Shore Excursions Group

This will be my fourth experience with Shore excursions Group. As a freelance photographer i like to travel and I previously booked their tours in the following countries and locations. Ireland, Italy and Brazil.

When i traveled to the caribbean i took their snorkel tours, city tours and scuba diving tours. I cannot wait to visit Alaska for i hear they offer the best tours and prices. Always before travel I like research who i fly with, stay with and eat with! Yes i am extremely fussy! I gave them Five stars only because they haven’t let me down. Its easy access to their website! extremely friendly, and they provide the best prices just like the website states 20 to 50% already discounted. I am done with waiting in big rooms with over a thousand people to get off with the cruiseship tours. I simply have my electronic ticket prior to departure and on the day off simply exit off the ship. I don’t get it when people complain. Yes i have read a view of these reviews. In my line of work people also do not read the fine print they simply assume and then they are quick to blame everyone else but themselves. Trust me peeps i am not getting any additional discount for this review but shore excursions if you read this i won’t say no to any further discount either for alaska in November HINT! HINT! LOL.
Anyway i am sure at this point you are shocked that someone. I!
took the time to say THANK YOU! And also big bonus to your members of staff who helped me in the past, including on the emergency line when i was in rome and lost my e-​ticket. You guys were there for me then and i am sorry it took sometime but here i am hopefully with my review you will understand there are still appreciateive people out there xx
PS Your guarantee back to ship WORKS and Guarantee refund if we miss the port Worked thank you we missed Cozumel. I look forward to my future tours with you all…
From
Libby FreeLance Photographer.

The group was not good about coordinating activities with ship departure times on two of our three excursions through them, causing us to not to have enough time to complete activities we paid for. They did refund a partial amount on one excursion but refused to refund any on a second excursion. Ended up at beautiful Cozumel with no excursion experience. Very disappointing. Next time I would ONLY recommend booking excursion through your cruise to ENSURE you have enough time to complete activities and the cruise ship will accommodate you in the event you run late. Booking through an external company provides NO guarantees and Causes SIGNIFICANT amounts of ANXIETY.

this company is a joke. do not book with them. poor customer service. they have the option of booking online and then a couple days later will cancel your reservation. there is no credible source of management and they are very disrespectful on the phone. please stay away from this company at all costs. do not waste your time or money. they say they will have a manager call you back and they never do and then you have to call them back multiple times. do not use them!!!

My husband and I have cruised over 20 times and we just started using Shore Excursions Group. I wish we would have found out about them sooner. You will have a longer, more informative, and way less crowded tour than booking with the cruise line. We have booked over 10 excursions and each one was wonderful. I highly recommend this company.

We recently used Shore Excursions Group for a trip to Discover Mexico while visiting Cozumel. They gave us the wrong time for the tour as well as the incorrect location for the attraction. When I brought this to their attention, they pretty much blew me off. Never again.

I have used this company for several trips ranging from Europe to Alaska.
As a rule, I check their itineraries first before booking from the cruise company.
Pro’s:
1.) Smaller groups
2.) Cheaper pricing options than the cruise company
3.) Quality of tour is the same or even better than cruise lines
Con’s
1.) Selection. Depending on the city, sometimes the selection can be less than the cruise company so please be aware.
Last tip: Don’t believe the hype about leaving you behind, I swear the cruise lines do that in order to keep you from booking with an outside group to make more money.
Overall, very happy with Shore Excursions Group.

Shore Excursions Group is very good website when it comes to picking Cruises and Excursions.
The first time was when we took the East Caribbean Cruise, we not only booked the cruise through them but also the excursions to: Barbados, St Lucia and St Maarten.
This year we booked Myconos, Kusadasi, Santorini, Athens and Katalon excursions through them.
The advantage of going thru them is that the passenger to tour guide ratio is much less than the Cruise liner so they paint a better picture of the place.
I highly recommend them!
Cheers
Lalit S.
Canada

Horrible Experience.
I booked an excursion with them for my husband & I in Cannes for November 2015.
Of course we had to pre-​pay.
We waited for them on a freezing cold for an hour — they didn’t show up.
We watched all the other people getting picked up by their guides…
I called them twice while waiting.
First call to their regular line after half an hour of waiting — left them a voice mail. No call back.
Second call to their emergency line after an hour of waiting — I was left on hold for about 10 minutes. I finally hung up. Getting charged for both international calls.
We finally ended up being picked up by another guide, a very nice lady. She took us off cold & said we could ride with her & her group if we wanted to. The problem was — that tour group was going to places we have been before, NOT what we paid for.
She called Shore Excursions Group office to find out why we weren’t picked up & she was told «Sorry, We don’t know how it happened»
We got back to States last week & I called their office to get a refund.
I was told they will look into it & call me back.
More than a week later — no call.
I just called them again & was told they can offer me 10% refund because it is our fault that we didn’t show up for our tour.
I was so upset I was going to explode.
They said they would resubmit the claim & to call back in another week.
Will never deal with them again. Horrible. I should have just done a charge back, but I thought it would be decent to contact them first & give them a chance to fix the mistake.

Aimee was awesome! We booked an excursion which in Mexico which a few weeks prior to our departure. Shortly after, that specific excursion was eliminated from our cruise. Aimee went above and beyond to ensure we would still be able to participate in our first choice excursion. We look forward to working with Shore Excursions in the future! Thank you!

Do not trust anything this company promises when you book. They do not honor any of it and their representatives are rude, unprofessional after you paid for the tours.
We booked 4 days excursion package with this company (due to its relationship with Costco Travel). My family had problems with the tours itself and the bigger problems came when I contacted the Shore Excursion Group after we came back from our trip. We came to learn that this company has horrible customer service, it made empty promises such as «if you are not completely satisfied, we will give you a full refund.» which is a complete lie. They do not return phone calls, refused to transfer calls to supervisor; the representatives, especially Kathy, was completely unprofessional. Even the supervisors give less than average customer service.
The tour guide at Tallin Estonia just left us in the middle to town without any map or advise on how to get back to the ship.
The tour guide in St Petersburg was rude, oblivious to the need of the group, left 4 of us outside a crowded palace in Russian. Horrible experience.

We booked two tours through CostCo for a Baltic Sea cruise. Both were excellent. In Tallinn, Estonia our four hour walking tour guide was Maria. She had lived for a year in NYC and had excellent English. She was attentive, well organized, well informed, articulate. We learned a lot.
In St Petersburg our tour ran two days. Our guide Irina was amazingly well educated in Russian history and Art. Excellent English, strong academic qualifications, well organized. We were completely satisfied.

Wow, I’m not sure what’s going on with the other reviews on this site. Just returned from an excursion in Istanbul, Turkey. Our guide was Mesut Besik and he was excellent. The excursion cost only 55 $ per person. An air conditioned, very comfortable bus met us on time and took us (a total of 8 passengers) to the Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, and marketplace. Mesut had a perfect command of English was friendly, intelligent, and a true expert in Turkish history. I can not imagine a better shore excursion, and would absolutely book with Shore Excursions Group again.
Steve.

worst experience ever! stay away from this company.
i’ve lost $ 200 and didn’t get any service, please don’t repeat my mistake.

Booked 3 months out two excursions for our upcoming cruise around Christmas. Not even 24 hours later, one of our excursions was rescheduled to a time that would not work for schedule and the other was flat out canceled and not available anymore. We have 24 hours to call and cancel our rescheduled reservation if it would not work. It a Sunday, we called the number given, and the business does not open until Monday at 9am — of course when any working person is supposed to be in the office. I have no faith in this company and will be scheduling elsewhere for our upcoming cruise and for future cruises.

****WARNING: This company DOES NOT PRICE MATCH, even though their FAQs specifically say they have «lowest price guarantee”*****
You’re better off finding a shore excursion elsewhere, locally or through
I had high hopes for this tour agent for Alaska shore excursions. They have a partnership with United Airlines where they help you book shore excursions once you book a cruise through United Vacations. For my particular cruise, I was going to travel to Alaska via Princess Cruises. I wanted to book 3 shore excursions through Shore Excursions Group, since they offered some reasonable choices for Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan (and at supposedly lower prices than the ship itself).
Also, on their website — they indicated that they do «price matching» due to their lowest price guarantee. I emailed their agents at least 2 – 3 times, and spoke to their agents (Annie and Nadia) on the phone on 3 separate occasions to inquire about price matching the shore excursions I wanted.
In each phone call, I was given a go-​around of «your inquiry is pending, we’ll get back to you.» I was also told that their turn-​around time is 72 hours, so I’ll need to wait at least 3 days before they gave me a response re: price matching since they have to do additional research. It was more than 6 – 7 days and no one has responded to me, even when I called for the 3^rd time.
I wanted to do business with Shore Excursion Group especially since they are partners with United Vacations; however, this entire ordeal really made me annoyed and frustrated. How can it possibly take so long to do a price match? Does research take more than 6 – 7 days, especially when their agents told me it should only take 3 days max? They are basically LIARS and don’t follow their word.
Look — if you don’t offer a price match, then you should remove any statements on your website that specify your «price match guarantee». It’s bogus.
I’m not bringing my business here, that’s for sure.

We bought a package from them for Alaska trip in May 2014. They asked for discounted price $ 302 for 4 tours. Don’t do it, so over price, you can get the tour when you get to each port for about $ 50 each. They gave us wrong meeting instruction for Skagway, 13 of us including elderly walked for 30 mins and they ended up driving us back to the pier to pick up others. The tour are mostly city tour, you can do more on your own and you don’t have to get up so early to meet up. The one with tender was worse, we had to wait in line for an hr to get on the first tender because it’s independent tour. Such waste of time and money. Don’t buy tour package upfront, either buy from cruise line or when you get on shore.

e booked 2 excursions on our Caribean Cruise 12÷31÷13 with Shore Excursions Group (
). THEY ARE HORRIBLE!!! the first excursion was to «Exclusive Montego Bay Sandals Resort Day Pass». First of the ride that we suppose to have was NOT there, so we were told to take a taxi that we had to pay additionally for, then we get to the resort. They would NOT let us on the property saying they did NOT HAVE RECORD of our pass. The guard at the Montego Bay Sandals said to go to the Sandals Royal Caribbean. The taxi took us to other property and same story! I had the copy of the confirmation to show them but still did not believe us. After an hour or so of talking to guards and management, our day was ruined!!! We get back to the boat at the excursions desk to be told they could not help us to call Shore Excursions Group. So when we get back home to US, I call company explain what happened, they told me they would call Montego Bay Sandals Resort to find out what happened. After several phone conversions their conclusion was that «because we took the taxi to the resort, they would refund us 20% of our money to that excursion». That does not even cover the taxi fair!!! They never did explain to me why both Resorts did not have record of us. We paid $ 198.40 for 2 of us.
BTW we were traveling with another couple that booked with same Shore Excursions Group company. They did leave the boat before us. They had the exact same situation happened to them!

The only reason you would book excursions through a company like this is for convenience since all excursions are available in one place. Well, I’m one of those lazy people who booked through this site. Here’s my experience:
I booked 3 Alaskan excursions: whale watching, kayaking and rafting to a bald eagle preserve. Grand total for 2 people was over $ 1000. A family member died so I had to cancel within their 14 day window (even though they’ll gladly accept reservations 3 days before your cruise). I had travel insurance so luckily I got reimbursed but they kept all my money with no offer for any credits for future excursions.
Fast forward 1 month and I decide to give them another chance and book a whale watching excursion through them since most local companies were booked solid and we were planning a last second trip. They took our reservation but couldn’t find us an excursion so they cancelled our reservation. Thanks for nothing Shore Excursions Group.
Do your homework and research/​purchase excursions on your own. By doing so you’ll be more likely to get a refund or credit should an emergency arise like mine. They also won’t accept a reservation they cannot honor.

Since writing this review the company has called me to make things right. They were very nice and told me that their tours are normally cheaper then the boat but this one wasn’t, also when it states standard size on their webpage the tours are as big as the boat tours. So compare shop with the boat. They did make things right by offer me the difference in price refund and a little some for my unhappiness. I will give them another try now, but I will read everything and call them with questions and check with the price on the boat first before booking.
Be careful when booking with this group. Our jeep tour was 30 dollars more then the cruise ship. They combine our meeting time with another group because our ship got in 15 minutes late so we had to wait 2 hours for the next time the group went out. Their groups are larger then the cruise ship groups. They promised all the things listed below: But are giving us a hard time because we were very disappointed.
TOP REASONS TO BOOK IN ADVANCE WITH US:
* Save Big — our excursions cost less than the ship’s
* Higher Quality — top licensed vendors in each port
* No Crowds — enjoy a smaller group guided by a local expert
* No Waiting — why wait in line at the ship’s excursion desk?
* Avoid «Sold Out» — excursions often fill up before arrival
* Avoid «Cancelled» — we never cancel due to small enrollment
* Money-​Back Guarantee — your satisfaction is our goal