The five minute walk that cost Kayley a Carnival shore excursion price guarantee and an extra $430

• Carnival and many other cruise lines offer shore excursion price guarantees, which mean that if you see the same excursion at a better price, the cruise line will honour the cheaper price.
• However, after trying to do this, Kayley had her claim rejected due to an extremely specific technicality.
• Others have shared similar stories.

Cruisers are often faced with a major question that changes the cost of their voyage significantly: should you book your excursion with the cruise line or through an independent tour operator? An independent operator is generally a fair bit cheaper, but booking your excursion through the cruise line means there’s little chance that the ship will leave without you if something goes wrong.

Some cruise lines encourage guest to book with them through price guarantees, which means that if you see the same tour being offered at a better price, the cruise line will match it. So you can save some money, and have the guarantee of having a reliable operator and that the ship won’t leave without you. 

If your claim is successful, you get 110% of the difference in onboard credit.

However, as good as this deal sounds, it doesn’t always quite work out like that. The conditions to get your price guarantee accepted can be tough, as cruiser Kayley Shedden* found out. 

The price guarantees are offered to tours that are exactly the same. Kayley found out the hard way that Carnival takes this extremely literally.

For her cruise to Cairns, she had booked a shore excursion for four people to Skyrail, Kuranada Village and Scenic Train. However, she spotted another shore excursion that was much cheaper, which would save her family a total of $430, and was offering seemingly the exact same tour.

However, Carnival rejected the claim on an extremely specific technicality. While the tour that Kayley was viewing involves a short five minute walk to a meet up point, Carnival’s tour offers transportation from the pier. 

Carnival responded to her: “With disappointment, we must inform you that your claim was not accepted because the tour submitted was not similar to the tour on our program.

“Specifically, our tour provides roundtrip pier transportation. For the competitor’s tour you must walk five minutes to the meet up point.”

It appears from the email that the only difference between Carnival’s offered tour and the independent operator is transport down the pier, instead of a five minute walk. This means that Kayley and her family now have to choose between the security of booking with Carnival, but the reality of paying $430 for what would only be a five minute walk.

If a tour so similar can be rejected, it does raise the question of why Carnival offers this price guarantee at all.

Kayley said: “They have rejected it on the basis that they offer a shuttle from the ship to the tour, instead of us having to walk five minutes. If it was a small amount I wouldn’t be bothered about it, but the Carnival tour is more than $430 extra for our family of four, and is almost double the cost of the tour when booked directly through the operator. I’d prefer to book through Carnival, but I’ll be canceling and booking directly through the operator if they don’t come to the party.” 

Incidents like this reveal the reality that even though price guarantees are technically available, generally you’ll have to spend more if you want to book your shore excursion directly with your cruise line.

Other cruisers have reported similar experiences, such as this Reddit post, which goes through being rejected once because a whale watching tour was on a different kind of boat, and again because of a technicality in transportation. 

A Reddit user wrote: “This is how they are able to make that guarantee, by ensuring that nothing is able to actually qualify for a match.”

Another Reddit user said they were rejected just because one tour was fifteen minutes shorter: “It has to be 100% exactly the same. I found one that was offered by the same exact company directly, with everything identical, or so I thought. The price guarantee was denied because booking directly through the company was 15 minutes less time.”

Other stories, shared on forums such as Cruise Critic, contain the exact same details as Kayley’s incident, with a price guarantee being rejected due to one tour involving a small walk to the meeting point.

In theory, Carnival can add one small detail to their own excursions that they know other operators don’t have, and be assured that they will never have to honour the guarantee. 

Knowing this, should you be looking towards independent operators rather than booking your shore excursion directly?

*name has been changed

Is the fear of getting left behind overplayed?

While there are very occasionally incidents you hear about where cruisers get left behind, is the risk overblown in reality? 

It’s a fair question, given that it’s extremely uncommon for cruisers to get left behind and most operators in port have their offerings specifically designed for cruise passengers and will get you back to your ship with plenty of time to spare. 

The reality is that if you book through a reputable tourism operator, who has good reviews on TripAdvisor and Google and a service specifically designed for cruise ship passengers, your risk of getting left behind is near zero.

Experienced cruiser John Harlow put it like this.

“As far as I know no one on an organised tour has ever missed the ship in our part of the world and they will wait, at times, for those doing their own thing who get back late.

“If a local tour company ever returned people late to the ship, then they would be out of business almost immediately.

“It is always cheaper and better to book with the locals and all your money goes to them instead of a big chunk going to Miami.”

Tourist operators in popular cruise ports such as those in Queensland and the South Pacific are extremely experienced in working to the cruise ships schedule, and as mentioned, are well aware that any incidents would have a negative effect on their business.

There are advantages of booking through your cruise line, which include that extra sense of security, and you generally get priority disembarkation as well, so it’s up to you whether you think the extra money is worth it.

As Kayley mentioned, the price differences can be significant. If you go on three shore excursions per cruise and pay $430 extra each time, that’s a quick $1290 added onto the cost of your holiday. 

Trying for the price guarantees is a great way to try and get the best of both worlds, but as this and other incidents suggest, it won’t always be so easy.