Jun 25, 2014
Gary 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.