Curacao Blue Bay Beach Escape and Snorkel question

[Lalory77]

We will be on a Southern Caribbean cruise with Carnival this upcoming week and stopping in Curacao. Trying to decide if we should do the excursion through Carnival or take a cab to Blue Bay. Has anyone done this excursion or just took a cab to Blue Bay? Would love some opinions from those that have visited this beach. Curious how much time is actually spent at the beach going the excursion route. Also is it difficult to find a cab going there? Thanks so much for any advice 🙂

Edited November 3, 2019 by Lalory77

[Doggielover68]

Check out the ports of call board for more info.

 

I recommend Mambo beach by cab because it is much easier to find other people to split the fare. Nice beach, great snorkeling, and lots of food and shops available. 

 

[coevan]

There will be cabs lined up at the dock and at all the excursion spots on the way back. We never book Carnival shore excursions.

[CA_Cruzing]

Playa Porto Marie
Curaçao
https://goo.gl/maps/ahZa9SYxqpWaBbEn6

 

Our favorite Curaçao beach. Good snorkeling, relaxing, has a bar, restrooms and is quiet, not super touristy. 
 

Take a cab from the port and negotiate with your driver your pickup time and only pay your fare when you’re picked up from the beach for your return to port trip. This way you’re guaranteed your ride back to the port. 
 

The beach closes at sundown so you’ll have plenty of time to get to port safely. 
 

I also recommend cab sharing to reduce you fare cost. It’s flat rate so the more peeps you have in your taxi the less expensive it’ll be. 
 

IIRC, r/t was $80 so sharing a cab will reduce your fare. 
 

If you have your own snorkel gear, this beach is super easy to use and enjoy. Note, the shore entrance is full of shells so water shoes are highly recommended. 

[Host Carolyn]

Hopefully someone who has taken the Carnival excursion you asked about will respond. In the meantime, check out the Curacao port of call board!

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/50-curacao/

[purplephenom]

We did this excursion. Blue Bay is a little less crowded than Mambo, but closer than the western beaches. If you have kids, there’s a protected cove area that’s good for them to swim and play in. 

 

The Snorkeling is decent around the edges of the cove. The excursion includes a mask and snorkel but not fins. It’s wavy enough that you’ll probably want to rent them- I think they were either $10 or $15. 

 

The food there is ok but it just takes a bit so order before you’re starving. 

 

The bus on the way there gave a quick city tour.  Bus doesn’t have window panes so you can take pics of the colored buildings. 

 

On on the way back, the bus drove past the flamingoes and stopped for pictures. It was ok to see but they were sort of far away so don’t count on amazing pictures. They’ll drop off in town or at the pier for shopping. 

 

We enjoyed the beach. We were there about 3 hours. It really wasn’t crowded, no vendors or anything, and pretty good Snorkeling. We thought we would’ve wanted more water time, but I spent all but about 20 minutes in the water and the current was enough to make me tired. Some people say take water shoes, I had no issue barefoot but something to keep in mind. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by purplephenom

[Lalory77]

14 hours ago, purplephenom said:

We did this excursion. Blue Bay is a little less crowded than Mambo, but closer than the western beaches. If you have kids, there’s a protected cove area that’s good for them to swim and play in. 

 

The Snorkeling is decent around the edges of the cove. The excursion includes a mask and snorkel but not fins. It’s wavy enough that you’ll probably want to rent them- I think they were either $10 or $15. 

 

The food there is ok but it just takes a bit so order before you’re starving. 

 

The bus on the way there gave a quick city tour.  Bus doesn’t have window panes so you can take pics of the colored buildings. 

 

On on the way back, the bus drove past the flamingoes and stopped for pictures. It was ok to see but they were sort of far away so don’t count on amazing pictures. They’ll drop off in town or at the pier for shopping. 

 

We enjoyed the beach. We were there about 3 hours. It really wasn’t crowded, no vendors or anything, and pretty good Snorkeling. We thought we would’ve wanted more water time, but I spent all but about 20 minutes in the water and the current was enough to make me tired. Some people say take water shoes, I had no issue barefoot but something to keep in mind. 

Thank you so much for your response! I had read some reviews for this excursion that mentioned the transportation there took about an hour because they went the long way doing some site seeing and there was less then 2 hours of beach time? Do you recall how long it took you to get there? Was the beach nice with clear water?  Thank you for your response 🙂

[purplephenom]

14 minutes ago, Lalory77 said:

Thank you so much for your response! I had read some reviews for this excursion that mentioned the transportation there took about an hour because they went the long way doing some site seeing and there was less then 2 hours of beach time? Do you recall how long it took you to get there? Was the beach nice with clear water?  Thank you for your response 🙂

 

We did this in February 2018 so I don't know if things have changed, but the description on the website looks the same.  It probably took us about 45-50 minutes to get there.   But there really was a lot to see and take pictures of on the way there.  The way back was very quick- maybe 20 minutes.  I was very indecisive about booking this and emailed Carnival shore excursions multiple times with questions on this and the turtle snorkel in an effort to make up my mind.  I just pulled up my emails and their response was beach time is about 2.5 hours.  On our particular day, we got a bit longer.  I'm 100% positive that's true because I checked my social media site and one of my captions was "we had 3 hours here at i spent almost all of it in the water."  I don't know if we just got lucky, or what, but on our day our beach time wasn't cut short.  

 

The beach is nice with clear water, yes.  It is part of a condo development or something, so its not really a public beach- it's not packed and you can easily get loungers (included) near the water. There's no music or anything playing.  Bathrooms are clean- they got a little sandy as the day went on, but there was always someone there cleaning so doesn't get gross. The water is a little rocky when you enter, but it's really not bad.  You can take water shoes if you want.  If you want to float/let kids play, just hang out in the water, the protected cove area doesn't have a lot of current.  There are some palm trees- it looked enough like a Carribean beach for me to happily take pictures.The sand away from the water's edge isn't rocky- you can walk onto the rocks that shape the cove- this is obviously rocky, but the tops are smooth enough that I was barefoot and it was fine. 

[Lalory77]

Thank you so much for your reply. I've been going back-and-forth whether to do the excursion or take a cab ourselves there. The price difference isn't that much since it's $30 each way for the cab and then there's an admission fee to get in. I always feel safer doing an excursion through the ship LOL. Thank you so much for your detailed description. I appreciate it so very much! 🙂

[purplephenom]

2 minutes ago, Lalory77 said:

Thank you so much for your reply. I've been going back-and-forth whether to do the excursion or take a cab ourselves there. The price difference isn't that much since it's $30 each way for the cab and then there's an admission fee to get in. I always feel safer doing an excursion through the ship LOL. Thank you so much for your detailed description. I appreciate it so very much! 🙂

 

However you get there, have fun.  Its a good place to go- not as crowded as Mambo, and closer than the far western beaches. We had several people from our social media group go, and everyone had a good time and felt it was worth it.