There's a New Tactic for Saving Money on Shore Excursions that Undercuts Cruiselines' Prices

Trust the folks at Viator.com -- the website dedicated to sightseeing tours -- to come up with an interesting new method for reducing the cost of those shore excursions that most cruise passengers buy. It's a brand-new site called Viator Shore Excursions ( http://shoreexcursions.viator.com ), and it invites you to list the ship on which you're sailing and your date of departure. Thereupon, Viator lists the ports at which you'll stop and tours you can take from those ports on vans and buses charging far less than the cruiselines charge for the very same tour. Since the saving (in my calculation) seems to average around $35 per person, the new site is best for persons traveling in groups of at least two persons -- and even better for family groups of four and more, for which the savings will add up to a considerable figure.
 
Viator's new site joins a number of earlier private tour companies that cater to the needs of cruise passengers: ShoreTrips ( www.shoretrips.com ; the pioneer, and currently a popular provider of tours operated in 12-passenger vans), PortPromotions.com ( www.portpromotions.com ), and PortCompass ( www.portcompass.com ). Still another company -- Shore Excursions Group ( www.shoreexcursions.com ), apparently owned by Priceline.com -- has recently entered the market, but I haven't yet been able to vet its offerings.
 
If you do decide to use Viator, be sure to access the details of each of the tours it offers to determine the departure place for each tour. Unlike almost all cruiseship-operated tours which leave from the dock just a short walk from where your cruiseship is anchored, some of Viator's offerings are simply standard city tours that leave from various parts of the inner city, requiring that you then make your own way on foot or taxi to join the tour, sometimes a fairly long distance from the dock. Other tours leave, conveniently, from locations near the dock.
 
And keep in mind my own, rarely varying, advice: that the best shore tour is the one you make on your own two feet, not with other passengers in a motorcoach or van, but simply on your own -- independently. Those are the tours that bring you an intimate, authentic, up-close view of life abroad, the best rewards of travel. Except for those ports that are a long distance from the sights you wish to visit, it is rarely advisable -- in my view -- to take one of these vehicular, group tours.