A former cruise staff member who worked on cruise ships for a decade has shared how people can improve their experience of excursions. Lucy Southerton, 28, said passengers make two big mistakes when signing up for a cruise-run excursion.

The first is that guests often rely on the ship, when the former crew member said it's better to consider booking a local tour guide. Ms Southerton also recommended not having a tour at all, instead exploring alone. Taking to her YouTube channel, she explained: "So many people book cruise line excursions without doing any research on the port that they're actually visiting. Many attractions that people are paying to see like the government buildings and the shopping streets, they could find on their own really easy.

"You should research the ports that you're visiting and if you can see that the thing you want to visit and see is less than 30 minutes away from where the ship is going to dock.

"In my opinion, you don't need an excursion. You can explore it on your own.

"Or if you still want to do a tour, you could look at a local tour, which nine times out of 10 will be a lot more affordable than the same tour that's offered by the cruise line."

The former crew member also urged people to check the terms and conditions of a ship-run excursion, as you can get stung on the specifics of what cruise companies offer.

Ms Southerton said: "The T's and C's are where you might be caught out. So as much as it is a bit tedious to read it is worth it. And some of the things that you need to look out for is the fitness level of the excursion.

"So cruise lines will classify their excursions based on activity level and if you book without checking this you might end up on a tour that is a lot more physically demanding than you are prepared for. Another one is height and weight restrictions.

"You also want to pay attention to time allocations, a lot of people don't pay attention to how long each attraction has been allocated.

"So if you go on a tour and you're really excited to see this one thing but then you find out that actually only 30 minutes has been allocated you might think actually I probably would have been better off booking a tour that only took me to this destination rather than trying to fit in loads of little attractions that I'm not really bothered about."