Welcome to the Royal Caribbean blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number six.

Shore excursions are an integral part of any Royal Caribbean crew, allowing guests the opportunity

to explore the ports of call to ship visits.

There's a multitude of options to choose from, starting with booking a shore excursion

directly through Royal Caribbean or going

on your own to book it yourself.

This week, let's look into why or why not you might want to book your next shore excursion

with Royal Caribbean or with an independent company.

We will share experiences with both and what might work best for you and your party.

Here we go.

When I book a cruise on Royal Caribbean, I'm definitely

looking forward to the beautiful ships that Royal Caribbean offers, but the places that they're

visiting are just as important to me as well, and shore excursions are the way to see it. What I

love about short excursions are they're little tastes of the islands or cities or countries

you happen to be visiting. So for those aren't aware,

shore excursions are basically short, organized day trips into the port your ship is visiting

and usually offers a little taste of what that port offers for you. So some examples might be

a trip to a popular beach, transportation to a shopping center, guided tours of cultural

landmarks, or maybe group outdoor activities that are in things like

zip lines, segways, river rafting, etc. These are what you're basically doing when you're off the

boat in your particular port. Now there's two basic ways to book shore excursions. One is through

...