029: Planning port activities - who else will be there?
Release Date: 06/25/2014
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Essential Cruise Tips
I’m just back from a Sky Princess cruise to Scandinavia, and during that I realised there are a surprisingly large number of things I cannot do on cruises this year that I could last year. For example, as on last year’s Princess cruise, I bought the “Princess Plus” package. While it still includes a Drinks Package, unlike last year, this year they’ve now excluded canned sodas from that package, only allow me one drink per order, and have banned double measures. While this may seem not a huge change, it is an unwelcome change from last year and got me thinking about others. So,...
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
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Essential Cruise Tips
I have been intrigued as recent reviews of Crystal Cruises have been very positive, including it having the highest passenger ratings on Cruise Critic in the ultra-luxury category, better than Regent Seven Seas, Silversea and Seabourn. So, I decided to test Crystal Cruises out to see if they really are the best of the ultra-luxury lines. This is what I discovered Become a Tips For Travellers Patron: and get exclusive Patron-only content, downloads and livestreams Visit my Tips For Travellers YouTube:
info_outlineGary Bembridge author of "The Cruise Traveler's Handbook" provides another 60-Second Cruise Tips. For more visit http://www.60secondcruisetips.com and http://www.tipsfortravellers.com/cruise-travelers-handbook
With the growth in cruising destinations are likely to have multiple ships in port at the same time as yours. As the towns, attractions and sights can get crowded when multiple cruise lines are visiting, planning your time on land in advance is important.
The website I use to help plan my port activities is called CruiseTimetables.com. The site has details of which ships will be in port each day. You input the port and date and it shows the ships and maximum passenger numbers that will be there.
For example, using the site I knew that around 15,000 people would be in St Thomas on one stop and so I booked a quiet day exploring the coastline on a catamaran instead of fighting traffic and crowds on land tours.
Knowing the volume of people in port may also be a good reason to book a private tour or to self explore to get you to key attractions earlier than regular excursions. For example in St. Petersburg it led me to book a private early-morning tour which finished touring the Hermitage as the hoards arrived.