Port tours..yay or nay?

[Trip]

As a lifelong lover of geography, and an arm chair traveler, for years before we traveled, I would read the books and watch the tv shows of all the glorious places around the world, and dream.... one day

Then we started to cruise, and the one thing I love to do, in a port we have never been to, is to take an island, or city tour to get the lay of the land.

I love to see the way the people live in different places, where they shop, local places, hear the stories of the port, if people are willing to share..

Going from LaGuira, to Caracas was like a page from my geography book.The ranchitos in the hills, the woman beating her clothe son the rocks in the river as we passed. My head was on swivle...I loved it!

Do you like to get around with tours, to see your port of the day?

[nlb1050]

We have taken tours or excursions that took us away from the port area at all of the ports we have been to. Now if we are returning to a port we will either find a tour once we dock or just find something else to do.

[Ron]

We love to get out and about on tours. It's one of the main reasons to travel isn't it--to be able to see things , people, places , customs, etc. that you can't see at home?
I love the lesser developed islands such as Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, etc. I can go to malls at home and my wife works in the jewelry business so a jewelry store is the farthest thing from our mind when we travel!
To me to be out and about, see the true countryside of a place, meet and talk to the true local people etc. is what it's all about. I love to ride along and snap photos of houses, people along the roads,in town,etc. especially if it's somewhere we haven't been before or maybe have been to only 2-3 times.
It's getting harder and harder to do this in the Caribbean as we've been there so many times but we normally find something interesting to get out and see.
I've heard people complain about certain ports before, stating they didn't like so and so island, wasn't anything to do, etc. only to find out when you question them that they got off the ship, prowled around the port area for an hour and went back to the ship.
Be a little bold and daring once in a while and get away from the dock--you'd be surprised what you might find !!

[Floridanamaw]

We always take a tour that includes a tour of the area. It's interesting seeing what the rest of the area looks like away from the port.