Recommended Tours: Grandeur Western Caribbean Sailing in January

[GMIAC]

I've booked our first RSS sailing, on the Grandeur, 1/26/24!

 

I'd love some feedback on recommended tours. Ports (I haven't been to any of them) include:

 

• Georgetown, Grand Cayman
• Cozumel, MEX
• Costa Maya, MEX
• Harvest Caye, Belize
• Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala
• Roatan, Honduras
• Key West, FL

 

We're a fairly active couple in our late-50s, and we lean more towards culture than beach excursions.

 

[cwn]

1 hour ago, GMIAC said:

I've booked our first RSS sailing, on the Grandeur, 1/26/24!

I'd love some feedback on recommended tours. Ports (I haven't been to any of them) include:

(…..OK we are in our late 70’s like a little water fun but not so much anymore. Like culture, history and food experience's. I have walking issues. The piers are very long it is very hot and a tour everyday with the heat gets a little much for us. But it is the Caribbean and there are some good water experiences!)

• Georgetown, Grand Cayman……(if Regent does a stingray do that. We did it from a hotel and another time  with tour offered by another line. They all go to the same place beautiful water and the tour is lots of fun. You are in water about waist to chest high with lots of staff to help)
• Cozumel, MEX……(do a trip to one of the mainland ruins all day but very good…did this with another line. We’re there in Dec’22 on Splendor and just explored in town on our own and had lunch ashore. I think there a food tour, we have done these in Mexico in the past off Regent and they have been good)
• Costa Maya, MEX…..(in Dec ‘22 stayed on the ship nothing appealed to us)
• Harvest Caye, Belize…..(this is NCLs private island we did the electric boat just OK. Most liked the trip to mainland for the ruins though. And the island had nice beaches and shops worth a walk around)
• Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala….(not been there)
• Roatan, Honduras…..(there in Dec’22 on the Splendor. Did Dolphin tour at resort met a mom and her calf. We were in a group with a trainer and two other people real personal experience, the best tour we have done in a long time. Beautiful setting too. There were 18 passengers and we were split into groups of 3/4 for the time with the dolphins. Pictures were allowed but we were to busy playing with our baby. They did offer a nice CD of your groups encounter with individual pictures of you and your dolphin for about $25 nice pictures and a lot of them too.)
• Key West, FL… (it was canceled for us, but we rented a car and drove down from Miami. Very walkable small town with nice old homes and great food options. Just walk off ship and explore or take the little trolly. Regent may offer tickets for the trolly as one of the tours. It would be worth it.)

(Sorry I can’t remember the actual tour names, but you can probably identify them. In a past life we were divers and do enjoy getting out on the water, but the boat rides were very crowded- you could watch them load and all had Long Beach stops included. The comments were not to favorable after the fact)

 

1 hour ago, GMIAC said:

We're a fairly active couple in our late-50s, and we lean more towards culture than beach excursions.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by cwn

[RELS]

 

We're relatively active 60s. Here's a few of our experiences. We were on the same Splendor December '22 sailing as @cwn.

 

Absolutely recommend the Amazing Secret River excursion out of Cozumel. It is one of the best tours going! It's completely worth the bus ride. The write up says you get a snack, but for us it was a full-on meal. Leave all your jewelry in the onboard safe, and if you have Keens water shoes, they'll be better than the water shoes the tour will lend you. Here's the official tour website: https://www.riosecreto.com. A photographer accompanies your small group and they sell you the pictures after the tour. $99 for all the pictures they took of you (if a couple/group, the pics that  include you all). This is actually not bad, since your personal photos won't be near as good as the ones they take.

 

We also enjoyed the Chacchoben Maya Ruins out of Costa Maya. We had a great guide, and learned a lot, plus we got to climb one of the pyramids.

 

Harvest Caye is a private (Norwegian) island. We enjoyed on the Barrier Reef snorkel tour. Our ship was the only one docked that day, so the shopkeepers were very accommodating.

Edited June 10, 2023 by RELS

[GMIAC]

14 minutes ago, cwn said:

 

 

Thanks for the tips.

 

8 minutes ago, RELS said:

 

We're relatively active 60s. Here's a few of our experiences. We were on the same Splendor December '22 sailing as @cwn.

 

Absolutely recommend the Amazing Secret River excursion out of Cozumel. It is one of the best tours going! It's completely worth the bus ride. The write up says you get a snack, but for us it was a full-on meal. Leave all your jewelry in the onboard safe, and if you have Keens water shoes, they'll be better than the water shoes the tour will lend you. Here's the official tour website: https://www.riosecreto.com. A photographer accompanies your small group and they sell you the pictures after the tour. $99 for all the pictures they took of you (if a couple/group, the pics that  include you all). This is actually not bad, since your personal photos won't be near as good as the ones they take.

 

I'm getting Thai soccer team vibes from this! But it sounds wonderful.

 

The tour time is 1:30, and lasts seven hours. Can this be correct? How deep are the dives? I've been SCUBA diving before, so that's not an issue.

[cwn]

13 minutes ago, RELS said:

 

We're relatively active 60s. Here's a few of our experiences. We were on the same Splendor December '22 sailing as @cwn.

 

Absolutely recommend the Amazing Secret River excursion out of Cozumel. It is one of the best tours going! It's completely worth the bus ride. The write up says you get a snack, but for us it was a full-on meal. Leave all your jewelry in the onboard safe, and if you have Keens water shoes, they'll be better than the water shoes the tour will lend you. Here's the official tour website: https://www.riosecreto.com. A photographer accompanies your small group and they sell you the pictures after the tour. $99 for all the pictures they took of you (if a couple/group, the pics that  include you all). This is actually not bad, since your personal photos won't be near as good as the ones they take.

 

We also enjoyed the Chacchoben Maya Ruins out of Costa Maya. We had a great guide, and learned a lot, plus we got to climb one of the pyramids.

 

Harvest Caye is a private (Norwegian) island. We enjoyed on the Barrier Reef snorkel tour. Our ship was the only one docked that day, so the shopkeepers were very accommodating.

Forgot about that tour. We have aged out of that type of activity but our son (54) went with that company on a drive trip to Cozumel and said it was great. And I think any of the ruins tours would be good if you have never been to any. 

[RELS]

2 minutes ago, GMIAC said:

The tour time is 1:30, and lasts seven hours. Can this be correct? How deep are the dives? I've been SCUBA diving before, so that's not an issue.

 

Yes, 7 hours. Ferry ride to the mainland each way, 2-ish hour bus ride each way. Our tour took even longer because the ship took a while to clear upon docking and we had to wait for a later ferry on the way to the site. Don't schedule a specialty restaurant dinner that evening. It's a long day, but we thought it was very worth it. 

 

The tour doesn't include diving. It's mostly wading in knee- to chest-high fresh water, with some floating/swimming.

[GMIAC]

2 minutes ago, RELS said:

 

Yes, 7 hours. Ferry ride to the mainland each way, 2-ish hour bus ride each way. Our tour took even longer because the ship took a while to clear upon docking and we had to wait for a later ferry on the way to the site. Don't schedule a specialty restaurant dinner that evening. It's a long day, but we thought it was very worth it. 

 

The tour doesn't include diving. It's mostly wading in knee- to chest-high fresh water, with some floating/swimming.

So the actual river part is about two hours?

[RELS]

1 minute ago, GMIAC said:

So the actual river part is about two hours?

 

Yes.