We’ve just spent a productive evening looking at cruise excursion options for the last of this year’s trips we’ve got booked as they’ve finally become available with under one hundred and seventy days to go. We were getting a little bit concerned there as we know that particular cruise is taking place immediately after a dry dock freshen-up so worst case scenarios of “Oh, maybe they know the schedule will slip and they’ll cancel our cruise” start playing around in your head.
We like to book excursions if we’re travelling somewhere new and especially if it’s somewhere far away when the likelihood of us returning there within a short period of time is low. Some people don’t book cruise excursions very often (based on the sorts of posts they write and videos they post) and that’s their business, of course, whether it’s because the cruise is the thing and not the destinations, or whether they’re trying to be frugal with spending so they can cruise more, or they’re not terribly mobile and tire easily on organised tours, or anything else. But not us, mostly.
So, at the time of writing this we’ve got four cruises lined up. You can always see what we’ve got planned by visiting our Future Cruises page. For two of those cruises we’ve now booked excursions at every port, and for the other two we’ve booked no excursions at all, and I thought I’d just cover what we’ve booked and why, and why we haven’t booked tours in some of those instances.
P&O Britannia to the Norwegian Fjords
The four ports of call on this week-long cruise include Stavanger and Flåm which we’ve visited before back in 2013 when we cruised to Norway on Crown Princess. On that occasion we took excursions, and nothing offered this time felt similarly enticing. In addition, there are things in both of those ports we want to do this time and we can do those on our own. One of the two other ports, Nordfjordeid, doesn’t have a lot to do locally but a lot of the excursions then end up involving long bus rides to do things we’ve either done before or done similarly enough when visiting other ports in Norway. We’re going to treat that port as a scenery-photographing and stretching-our-legs sort of port. The final port of Haugesund is a little more populous with things to do (read: it has bars), and the excursions there didn’t seem appealing enough to warrant booking any so we’re going to explore the town on our own as well.
So, not a single cruise excursion with P&O Cruises in Norway in 2023 for us. To be fair, this was a pretty late-decision booking for us anyway once we realised we could slip in a short trip away somewhere. Getting to revisit a couple of those ports (and a certain brewery) while also hitting a couple of new ones and doing so on a new ship for us was the main draw.
Holland America Koningsdam to Alaska
We’ve never cruised with HAL before, and we’ve never been to Alaska before so we’re making the most of this cruise and taking excursions at each port, with some biggies there. We’ve tried to pick trips that cover all the major aspects of an Alaskan cruise at least once. If you visit Alaska then you probably want to see glaciers, whales, eat salmon, and see something relating to the First Nations tribes, and we aim to do all of those things.
In Juneau we’ve booked the Whales & Mendenhall Glacier Photo Safari: Small-Group Experience. This is limited to just fourteen people and includes a walk to the glacier followed by a small boat cruise with guaranteed whale sightings: “This excursion has never had a trip without a star-studded cast — often including humpback whales, orcas, sea lions, harbour seals, porcupines, eagles, salmon or even black bears.”
In Skagway we’ve picked Best of Skagway: Rail, Salmon Bake & Saloon. This includes a ride on the White Pass narrow gauge railway which we’ve seen pretty much everyone who’s ever been there recommend. We’ll then head to a waterfall for some gold panning and a salmon-based lunch. Back in Skagway we’ll then visit a brothel museum. Because we like museums, not brothels.
In Ketchikan we’re going for something smaller scale. We didn’t think we’d need to bother with more eating salmon, or more whale trips, or more glacier trips – don’t get me wrong; we’ll never tire of them and would do them if we return, but we’d like more variety in a short visit like this – so picked City Highlights, Totems & Creek Street by Trolley instead. We’ll get to ride a trolley and see some totems, and we should have plenty of time to explore Ketchikan on our own at the end, by which I mean that we’ll be hunting down a bar or two as we noticed it has some.
We’ve also booked a debark tour at Vancouver to get a drive of the city with some highlights and some time in Stanley Park.
Celebrity Silhouette to Belgium and the Netherlands
We’ve sailed on Celebrity Silhouette before, and we’ve cruised to both Zeebrugge and Amsterdam on multiple occasions so as it stands we’re not planning on booking excursions on this cruise. Chances are good we’ll be able to get to Blankenberge while in Belgium and we may do so, or we may stay aboard. In Amsterdam we’ve still got a few things we’d like to see but the city is utterly walkable. The Rijksmuseum is top of our list of things to see in Amsterdam this year.
Ruby Princess through the Panama Canal
We’d always intended to take excursions at most of the ports on this cruise towards the end of the year but it was only last night that we decided to book one at the first port, Cabo San Lucas, too. Most of the tours at this popular Mexican tourist destination are of the beach variety. Yeah, that’s not our thing. We initially expected to simply get off, have a look around, find somewhere to have a drink or three, then hit the ship again. However, the excursion titled Hotel California & Todos Santos promises a drive along the peninsula to a small Mexican town with some interesting architecture and so that’s what we’re doing now.
Edit: This port in Nicaragua has now been cancelled. At the time of this edit, there is no replacement port, just another sea day. San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua is the second port, and it’s a port we’ve been to before. Previously, we headed up Mombacho Volcano and looked around Granada so we were looking for something different to that. We’d been thinking about something on Lake Nicaragua originally but we ended up booking Masaya Volcano & Hacienda Los Altos Cultural Experience. Yep, okay, it is another volcano. What can I say? We can’t get enough of volcanoes. The cultural experience will include such things as cigar making, tortilla preparation, a folklore show, traditional lunch, and more.
For the second time we’ll also be visiting Puntarenas in Costa Rica where we took a drive into the capital to visit the National Theatre and Gold Museum back in 2019. This time around we’re checking out some of the country’s famous wildlife by taking a treetop walk in a cloud forest and visiting a garden where hummingbirds gather. That trip is called A Walk in the Clouds.
Authentic Embera Native Village is the name of the excursion we’ve booked at Fuerte Amador in Panama and it’s the one I was desperate to reserve as soon as the trips became available for this cruise on Ruby Princess. This will see us board powered dug-out canoes for a scenic trip along a river to where a native Panamanian tribe live. There we should be treated to some local food, some dancing, and plenty of chances to take some great photos and videos, and spend some money on gifts.
The final port on this cruise is Cartagena, Colombia, and we’ll be doing the Best of Cartagena: San Felipe Fortress & Las Bovedas tour which is mainly a highlights tour of the city’s cobbled old city area and the huge fortress with its tunnels that the Spanish built. We like volcanoes, and we like castles. On this cruise we’re going to be seeing both.
Finally, just as with the Alaskan cruise, since we’ll be flying back from Miami we’ve also booked something to do before we get to the airport. In this case we’ll be hopping on an airboat for a quick flight across the Everglades. It’ll be our first time in Florida and it feels suitably touristy.