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All Cruise Newsletters
CruiseCompete Currents
Cruise News and Information
September 12, 2011
CruiseCompete Adds Versatile Shore Excursion Booking Tool - 11 Reasons To Book Your Shore Trips Before You Go On Your Cruise
Travel technology just keeps getting better and better. Now via CruiseCompete Shore Excursions, you may simply select your cruise ship and sail date. The system will not only show you the excursion options tailored to your specific cruise, but in most cases offers you discounted packages if you book multiple excursions at the same time.
The cruise experts at CruiseCompete offer a shore excursion booking tool which matches your excursions to your specific cruise. Here are 11 reasons to consider this option.
1. Price. Cruise lines generally mark up their shore excursions by 30%-50%. Why pay more for the same experience?
2. A phone number to call for assistance. Have questions regarding a specific tour? You may call and speak with CruiseCompete’s shore excursions experts directly at 866-578-7508.
3. Additional trips are seriously discounted - If you buy all of the shore trips individually, you may not be able to afford all of them. However, purchase cruise shore excursions as a bundle, there are huge price advantages…and you get to take them all!
4. Consumer reviews. Independent tours often provide reviews that will give you the real lowdown before you buy. As an example, CruiseCompete's shore trips for NCL’s Pride of America Itinerary to Hawaii shows reviews and bundled pricing.
http://www.shoreexcursionsgroup.com/v/cruises/results.asp?shipId=2330&arrival=2011-10-15&nights=7&Click=39394
(Looking for another opinion? AllThingsCruise also offers reviews of excursions; here’s one for with 6, 170 reviews.)
Skip the Line: Vatican Museums Walking Tour including Sistine Chapel, Raphael's Rooms and St Peter's based on 6,170 reviews
To see this review click here: http://www.partner.viator.com/en/7402
5. Private shore excursions. CruiseCompete’s shore excursions experts can book an exclusive tour…designed by you. No need to visit crowded, undesirable locations; you can choose the locations and activities that interest you the most.
6. Quality of experience. The cruise lines have traditionally had somewhat of a captive audience; as such, the quality of excursions among many lines has been steadily declining. They also tend to be overcrowded and commercialized. (Some excursions include "shopping" stops--where passengers are herded off the busses and forced to mill around in souvenir shops- and the line gets a cut of everything they buy!)
These tours tend be much smaller, more personalized, and may go to unique places further from the beaten path – places not able to accommodate the larger cruise line tours.
7. Credit cards are your method of payment, when purchasing CruiseCompete’s shore excursions in advance. It’s always a good idea to have that written record of expenditures.
8. Personal attention and appreciation. http://www.cruisecompete.com/shore_excursions/ Smaller tours give you a more custom feel
9. Exclusive advantages, no more! There used to be two specific advantages to cruise line excursions: guaranteed return to your ship, and a full automatic refund if your excursion was cancelled because the ship missed the port. However, this is no longer true; CruiseCompete’s shore excursions deal with both these issues and actually gives a guarantee.
10. Time is on your side. Timeliness is generally presented as a big benefit to booking an excursion through the cruise line. This is a case of much ado about nothing; it's simply not that difficult for a company to plan an excursion that gets you back to your ship with time to spare: the tour operator just needs to look at the clock. However, in the very unlikely event that an excursion via CruiseCompete were to get back late, passengers are guaranteed meals, hotel accommodations, and transportation to the next port--all at no charge.
11. Weather permitting. Weather can be one of those “unforeseen circumstances”- there’s no controlling inclement weather and/or changes to itinerary due to its effects. But again, this is a non-issue…if an excursion is missed due to weather issues, passengers receive a full refund. To our knowledge, CruiseCompete’s shore excursions is the only one that makes these guarantees.
To find out more about booking an independent shore excursion, please call 866-578-7508, or
visit CruiseCompete’s Shore Excursions.
Video o f the week: How to Get the Best Cruise Prices
Summary: A simple, step-by-step video guide explaining exactly how to getting the best cruise prices on your next cruise vacation. Includes information on how to choose low-priced cruise sailings as well as how to shop for the best prices on the sailing you select. Video Run Time: 2:00
Expert Travel Answers Question of the Week – How to get to Cologne after cruise ending in Barcelona? Train or airplane ? To view the answer / s please click here:
http://www.experttravelanswers.com/view/question/1458/Barcelona/Germany/Air-travel/Bus-travel/Train-travel/How-to-get-to-Cologne-after-cruise-ending-in-Barcelona
If you’re interested in a land vacation, VacationCompete offers best all-inclusive, hotel and resort deals.
Looking for past Currents Newsletters? Just click here for More………..
We welcome and encourage feedback about our CruiseCompete Currents newsletter: We're interested in your feedback: please e-mail any comments or suggestions to Heidi Allison, Executive VP & Group Publisher, to Heidi@AllThingsCruise.com
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