Sorry I'm late to this thread. It seems to me what Crystal River Cruises is doing is underhanded and lacks transparency. Back in February, we too booked the evening canal cruise, and it was complimentary. I would never have booked a canal cruise for 180 Euros. At the time I did print my shore excursion and there is no mention of a charge for that one.

So then in April they send an email to everyone suggesting they double check their shore excursions, and pointing out what we already knew, that some excursions had charges involved. Why couldn't they just be honest and open and say we made a mistake and listed as complimentary some excursions that really had charges, and you booked one of them? The cruise line actually tried to make passengers think it was their fault for not checking whether the excusrion had a fee.That is so wrong.

I never bothered to double check my excusrions because I knew what I booked and I had a printout. So what would have happened? I would have arrived at the ship, been informed of the 180 Euro charge and told it was too late to get a refund because it was less than 24 hours before the ship arrived in port. And, oh yes, we sent you an email in April asking you to double check your excursions. I just hope this is not an indication of how this company treats its customers.

Tom.