private tours

[tarheel04]

can someone give me some names of private tour companies that offer excursions in tortola. i'm sure that just like in st thomas that there are some on tortola. i've heard that you can get a better deal thru a private comapny versus going thru carnival of other cruise lines. thanks in advance.

[telefonclockdesk]

can someone give me some names of private tour companies that offer excursions in tortola. i'm sure that just like in st thomas that there are some on tortola. i've heard that you can get a better deal thru a private comapny versus going thru carnival of other cruise lines. thanks in advance.

 

After researching as much as we could here on the boards, we decided to book all of our excursions outside of the ship. For Tortola on March 20th, we decided to charter with Patouche because of everything we read on the boards. Our main interest is snorkeling (which may lead to scuba in the near future!) Just so you know, I have no other experience with private charters in Tortola. However, if you are looking for an incredible snorkel experience, read on! The following is my review of the best snorkeling trip I have ever had. The booking and confirmation with Patouche was seamless. It took Julie a few days to get back to me initially via email, but I have since read that internet communications aren't the most dependable on the islands and this is normal. Be patient. Remember, everything runs on "island time." Regardless, we got it booked and Julie called several days later to confirm everything. Cut to our arrival in RoadTown. Carlton (a taxi driver that Julie uses) was waiting for us at the dock as Julie said he would be. Carlton drove us (and another couple) the 15-20 minute drive to Patouche. We met Julie who is all smiles and a wonderful personality/sense of humor. She made the trip all that much more enjoyable. So it was the four of us from the cruise ship plus two others for a total of six on the catamaran for the day. Julie and Branson took us to Norman Island for the best snorkeling experience I have ever had. I have snorkeled in Antigua (Half Moon Bay) and Barbados (with another great charter company). This was the best snorkeling I have ever had because of the diversity of fish that we saw, as well as the topography of the land under water. The clarity of the water was perfect. We were drawn to this trip due to the fact that we could snorkel into the old pirate caves that were the inspiration of Robert Louis Steven's "Treasure Island." I love the history and romance about being in the same caves where pirate once stashed their booty! Anyway, back to the snorkeling... In a lineup of tropical fish, I can only ID the Parrot fish, but we easily saw 6-8 other varieties of colorful fish (all similar in size or smaller than the Parrot fish). There were the iridescent dark blue ones, the lime green and yellow striped ones, multi-shade grey scaled ones with red fins. I could go on... And these fish were everywhere. Big and little schools. They would come to within 2 feet of you. In addition to that, we saw a grouper at the mouth of one of the caves. He was not the slightest bit shy and would swim right around by people's legs as they stood up near the mouth of the cave! He must have weighed around 30lbs. As we were wrapping up and snorkeling back to the catamaran I decided to head out to the point (a jut of rocks near to the caves that was our snorkel area boundary) I was alone...or so I thought. In the open water, the topography melted away to deep water. That is where I ran (almost literally) into "Barry" the barracuda. That was one of the best experiences I have ever had. It was just the two of us looking at each other, eye to eye from about 8 feet. He was cruising along and checking me out, turning his back to me and then turning around and looking at me with his right eye, but I wasn't taking either of my eyes off of him. He was awesome! I told Julie about it when I got back to the catamaran and asked if he normally shows you his toothy lower jaw and she confirmed that he usually does that. Big bad Barry. Apparently, he is seen from time to time around the caves at Norman. At our second snorkel site we saw a turtle. It was way better to see it as it leisurely made its way through its local environment looking for food than when we saw them being fed by hand just a few days earlier on an excursion at a different island. My wife is a huge sand dollar fan from living in the Pacific northwest and sure enough, she found a caribbean one! I estimate it to measure about 5.5 to 6 inches at its widest point. Yes, it made it all the way home in one piece! To sum it all up, I am not sure we could have dreamed up a better snorkeling trip. After all of the snorkeling, we headed to the "William Thornton" or "Willy T's" which is a floating pirate ship for lunch and drinks. The vibe at the Willy T is one of relaxation or adventure as you can dive or jump from multiple levels off of the back of the ship (near the bar) into the deep turquoise waters below. I was diggin' it so I went up to the top deck (approx. 25-30 ft), climbed over the railing and then dove in. It was a blast, for sure.

 

We decided it was the best excursion of our entire trip (first time cruisers) and when (not if) we go back to Tortola, we will be meeting up with Julie for another trip to the caves at Norman!

:)