Choose a currency
ToursByLocals Blog Posts
Shore Excursions and our Return to Ship Guarantee
Sep 22 2025
You’ve probably heard the dire warnings from the cruise lines regarding on-shore activities: the ship won't wait if you don’t make it back in time...unless you’ve booked one of their own excursions. It’s a pretty awful thought - watching your ship depart without you. This warning scares many people into only booking the ship’s tours, even though their itineraries are inflexible, the groups generally large, and the cost higher than a private shore excursion with a couple friends.
Roughly one third of all the private tours we sell at ToursByLocals are shore excursions. Experienced cruisers have learned the best value and tour experience tends to be found by hiring a private guide, crafting a customized itinerary, and exploring on shore at their own pace, rather than being herded around in a group of strangers.
To address the concerns about returning to the ship on time, we created a “Return to Ship” guarantee. The professional guides at ToursByLocals all understand the importance of scheduling a tour that lets you fit in a lot of sightseeing, but never with the fear of failing to return to your ship on time. In the extremely rare and unlikely event of being delayed, this guarantee will arrange for and cover the costs of overnight accommodation and transportation to your next feasible port-of-call.
Fun fact: out of the over 200,000 shore excursions we’ve sold since 2009, we’ve only needed to activate this policy twice.
To further put your mind at ease, if for any reason your ship is unable to dock at the port where you booked your tour, you’ll be issued a full refund on the shore excursion you had booked, without having to jump through any hoops.
Travel should be fun, not stressful, and we’ve designed our policies to help make your journey as smooth as possible. To book shore excursions for your next cruise, just use our handy shore excursion planner tool. Select your ship’s name and sailing date, then choose from a range of unique private tour options for each port of call. Happy sailing!