Question for past Samana cruisers...

[usccruisers]

Hello,

 

I am travelling with a group of 4 to Samana in March on the Norwegian Dawn. I have had a similar experience to what a lot of others are saying on-line about finding independent tour operators for Samana via the internet (slim pickings).

 

I did read one website that described Samana as a place with a few beaches that all the cruisers go to, and then a lot more beaches off and away from the beaten track. It said that if you had your own snorkel gear that these would be good places to try out. My question is does this sound accurate and/or safe from the perspective of prior visitors? Also we were going to see if we could rent Jeeps or some other form of transportation. Is that available at the port?

 

Thanks for the help!!

 

Will

[flac4vert]

Personally I would skip Samana. Nothing to do really unless you do Cayo and even then I would rather do Virgin Gorda and Baths than Samana any day. Talked to a few that did excursions and they said they weren't impressed. Downtown is really not that interesting and so so shopping. Maybe I'm hard to please but St. Thomas is better IMHO. Enjoy your cruise on the Dawn. It's a great ship and we will be booking on it again.

[BoozinNCruisin]

Just off the Explorer of the Seas yesterday and we visited Samana and did a private excursion with Casa Dorado and it was the best excursion we did all cruise. We had taxi transportation waiting for us by the company right when we got off the tender boat to take us to a smaller boat which took us to Playa Rincon, a beautiful beach which is rated in the top 10 in the caribbean! The trip was worth amazing and i would do it again and hope to go back and visit Roberto and his wife Catherine who are the owners of the private excursion company. I will post pictures as soon as i upload them onto my computer when i get home!

[Jewels17]

Just visitied Samana on Explorer of the Seas this past week. Highly recommend Cayo Beach (Cayo Levantado). The beach is absolutely beautiful (my new favorite). We got off the boat early and were on the first tender to shore. This beach is not accessible any other way. The beach area is huge which prevents crowding. The lounge chairs provided are comfortable and there are plenty of palm trees for shade. Also included are hammocks, volleyball, snorkeling, some water sports, floating mats and an awesomely cheap buffet of food which was delicious. The beers are cheap as ever, water only $1...it was really a steal. If you like lobster, they offer 1LB fresh lobsters for roughly $20 and also an assortment of fish. This was by far the nicest beach I have been to on any caribbean excursion! I have included some pictures from our excursion on cayo beach.

 

Good luck, enjoy!

[purplegoose]

Looks gorgeous! Thanks for the review.