had to wait until after lunch to sit outside.  The good news … I’m caught up on our two ports in Fiji — both the journal and the blog.

There’s not much of a story to tell for today, so I am going to respond to another comment that was left on a blog post recently.  And I am going to do it earlier in the day than usual because we have a dinner engagement with GM Victor in the main dining room tonight.  I anticipate a longer than normal meal for us and I won’t have time to post later.

Ashley, a former DHS-associate of Mui’s, commented about how organized we seem to be with our port visit plans.  We are.  But that wasn’t always the case.  We used to wing it in our early days of travel, but then we would get frustrated by the amount of time we wasted trying to figure out what to do and where to go once we arrived at our destination.  Luckily, I enjoy researching the places we visit — both on land and on cruise vacations — so it’s not too onerous for me to take the lead on this aspect of our travels.  It does take up a good chunk of my time, but it’s worth it to me … and explains why our motorhome travels have been curtailed in the past few years while we focus on some of our “once-in-a-lifetime” travel dreams ;-)

Since we are on an ocean voyage at present, I will focus on my shore excursion planning process for cruises in this post.  But the process is pretty similar for land vacations … though I tend to read more e-guidebooks when we have extended time in one place.

The research I do is focused mostly on understanding what is available to see and do in the port and vicinity.  Once I have that information, we leave our plans fluid and decide what we want to do when we arrive at our destination depending on what the weather is like.

Our preferred modus operandi is to disembark the ship and do our own thing using public transportation where necessary.  Occasionally we will make more formal arrangements by booking a private tour — either for the two of us; or for a small group of six to eight people.  I’m usually leery about booking a public tour that can be joined by just about anyone who happens to be visiting that town/city that day simply because their “time concerns” on a land-based vacation are different.  Some of the tour operators ask for cash payment on the day of the visit; others want advance payment by credit card or PayPal or Western Union or similar.  I work all that out when I contact the tour operator to make the arrangements, and I pdf a copy of the correspondence and take it with me as proof.

Our preference for “going solo” aside, we booked a lot of private tours for our RTW voyage.  This is primarily because of my concern over the heat and humidity we expect to encounter — something else to research is weather trends at your destination, although that information is not nearly as dependable as it used to be … what with climate change and all.  The idea is that the vehicle will serve as a cool haven as we go from one site to another, and thus give us a more pleasurable day of exploration.

When we do book a tour, we prefer not to do ship’s tours.  Not only do we think that they are over-priced, but often they involve a busload of people.  In 17 years of cruising I can count the number of ship’s tours we’ve done on one hand … and they were all to places that were over two hours driving distance each way from where the ship was docked.

Before all the ship excursion aficionados jump on my case about how the ship will wait for you if the tour is late, let me explain.  It’s true that the ship will wait or make appropriate arrangements for you to rejoin the ship if you are on one of their tours.  If you are happy booking through the ship to limit your risk, that’s great.  It’s simply not for us.

I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve had the occasional dud when it comes to private tours.  Not everything will always be perfect.  But overall we have found that we can have a better experience by booking with reputable companies that are familiar with shore excursions and cruise ship travel limitations.  These companies pride themselves on ensuring they return passengers to the port in time.  After all, if their guests miss the ship, they will lose future business, so it’s in their best interest to make sure they maintain a timely schedule.  We always ask to be back 1-1½ hours before sailaway and have found that to be a good buffer.  In our years of cruising, we have had only one close call.  And even with that one, we were back before the official sailaway — and before the ship’s tours, I might add — because we were in a taxi that was able to negotiate roads that the buses were having difficulty doing so.

Now for some of my research tools.  A website I use on a regular basis is Cruise Critic.  This is a forum for those who enjoy cruise vacations.  You can read about various cruise lines and ports, ask questions, and get suggestions on things to do in various ports from those who have already been.  Roll call forums bring together people who are on the same cruise to share ideas, and sometimes form small groups to share private tours.

TripAdvisor forums are another go-to site for me … a very good source of information — especially for finding popular landmarks and activities, and reputable tour operators and private guides/drivers.  The members of these forums are very helpful in answering questions, but one needs to make it clear that the query is in reference to a one-day port visit instead of an extended land vacation.

Amongst the slew of websites I use, I’ll mention a few others — Tours by Locals, Viator, Tours for Tips, What’s in Port, Cruise Astute.  “Visit xx” — insert destination — websites are a treasure trove of information as well.  Online travel guides are very useful, too — Lonely Planet and Fodor’s are my favorites.  Frommer's has good walking tour descriptions … as does Rick Steve’s, although his country-coverage is restricted.  You can look up the websites for these and other sites on the internet if you are so inclined.  There are a multitude of tools out there for the traveler who wants to plan in advance.

The bottom line — go out and explore.  If you prefer, do it with a cruise ship excursion … there’s nothing wrong with that.  If you are comfortable wandering on your own or in a small group, get off the ship and start walking or book a private tour.  Doing a tour that someone else raves about won’t guarantee a good day if it is not something that fits your interests.  Do your research, read the tour description carefully, ask questions of the tour operator and fellow-travelers … and go out and have fun.

Don’t take what I wrote here as gospel … we are all different … all have our own way of doing things.  Figure out what works for you and go from there.

© 2015-2017 — All rights reserved by Erin Erkun.