Not staying with the group on Shore Excursions - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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I was talking to a friend about shore excursions and the topic came up - what happens if someone is on an excursion, but does not want to tour a location. (a bus tour that sees different parts of a city. You get on and off the bus touring different locations).
Can they stay on the bus? Meet up with the group a x time? Do you have to stay with the group?
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It's really going to depend on the particular excursion. Often, excursions have no problem letting folks stay on the bus during a stop. However, there are other times that the bus driver may not want to/be able to be responsible for the guests - he/she may be going for a break, have to pick up/drop off another group, etc.
Same goes for separating from the group. If the group is returning to the same spot for pick-up later on, then the guide may allow folks to go their own way and to meet at that same spot at an appointed time. On some tours (fairly commonly in European cities), the bus is picking up somewhere else, so separating becomes a bit risky.
Overall, I consider the time spent on an all-day excursion to be pretty precious (again, especially in Europe) - there's almost always so much to see and do in a city, and so little time. If your friends are skipping significant parts of the tour (especially if they're going to sit on the bus), it's usually more effective and economical to find the tour that's more closely matched to their interests.
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I've seen people stay on the bus during parts of our shore excursion on the Med cruise, but it seems a bit of a waste. We were eager to get off at every stop and hear what our guide had to say, as that was what we had paid for after all.
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My dad has difficulty walking - and when we were in the Med - he did opt to stay on the bus a couple of times - but I should also say that he had already been to the places that I was seeing - since we were stationed in Europe years before, and he had visited them when we lived there.
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