Grand Turk & Casa de Campo?

[Bonnie J.]

Just booked a cruise leaving Sunday to two ports new to us. (Could not pass up $299, 7 days, deck 9!!) Can anyone reccomend a good walk-in snorkling beach on Grand Turk and Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic? Or is there anything we should not miss/do? We're not shoppers, are happy with a good beach but snorkling makes it better!

[drumline]

Chances are that you will tender over to Margaritaville in Grand Turk. They have a nice beach right there to swim or snorkel. As for Casa de Campo we were at a private island during the day so it depends on your cruise line. If you are there at night you should try to take in the Candella show. Have fun, those are both nice stops.

[jerseyjk]

Turks and Caicos has a lot of terrific snorkelling. As for Grand Turk, basically the entire west side of the island is a national marine park and there is a reef surrounding nearly the entire island. You should be able to snorkel out to the reef right from most beaches since it's very shallow. A short boat ride and you're at a great vertical wall. The island is a scant mile or so wide and like 5 or 6 miles long so you can pretty much get anywhere on the island you want to go pretty easily.

 

I was on a Land Based Vacation on Providenciales and took several snorkelling trips out to various reefs. The only company I recall off the top of my head (if you want to go that route) was a company called Sail Provo that had a 55' cat that took you to iguana island, one of the barrier reefs and a sunset sail complete with rum punch back to your hotel's beach (other times were available). They were based on Provo though so they may not go to Grand Turk. I'm sure there are dozens of charter boats that will take you out to the reef wall if you decide the beach snorkeling isn't exciting enough.

 

Turks is a terrific place to go. You'll love it.

[tang-bailey]

Just booked a cruise leaving Sunday to two ports new to us. (Could not pass up $299, 7 days, deck 9!!) Can anyone reccomend a good walk-in snorkling beach on Grand Turk and Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic? Or is there anything we should not miss/do? We're not shoppers, are happy with a good beach but snorkling makes it better!

 

 

Wow that's an amazing price. Can I ask how you got that? Was it a website?

[Bonnie J.]

Just got back yesterday. The $299 was on The Costa Magica but last year at this time (Feb.4th) we also paid $299 on the Magica. Assumed it would be an inside cabin but it turned out to be a BALCONY cabin on deck 9 - our favorite deck! This year my husband saw it on Orbitz. Called our TA but she was at a seminar so we called Costa directly and booked it Tuesday, as soon as we saw it as these don't last. Ship sailed Sunday. On Wed. called friends we met on Nov. cruise on Sun Princess ($499, 10 days!). They booked on Thursday and came too - also $299. Costa Mediaranium (SP) was $299 for this week but Magica went to $399 for this week.

We are both semi retired and self employed so can do very last minute cruises. Costa seems to lower prices on Tuesday for the next week's cruise if they have empty cabins. This time the ship was FULL!