Our Recent Caribbean Favorites
After so many cruises and so many ports, many of the excursions kind of blur together … island tours, snorkeling adventures, beach fun. We’ve enjoyed all of them but one. Don’t get me started on that one … suffice it to say, never take a motorcoach tour of Grand Cayman. (It was our first cruise ever – we didn’t know any better then!) But, in our recent cruises, we’ve experienced three of our all time favorite excursions:
Puerta Vallarta Canopy Tour
When we sailed the Dawn Princess to the Mexican Riviera as a treat for our daughter’s 16th birthday, we decided to
have a real family adventure, so we booked the Los Veranos Canopy Tour, an excursion where you zip through the forest from tree to tree on 14 cables. When our ship arrived in Puerta Vallarta, we caught a cab to the offices of Los Veranos, where we boarded a van to the zip lines. We hiked through the beautiful forest to a tent where we received enough basic instruction to safely finish the course, and then we were each fitted with the harnesses and equipment for the excursion. Then we hiked to the first cable, where we also climbed steps up the tree. The cables got longer and longer, and the hike between cable was more strenuous. Rachel screamed as she took off on each cable, but she was having a ball. I loved the feeling of flying as I zipped across some of the most beautiful scenery in Puerta Vallarta. When we were done, we were ready to start all over again. Instead, we had a seat in their outdoor restaurant for some cool drinks and snacks, and Rachel enjoyed playing with some monkeys in a nearby enclosure. Don’t forget your tennis shoes … we all wore flip flops, so the hiking was more difficult for us. And, the hiking was the only difficult part of this, so this isn’t a good excursion if you can’t do a two-mile hike.
Swimming with the Dolphins in Cozumel
On a short Thanksgiving getaway to Cozumel, Rachel wanted to swim with the dolphins, so we booked the Royal Dolphin Swim at Dolphin Discovery for her at Chakanaab National Park. When we checked Rachel in for this excursion, they took her and the other participants into a nearby building to watch a video and hear a brief presentation to train them how to interact with the dolphins once they were in the water. Then they divided them into three groups based on which dolphin adventure they’d purchased. Only a few had booked the Dolphin Encounter, while the majority had booked the Dolphin Swim Adventure, but only Rachel had booked the Royal Dolphin Swim. (You can see the difference between each of these excursions at this link.) And, since she was the only one, she had two dolphins all to herself, and she had the time of her life. If you love the water and dolphins, whether you’re an adult or a child, Rachel highly recommends this excursion. In fact, she’s ready to do it again.
St. Thomas with Captain Bobby
We love visiting St. Thomas, but we’ve visited there so many times now, we’re always looking for a new adventure.
Capt. Bobby & First Mate serving gourmet lunches
As we were planning our next visit last year, we met some online friends who wanted to book the Rumbaba Charter in St. Thomas with Captain Bobby. This is a private yacht experience limited to only six people. Our friends had three in their group, and they needed at least two more folks to book this trip, so we said we were in. As the time for our trip got closer, we received an email from Captain Bobby asking for our drink preferences for the day and our choice between the meal entrees of steak, mahi mahi, Ahi tuna or chicken. Never had anyone offer us those choices before for an excursion! When we arrived in St. Thomas, we met up with our friends on the pier, and we all jumped into a cab to the marina. Captain Bobby met us there, where he transported us three at a time out to the yacht. We’ve never experienced a more relaxing day with fabulous food and drink and an adventure or two in any of our visits to St. Thomas. When the girls decided to relax on deck, while the guys headed back out to snorkel a little longer, Captain Bobby convinced us to ride along in the dinghy to drop the guys off for their snorkeling adventure. As we headed back, we all jumped in the water and grabbed the tow rope and enjoyed a really fun drift snorkel as he slowly towed us back to the yacht. This is a beautiful ship, fabulous food, and a great day … cannot recommend Captain Bobby and the Rumbaba Charter highly enough.
So, tell me about your favorite excursions?