Tortola question

[lbfluffy]

Ports of call does not have Tortola as a choice in the boards. Why is that? Does anyone know how far the cruise ship dock is from the dolphin swim is? The swim is at the prospect reef hotel. Thanks.

[SomewhereBeyondTheSea]

I did the Dolphin Swim with Dolphin Discovery. I'm not sure if that is the same place. I had a 7:30 am excursion. The tour was not far from the ship. I'd say about a 10 minute drive, maybe even less.

[Kylie]

Look under Caribbean - Other. We found lots of good information on Tortola before our cruise there last summer. We went over to Virgin Gorda to the Baths on our own and found out everything we needed to know before we went.

[lbfluffy]

Yes littlebit, we are doing the dolphin swim in Tortola. How was that? Thanks for your help.

[SomewhereBeyondTheSea]

There are 2 differnt excursionS. One is the Dolphin"swim" and the other is the "encounter" You pay a little more for the swim but it is worth the extra money.

You are more involved with the dolphin during the swim. You actually get to swim with the dolphin, where the encounter you are mainly just sitting in the water with the dolphin. You get to feed it and pet it but there is no swimming involved w/ the encounter. I booked this excursion through Carnival because we decided on it last minute but I highly reccomend that you book it directly with Dolphin Discovery. You will save A LOT of money. I believe we paid $150 when we booked with Carnival. Dolphin Discovery only charged $85.00 for the same excursion. Also, there will be someone filming the entire excursion. I think the video is $55.00 and worth it :-) They did a wonderful job on ours.

 

P.S: I'm not sure how long you will be in Tortola for but we were only there until 2:00 pm. If you aren't going to have an entire day in Tortola then I would book an early excursion so you leave yourself time for the beach. The beaches in Tortola should not be missed. They are absolutly BEAUTIFUL!!

We went to Cane Garden Bay. If we had more time I would have loved to see the Baths in Virgin Gorda. Oh well, maybe next time :-)

[K8sMom]

My son and his wife did the Dolphin Swim with Dolphin Discovery on our cruise in March. They loved it. I think they took a cab from the ship but they walked back and said it was about 2 miles. They did not do the ship's excursion but booked it on their own.

[OCruisers]

lbfluffy .... As mentioned above by Kylie, you would probably enjoy checking under "Caribbean Other" in the Ports of Call section. There's lots of info on Tortola there. Be sure to read the older threads as well ... these excursions change very little from year-to-year and most cruise lines offer about the same thing/same operators.

 

Here's a good excursion we took on our port stop there in January:

 

Tortola "Virgin Island Sailaway" Review (click here)

(Posted in the Ports of Call section under Caribbean Other)

 

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

[lbfluffy]

I just love thes boards because everyone is so helpful. I went ahead and booked the royal swim through dolphin discovery. It's a good thing I did because there were only 8 spaces left and we needed 6 of them. Here I figured I had plenty of time to book, but apparently not. I found tons of info about Tortola on the Caribbean-other board. Thanks for that tip.

[mkmbfm]

I have been trying to contact Dolphin Discovery with no success. We have a large group, and only a little bit of time. I have been on http://www.traveltalkonline.com BVI board, and they blasted me about the dolphin swim, apparently it is not too popular with a lot of people. They said the water was polluted, dolphins were poorly cared for. How was your experience with it. I also heard that Prospect Reef has been taken over by the government, so I am getting a little hesitant to book with them. But my daughter has her heart set on it, and I was actually going to do it myself.

 

I would appreciate any input anyone would have

 

Thanks much

[ladycaveat]

Does anyone know how the Dolphin Swim in Tortola compares to the Royal Dolphin Swim in Cozumel? I did that swim in Cozumel and it was the highlight of that cruise (as far as shore excursions goes).