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How are the Costa Excursions on the 14 day cruise-Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar,


BigNance
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Hi!

We will be taking the neoRiviera Nov 2017. Can anyone give some feedback on the Costa arranged excursions, versus making your own arrangements? Specifically, I am interested in the Catamaran tour of North part of Mahe (Seychelles) and the cruise and tours of Praslin and LaDigue.

Any information on any of the other tours would be greatly appreciated also!

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Welcome to CC.

 

We did this cruise last December on the NeoRomantica.

 

We didn't do any Costa excursions Mauritius as we were there two weeks before the cruise. If you want any information please let us know.

 

In the Seychelles, the first day we did the Costa excursion to Praslin and La Dique. For us it was a total waste of time and money (€219 each), we were shunted through Vallee de Meer with hardly any explanation, several viewing points (beaches) were cancelled because we were running late. La Dique Union Estate was like a scrap yard. All in all not worth the money, just rushed everywhere. People had advised us to just concetrate on one island and get the most from it, but don't try two islands on one day. We wished we had stuck by our original plan to have a private guided tour of Praslin.

 

Second day we had a privated guded tour of Mahe, great day, we could choose what to do and see, fabulous day. The last half day we had a private guided walking tour of Victoria, saw everything in 3 hours and the last hour sitting at a bar in the harbour having a couple of Seybrews.

 

You should be fine with a catarmaran tour of the northern Mahe as the number of passengers is limited. Think about booking online before the cruise, as such excursions tend to get booked up quickly.

 

Nosy Be, Madagascar, you are stepping back in time, this is a tender port and you will see trtaders in their dugout canoes traying to sell their wares to the passengers - they didn't have a chance. At this port we took the tender and just had a lookaround the town, with a small market, for an hour, (more than enough). Becareful of "spivs" trying to sell you a taxi or tuk-tuk mostly at vastly inflated prices.

 

In Diego Suarez, we did a Costa Town Sightseeing tour, we I do such a tour again No. The only thing that I found worth while to see and visit was the British and Commonwealth Cemetary from WWII. I am glad to didn't do any long tours here, some passengers came back bruised and with backache from the tour buses (no air conditioning and I believe no suspension) and pot holes like you have never seen.

 

Both ports were very hot, humid and dusty, one could rewrite the old saying "See Diego Suarez and go home, see Nosy Be and die. One nice touch, when sailing from Diego Suarez it seemed the whole town turned out to wave goodbye.

 

In Reunion, you are docked in the industrial hafen "Le Port", nothing to do or see there. The first a day we did a half day tour, visiting a vanilla plantation (very interestingd great vanilla rum) and then Cirque de Salazie. Next day, half day tour the landscape of Reunion, visiting the highest point available to cars. Fabulous views from 2600 meters high. On both tours we has some free time, for shopping coffee etc. Reunion is expensive be part of France and having the Euro.

 

If you require any further information or names and addresses - just let me know.

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Thank you very much! That is helpful. That half day catamaran tour is fairly reasonable (80E or so), so we may schedule that. I would like to see some of the other islands, so we may just arrange the ferry rides ourselves and see about private tours on Praslin or La Digue. Did you arrange your private tours when you arrived on the islands? I wasn't sure if we should do that or if we should use Trip Advisor and book a few tours ahead of time.

How was Mauritius? Did you tour there or drive yourselves around? On Reunion, did you use the Costa tours or book your own?

I appreciate any info you can provide!

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Thank you very much! That is helpful. That half day catamaran tour is fairly reasonable (80E or so), so we may schedule that. I would like to see some of the other islands, so we may just arrange the ferry rides ourselves and see about private tours on Praslin or La Digue. Did you arrange your private tours when you arrived on the islands? I wasn't sure if we should do that or if we should use Trip Advisor and book a few tours ahead of time.

How was Mauritius? Did you tour there or drive yourselves around? On Reunion, did you use the Costa tours or book your own?

I appreciate any info you can provide!

We arranged the private tours long before the actual cruise, as in the Seychelles there are not that many tour guides. If you have an email address (not your main email account) I'll send you the guide details, why this way and not just post the information here, several years ago a member posted guide infomation for me. When I made contact with the guides CC lurkers had beaten me to it.:mad:

 

On Reunion, we booked Costa tours for both excursions. From our research we only found French speaking guides and all very expensive.

 

Mauritius was a great place, so much to see and do, with a wonderful climate, thinking about going back,but this time for 4 weeks. We had a hire car from our hotel and just explored the island.

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  • 1 month later...

We did book all of our excursions early. We are a group of 16 and were able to do private tours for less than Costa. We are going for the private catamaran tour of the 2 islands. After reading your review about their excursions, I wasn't going with them!

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  • 2 months later...

Our private tours were great. We used Tours and Excursions Seychelles for a day long tour of Mahe and a private catamaran excursion to Praslin and La Digue on the second day. That one also included ground transportation to Vallee de Mai and Anse Lazio on Praslin and to Chez Jules (for lunch), the giant tortoise reserve and Anse Source L'Argent on La Digue. Excellent trips all the way around.

 

On La Reunion, we used Nicolas from TRANSUNION.COM Nicolas

+262 0692 810 313 for the Cirque de Salazie tour and a tour of La Piton de Fournaise (major volcano and surrounds) (full day tours each).and terrific lunches.

Mauritius we used ecoholidaysmauritius for a full day tour of the island. Great tour guide, good tour of the island, very good lunch.

The Costa tours we saw while we were out looked really crowded. I would opt for private if you can.

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Both plagues have been found at Madagascar be aware

This is old news and has been thoroughly covered both on this forum and on the various Costa rollcalls to this cruising area.

 

This outbreak of plague has been declared finished as there have been no new cases since october 2017.

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