Naples Tourist Traps

A 'tourist trap' is more likely to be your own carelessness and abandonment of good common sense considerations. Sometimes it is because you choose to go along with the tide, knowing full well that you are being led down the garden path.

Every chance that I get, I am especially critical of the cruise industry. They get away with paying their help less than minimum wages, requiring them to work much longer than is physically healthy and expect the passengers to compensate them.

They take advantage of the inherent laziness of their passengers to plan ahead and double the prices of tours offered at ports of call. A couple are often already paying well over $300.00 per day, and that is if you're lucky, often it is far more than that.

There's always the added on port fee. Here again, the totals don't square up with the actual port fees assessed against the ships. Simple mathematics reveals that they are charging nearly 50% more than their actual costs.

One of the worst rip-offs is the pre and post cruise 'special packages' that many of the cruise passenger sign up for without giving a second thought to what they are being charged. They are too lazy to make arrangements for themselves.

Just a few weeks ago, a couple traveling from Vancouver to Beijing on a cruise ship attempted to get us to go with them, at first we were moderately interested. Within a day, we had found a means to book the same cruise with deluxe balcony suites for a total of $800.00 less than what they had booked for a much lower category of cabin. Of course, we made the same arrangement for them.

The post cruise Beijing tour of only 2 nights and three days was $375.00 per person, lunch and dinner not included. That's $750.00, folks. The post-cruise tours were the usual Beijing favourites. Using the internet and a couple of faxes got me a CITS tour guide, car and driver and 4 star hotels, with nearly twice as many sites guaranteed for approximately one-half the amount being charged by the ship.

So when that tour guide tells you he is taking you to the rug factory, the pottery place, etc., tell him that you don't want to go. If he persists, tell him he has just lost any possibility of a tip, then watch the transformation.

Good luck.