Western Caribbean tour advice.

Cruising with my family myself, husband and 3 kids 21, 19 and 16 to Western Caribbean in September stopping in Labadee Haiti, Falmouth Jamaica, Georgetown Grand Cayman and Cozumel Mexico. We are first time cruisers and first time to the Caribbean and would love some advice on fun tours in each port. We have great beaches in Australia where we live so we want to do more than relax on the beach although those beaches look very tempting. Are any of the beaches suitable for surfing? We enjoy a bit of adventure and are all quite fit also like the water sports and snorkelling but only 2 of us have a dive license. can we fit in more than one activity in each stop, what tour guides would you use for the tours and do tours book out quickly. Should we request places to eat or are they part of a tour. There are so many great options but some opinions from you wonderful people that have been there done that would be greatly appreciated.

You can find advice and info on specific ports in the port forums. The ones for Caribbean are located at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587 although you may well get some good info here as well :-)

You can find advice and info on specific ports in the port forums. The ones for Caribbean are located at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=587 although you may well get some good info here as well :-)

I have been reading through them driving myself mental trying to pick the best as we may never have the opportunity to go back and maybe others on our cruise might be doing the same trip which could make it more fun. It's a tough job being the nominated holiday organiser, I'll be the only one with no one to blame if it doesn't go well :eek: :D

I have been reading through them driving myself mental trying to pick the best as we may never have the opportunity to go back and maybe others on our cruise might be doing the same trip which could make it more fun. It's a tough job being the nominated holiday organiser, I'll be the only one with no one to blame if it doesn't go well :eek: :D

Have you registered on your roll call? It's a great place to chat to others on your sailing before you go.

It is a lot of pressure being the nominated organiser (I'm lucky I only have to please myself). I'm sure whatever you choose everyone will have a good time :-) I think in order to get good advice about which tours would be suitable it might be an idea to describe the people in your party and what sort of things they are into. Best of luck :)

Have you registered on your roll call? It's a great place to chat to others on your sailing before you go.

 

It is a lot of pressure being the nominated organiser (I'm lucky I only have to please myself). I'm sure whatever you choose everyone will have a good time :-) I think in order to get good advice about which tours would be suitable it might be an idea to describe the people in your party and what sort of things they are into. Best of luck :)

Thank you,

Yes I have registered and put my question out there also. I'm not great at organising anything other than what to cook for dinner so who knows what we'll end up with but I'm sure you're right it will be great regardless. Thanks for the input and enjoy your trip.

Grand Cayman-

1) go to Stingray City, which is a very cool experience. Look into booking a private tour on a smaller vessel- Nativeway and Captain Marvin are two who get good reviews overall. They will make other snorkel stops as well, to see starfish, etc.

2) Try kayaking through the mangroves. We booked a private tour with Cayman Sea Elements, and it was a very cool way to spend the morning (and no tourists!) One of their workers, Danielle, picked us up at the pier and wanted to know how we found their company...they usually do NOT cater to cruise ship passengers. It was inexpensive and a lot of fun and Danielle was an awesome guide.

We went on Indy Dec 2013 with my husband, daughter (24), and three of her friends (22, 26, and 28)...Two guys two girls. Falmouth, Jamaica, DD and two friends took the RCCL Dunns River Falls excursion. They all loved it. They left items on the bus which was nice. Only thing with the camera my DD took with her...you have to remember to wipe lens off due to water spots. All 3 would do this excursion again, but add the river tubing as well.

Grand Cayman we used a private tour guide for a Catamaran cruise to stingray city. Same 3 kids went on this excursion. They absolutely loved it and there weren't more than 25 people on catamaran vs the RCCL catamarans had a lot more people. They stopped and snorkeled on a reef area coming back. And the crew told them of a local place to eat which was awesome and inexpensive.

Labadee...we all did the excursion where you went to private sandbar. It was a small boat, great crew, and it was a small island that we beached at...you could walk around it within 10 minutes. We swam by the boat with some of the floats they had...bring a float if you have it as they didn't have enough for everyone. The bad thing was we had a few people who were 15-20 minutes late so it made all of us have less time on the island/sandbar. We ended up with about 50 minutes at the island which we all said we wish we had another hour. Best excursion hands down even with shorted time. We ate lunch on labadee as it was BBQ that they brought from the ship. We still had time to enjoy the beaches etc.

we did not do Cozumel as we did the Indy 6 night cruise. All your kids should enjoy the cruise. Plenty to do on board whether relaxing vs constantly doing something. We all had balconies and the 3 friends had never cruised...and all said they were glad they had balconies.

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Grand Cayman-

 

1) go to Stingray City, which is a very cool experience. Look into booking a private tour on a smaller vessel- Nativeway and Captain Marvin are two who get good reviews overall. They will make other snorkel stops as well, to see starfish, etc.

 

2) Try kayaking through the mangroves. We booked a private tour with Cayman Sea Elements, and it was a very cool way to spend the morning (and no tourists!) One of their workers, Danielle, picked us up at the pier and wanted to know how we found their company...they usually do NOT cater to cruise ship passengers. It was inexpensive and a lot of fun and Danielle was an awesome guide.

I second the stingray tour with Captain Marvin. One of our favorite tours in Grand Cayman. However, if you are not a kayaker, stay away from the mangrove kayaking tour. The time we did that I literally would have rather been at the dentist. It was the worst tour we ever did but we had never been in a kayak before that (or since).

In Cozumel we went to Chankanaab Park and it was lovely. We did the dolphin swim and spent a little time there before it started raining. We've also done where you just kinda walk up to where the taxis are and tell them where you want to go. I don't recommend it. We ended up on a crowded "free" beach where drinks were $12 each.

I know you said you weren't really into it but Labadee is a great beach day. If you think there's the tiniest chance that you might want to do the flight line, DO IT. I'm terrified of heights but it was SO much fun. We also did the dragons tail coaster. Our mistake with the coaster was only getting 1 trip each. We should have gotten the whole day. If you go over there early you can have it all to yourself for the first hour or 2 after arriving. Unless you like high pressure sales tactics, don't expect to be doing much shopping. DH and I know enough ASL that we can communicate but that the sellers usually won't bother us because they think we're deaf. Not in Labadee, they simply spoke louder. :rolleyes:

We spent an entire week in Grand Cayman once (our first Caribbean experience)... Definitely a +1 for Stingray City. I believe we also used Captain Marvin, but cannot compare nor contrast to other operators ...

In Cozumel we did an "X-Rails" tour where you drive through the jungle and snorkel in a Cenote. Pretty cool, but exhausting.

Both of those excursions are reviewed on our personal travel blog ... shown below, without specific recommendations for tour operators.

Either way... ENJOY!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and the videos. I was quite sure Stingray City was on the agenda but you have convinced me.

Some people have recommended Dunns River Falls and others prefer Blue hole any thoughts between the two and I assume you can only do one.

The Caribbean Sea and the beaches are not really "surfing" destinations. Very shallow, and few waves, unless there is a storm. It's nothing like the coast of Australia or Hawaii...or even California!

We've been to there places several times, except just once to Labadee.

For Grand Cayman we really enjoyed the snorkel and stingray city tour with Captain Marvin. The first time we did a ship tour of the island and stingray city--ok, but not as good. 7 mile beach is great there also.

In Jamaica we did river tubing and Dunn's River Falls--both were fun. I'm not sure how far Falmouth is from Dunn's River though, as we did the tour from Ocho Rios. (We've done the falls twice). We used Phil Lafayette. There is also a zip line that is often recommended, but we haven't zipped there.

On Cozumel we've done a beach day at Paradise resort and another time a dune buggy tour around the island which included snorkeling and a good lunch on the beach. It was fun.

We've also gone to Tulum from there; I love Tulum, but wouldn't do it again from Cozumel because of the distance and the often rough crossing to the mainland (only time I've been seasick). If you do, this is one of the few times I'd recommend a ship tour, due to howfar it is.

On Labadee we just used it as a relaxing beach day. We had 7 grandkids with us and it would have been way too pricey to do some of the activities, but the coaster and zipline looked fun.

The Caribbean just doesn't have very good surfing, normally. Have fun!

We went on this same cruise and had so much fun.

In Labadee w did not take an excursion just enjoyed the Beach one of the nicest we have been to.

In Jamaica we went to Dunn River Falls. That is a must it was so much fun. Only thing I would have changed there would be to bring a waterproof camera.

In George Town we went on a glass bottom boat ride which took us snorkeling. Although we had a great time it is not an excursions I would do again the amount of fish we saw was dissapointing.

In Cozumel we went to see the Mayan Ruins. (NOT talum)it was really neat and super interesting. After the ruins they took us to a beach. It was probably the dirtiest water we saw on the whole cruise. If we went back we would spend the extra to go see Tulum. From other people we talked to those ruins were incredible.