We arrived in Boston with Royal Caribbean and had one day to explore the city. We found CityView on Groupon and saved a TON of money over the other hop-on, hop-off tour services.
The only problem was that CityView, unlike the other tour companies, doesn't have a pickup stop near the cruise terminal. We decided to walk to the first stop, about 1.75 miles on a safe, simple route along the waterfront.
Our plan was to ride the full tour once and then decide what stops to get on and off. After sharing our plan with one of their staff members, we were told that this wasn't allowed and that once we arrived back at the first stop, our tour would be over. With never visiting the city before, we weren't sure where we would want to get off or what we would want to see in the limited time that we had. We shared our concerns with the staff and they allowed our family a full tour, followed by the chance to hop on and off at a few stops after we got the "lay of the land."
Thank you to the staff member who offered us the flexibility to really enjoy our day. Our tour guide was FUNNY and really interesting. My 13 year old son says this was one of his favorite experiences on our trip! Once we got the full tour, we knew exactly where we wanted to stop and used the trolley to visit the shipyard, the park, Faneuil Hall and the Cheers bar. We felt like we got to maximize our time in Boston and we saved so much money using the groupon. After a long day and a lot of walking, we took an Uber back to the cruise terminal that was less than $20 for our party of 6.
Cruise passengers, you don't need to pay the expensive fees for an excursion! We bought our CityView passes on groupon for $55 (with a coupon). You can walk or Uber to the terminal. Save your money to sample some of the awesome food or shop in the cool stores of Faneuil Hall.