Cayman and Ocho Rios excursions

[julberry]

Does anyone have suggestions for Carnival excursions in Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios? I am traveling with my sister on 1-29-07 and she is on a "fixed income". We want to spend our money wisely. Any suggestions pro and con?

 

[Cruizer]

1) You can save money by not doing an "excursion" and instead doing a little exploring on your own. Do you like beaches? If so, both islands have very good beaches near the docks. In the case of Grand Cayman just take a taxi to Seven Mile Beach. For Ocho Rios, you can walk (see photo below). I think the name of the beach is Turtle Beach, but I am not sure.

2) Dunn's River Falls is very popular in Ocho Rios. Check the port section or the Internet for private tours. Private tours cost less, but makes sure you get back to the ship on time. The ship will not wait for someone on a private tour.

3) I enjoyed the river tubing in Ocho Rios. See photo below.

4) Very popular in Grand Cayman is Stingray City. Captain Marvins gets a lot of good reviews. Again, that is a private tour, so you have to make sure you are back to the ship on time. Other popular places to go is Hell (it is the name of a real place on Grand Cayman) or the turtle farm.

Photo of Ocho Rios. The beach is marked, cost $1.00 to get in (as of Aug 2004) and is free of street vendors ...



This is the beach in the photo above ...



And this is why there are no street vendors ...



This is a photo of the river tubing. The tubes have wooden bottoms, so your bottom does not get hurt if you float over a rock ...



That is my knee in the lower left of the photo.

 

[Whimsy]

We were just in Grand Cayman and did the stingrays with Nativeway for $35 a person and it included a snorkeling stop also. Very reasonable compared to the ships prices. We did a 9:30 tour and we came back at 12:30 so there was no fear of missing the ship. 7 mile beach looked like a great place to go also if you don't want to do an excursion. You can take a cab to and from the beach pretty easily I am told. After our stingray tour we spent time looking around the shops but Grand Cayman seemed to be pretty pricey, not a good shopping stop IMO. I did buy rum cakes though for the holidays and we bought DD a shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe.

I think the next time we land in Jamaica I would do the river tubing or just spend time at Margaritaville. They have a pool and also a beach. I believe it was $3 to use the beach there. I personally was not very impressed with Jamaica but we did have an unpleasant day so that may have clouded my opinion.

Have a great cruise with your sister!

 

[Kim1319]

I don't remember what its called, but there was a snorkling excursion we went on in Grand Cayman. It was very cool. Grand Cayman I thought had some of the best snorkling. And in Ocho Rios, we've done the Dunns River Falls excursion. What a blast that was. I highly definitely recommend that!