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chankanaab excursion

Reneems

By Reneems,
in Royal Caribbean International

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Reneems

Reneems

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I am sailing on Oasis of the seas 11/11/18 and I just booked the Chankanaab excursion (Dolphin Ecounter with lunch break) I was wondering is it better to do this on your own or through the cruise ship? Also does anyone know the price to snorkle and Kyack? Any info would be greatly appreciated!! This is my first Royal cruise....been on carnival so I'm excited to try Royal now :)

Thank you

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nealstuber

nealstuber

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Since Chacka and most other excursions in Coz require you to make you own way from and to the ship, I see very little value in booking through the cruise line. Exceptions would be excursions that depart by boat from inside the pier.

 

 

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S.A.M.J.R.

S.A.M.J.R.

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DW & I did that one on our own both on our first cruise and a later cruise with the kids. Go to Chakanaab's website for the costs for the Dolphin encounters. IIRC, it's about 1/2 the price as the ship charges.

 

Very easy to get to, cabs are easy to find outside the port and outside Chakanaab. IIRC, it's ~$20 one way.

 

If you click on my Oasis review in my signature, I talk about Chakanaab about 1/2 way down page 6.

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NateUpNorth

NateUpNorth

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We did this tour on our own with 2 small kids with little to no difficulty.

Not sure what the ship price is but I'm betting you'll save a bundle doing it yourself.

 

Also, not to be missed........... the tequila tasting.

Be nice, give a decent "tip" to the "guide" and you'll end up spending a decent amount of time "sampling" the anejo/ extra anejo offerings.

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LLRS1

LLRS1

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We have done this 3 times on our own, most recently in June, and would definitely recommend doing it that way. Taxi is $12 each way - easy. We brought our own snorkeling equipment last time so I don't remember the cost of renting, but it was reasonable when we did it in 2017.

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Crazy planning mom

Crazy planning mom

Posted
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I am sailing on Oasis of the seas 11/11/18 and I just booked the Chankanaab excursion (Dolphin Ecounter with lunch break) I was wondering is it better to do this on your own or through the cruise ship? Also does anyone know the price to snorkle and Kyack? Any info would be greatly appreciated!! This is my first Royal cruise....been on carnival so I'm excited to try Royal now :)

Thank you

Yes, definitely cab it. If you want good Mexican food afterward, it is easy to catch a cab from Chakanaab into San Miguel afterward.

That is what we did and then we caught a cab back to the International Pier which is where Royal usually docks.

This is a different pier from Carnival.

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S.A.M.J.R.

S.A.M.J.R.

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We are wanting to do this too. We are a group of 7. How easy is that size of group to get there and back and stay together?

I'd say cabs to/from will be no problem. As far as staying together, that will depend on the individual group. Do some want to swim with dolphins and others snorkel? Do some want to Kayak and others just lay on the beach? Do some want to watch the sea lion show and others do zip lining?

 

When we were there with our kids (group of 5), it was no problem staying together. But it all depends on the group dynamics.

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Cruzin1616

Cruzin1616

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I'd say cabs to/from will be no problem. As far as staying together, that will depend on the individual group. Do some want to swim with dolphins and others snorkel? Do some want to Kayak and others just lay on the beach? Do some want to watch the sea lion show and others do zip lining?

 

When we were there with our kids (group of 5), it was no problem staying together. But it all depends on the group dynamics.

 

It's us and our kids (15-23yrs). We all want to swim with dolphins for sure, as far what else, I am not sure. I didn't know they have zip lining. I will have to look into that.

 

My concern is getting there and back all together.

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Crazy planning mom

Crazy planning mom

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It's us and our kids (15-23yrs). We all want to swim with dolphins for sure, as far what else, I am not sure. I didn't know they have zip lining. I will have to look into that.

 

My concern is getting there and back all together.

 

Cabs seemed plentiful there. Now, I didn't notice if they had the large van cabs.

Its possible you might have to take 2 cabs for 7 people.

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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It's us and our kids (15-23yrs). We all want to swim with dolphins for sure, as far what else, I am not sure. I didn't know they have zip lining. I will have to look into that.

 

My concern is getting there and back all together.

 

I have about 88 photographs of Chankanaab Park from my April 2016 visit. Follow the link below, go to photo # 78 and continue through to photo 166. To make the photo bigger, click on the photo.

 

Here is the link --> https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-zKcMSN

 

 

i-9MfLvxf-L.jpg

 

 

From my review ...

 

 

Today is a day I am really looking forward to. The last time I was in Cozumel I swam with the manatee. It was great, my new favorite. My old favorite is feeding the stingrays at Stingray City. I book the 10:00 visit with the manatees online at a discount. The problem is, when you book you have to state which hotel or ship you are on. You can’t book without providing this information. You also can’t book if you are on a ship. The ship doesn’t offer the swim with the manatee as a shore excursion, so I decided to slightly misstate things. I said I was at a hotel and the name of the hotel was the “Liberty of the Seas” (since the ship really is a floating hotel). It worked. Booking online gave me a 10% discount. It got better once I got to the park.

 

But before I go to the park there were two things I wanted to do. One, have breakfast, which this time was steak & eggs at Chops. The other thing was to find out if we are one hour head of Cozumel or not. For Roatan and Belize the Compass (which is the ship’s newspaper) said we were one hour head. However, for Cozumel it did not say this. I saw Jorge (the Diamond Concierge) on my way to breakfast. He said Cozumel in the same time zone as Roatan and Belize so he thought the ship would be one hour ahead, but he would have to check. My reply is that Galveston is in the same time zone also. I saw Anis (the Concierge) in the Suite Lounge. I asked him and he used a very simple method to get the answer. He logged on to the computer and checked the local time. Cozumel and the ship’s time are both the same.

 

So after breakfast I head out to Chankanaab Park (also known as Dolphin Discovery). The taxi ride was $12 each way. Once there I didn’t have to pay anything extra for admission and I got a 25% discount on the 12:00 swim with the manatee session. Yes, I am doing the same thing twice. I have four wrist bands. Yellow and Pink are admission bands (apparently the park is both a commercial park (like Sea World) and a national park (like Yosemite). So there are two admission fees. Perhaps that is the reason for the 25% discount, since apparently the $59.00 swim with the manatee includes the price of admission. Who cares, I’m in.

 

I was here is 2004 and did the swim with the dolphin and swim with the seal programs. The last time I was here was March 2013 and that is when I swam with the manatee. The swim with the dolphin program has clearly become more popular. Unfortunately so has the swim with the manatee program. In 2013 there were three of people and two manatees. Today there were fourteen people in the first session and four manatees. I don’t know how many people were in the second session. I would guess at least eight. Fortunately, the manatees eat 10% of their body weight per day. So a 450 pound manatee eats forty-five pounds of lettuce and I don’t think both groups combined came to that amount, and there are four manatees. So I didn’t have to worry about the manatees being not hungry (or fed-up - ha ha).

 

In the first group there was a group of eight family/friends and six of us not with the group. So the family/friends where sent to feed three of the manatees while the other six of us interacted with the fourth manatee. When we finished interacting with the manatee, the two groups switched. As I finished feeding the manatees I wondered what to do next. Squirting the kids in the other group seemed to be a good idea. I can squirt water from between my two hands, a skill that takes some time to perfect. So the kids tried, but they could not squirt me back. Then I noticed two stalks from the lettuce. I know the manatees will eat that also. So ask for the two stalks and get to feed the manatees again.

 

A word of warning. You are not allowed to bring your own camera. They will take plenty of pictures of you. Their taking the pictures is free. Your taking the pictures is not. I believe you can buy individual pictures (print or digital) but I wanted them all in a digital format. No problem, that came to $70 for each session ($140 total for both sessions). It cost more for the photographs than it is for the swim with the manatees experience. Between the two sessions I ended up with 96 photographs of me with the manatees. That works out to about $1.46 per photograph, which isn’t a bad price on a per photograph basis.

 

After my second swim with the manatees, I decided to walk around the park and take pictures. I don’t think I covered all of the park, but I believe I was able to photograph more than ninety percent of the area that most people would be interested in. As I got ready to leave I noticed that the 2:00pm swim with the manatees was the smallest group. Small groups are nice, however, the manatees’ appetite insures that if you have a head of lettuce, you will find that one or more of the manatees will become your friend.

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kcamp317

kcamp317

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We just did this on our own last month. We've done dolphins before but they also have a similar manatee experience that was amazing! Much less crowded than the dolphin thing and we were in the water with them for an hour (there are various levels and prices of the dolphin thing). I put our experience in a recent Majesty of the Seas review if you want to check it out for further details and our opinions.

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