Cruising - Port Days

 

On almost all cruises, there will be port days.  For these days, one will need to decide whether to go off and take a shore excursion or stay on the ship and enjoy the ship’s amenities.  There are many decisions that must be made to determine how to best enjoy a day in port, the first being whether to stay on the ship or to take a shore excursion.

Staying on the ship presents a cruiser with many options on how a day can be spent. The cruise ship will usually provide its cruisers with a list of activities taking place on the ship while in port. However, do not consider this a complete list.  One can go swimming in the ship’s pool, soak in its hot tubs, exercise in its gym, or pay for services provided by the onboard spa.  Please note that the ship’s stores and casino will be closed while in port. When in ports I am not interested in, I will often soak in the hot tub on the lido deck (weather permitting), or catch up on my reading in the ship’s library.  

However, one may choose to go off the ship and participate in a shore excursion. One must be careful to synchronize one’s timepiece (watch or cell phone) with ship’s time, and be sure that one’s activities allow for a return to the ship before it leaves port.  Assuming one leaves the ship, one should copy the contact information for the port agent from the ship’s daily bulletin and always keep it handy.  If one gets back to the dock too late, the port agent can be a great help in getting you back to the ship (albeit at a very expensive price).

There are times when the off-ship activities hold my interest more than on-board activities. This is where things can get complicated.  Often, the cruise line opens shore excursion sales well before the cruise.  If one does not purchase an excursion early enough, one will often find that the specific excursion is not available later.  This is not a problem most of the time, as cruise lines often make it possible for one to back out of a shore excursion purchase 48 hours before the excursion is to take place.

There are many factors to be considered when deciding which shore excursions to go on.  For example, I prefer to take excursions with a low activity level.  So, purchasing an excursion that requires a high level of activity (such as a 5-mile hike) would not interest me.  Often, the cruise line will indicate the level of activity required for excursions they sell.  This makes it easier for one to determine which excursions fit one’s requirements.

Another factor in choosing a shore excursion is whether to purchase a shore excursion through the cruise line, or to buy it from an independent vendor such as viator.com or shoreexcursions.com.   Depending on the port and venue, one can save money by buying excursions independently, or simply exploring the port on your own.  However, many factors can be at work in making this decision. For example, when in Skagway, Alaska, I might buy tickets for the White Pass & Yukon Railroad directly through the railroad instead of letting the cruise line make a profit on the ticket.  Yet, if I were to stop in a foreign port such as Civitavecchia, Italy with an excursion in Rome, I would likely buy the excursion through the cruise line, as one has a guarantee that the ship will wait for the excursion to return.  (The cruise line does not guarantee this for passengers on excursions not bought through the cruise line.)  To me, this guarantee is important, as I was on an all-day excursion on The Road to Hana purchased through the cruise line when the van I was in got stuck returning to the ship and might not have made it back to the ship on time. (We were lucky, as the driver was able to get the van started after 30 minutes, and the ship was there when we returned to the port

Assuming one has chosen an all-day excursion, do not assume that food will be provided by the excursion supplier, or that the food provided will meet one’s dietary needs.  For example, on the first 3 days of my Hawaii cruise tour, the excursion supplier only supplied food for the day we were at the Kuoloa Valley Ranch. (We had choices of 3 box lunches that day.) For the other 2 days, we were on our own.  I was glad that both the Polynesian Cultural Center and Pearl Harbor had appropriate dining options available to me.  But what if I had severe food allergies or other dietary restrictions?  This can be a problem if food is to be consumed off the ship.

One of the things I find worthwhile when I visit some ports I’ve been to before is the search for good places to eat.  Most of the time, I have been lucky.  For example, one can find many good places to have fresh seafood near the pier in Portland, Maine.  However, if one goes to a port at the end of the season, one can get stuck eating at a mediocre restaurant (as I did in Bar Harbor, Maine).  One should be careful to note the ship’s departure time if walking around the port area, as the worst thing that I could imagine is enjoying a shorefront view while dining and seeing your ship cruise off into the distance.