Excursions with 6 year old...recs please

We are cruising for the first time in March and will stop in Cozumel, Grand Caymans and Jamaica. I'm trying to find the best excursions for us and our 6 year old son (very adventurous). I would love to hear any recommendations!! Thanks.

A guidebook will really give you ALL the options! Libraries have guidebooks in the reference section.

Many things, like beaches or shopping, require NO excursions at all...especially in GC...that's a very EASY DIY place!

I would do a bit of research on what is avail. in each port (Jamaica has several different ports...) and then decide WHAT to do...we can help with HOW!!!

We did that itinerary last year, Playa Mia in Cozumel is fantastic! They have a beach area but we spent the whole time at the water park there as there was plenty to keep the kids happy and it's right next (literally a few feet away) from the full size pool. Would definitely do again.

As for Grand Cayman, we grabbed the bus and went to Seven Mile beach, next time, I would reserve with a beach club just for nicer facilities. I've heard it's pretty cheap to grab a cabana for the day at one of the clubs along seven mile.

In Jamaica, we did a catamaran cruise. There were only a few kids on board but they all seemed to be having fun. The port area in Falmouth is very nice and secure and has a Margaritaville with a pool.

In Grand Cayman your very adventurous son would enjoy taking a catamaran excursion to swim with the stingrays. :D

We are going with our 6 and 2 year old in September with that exact itinerary. Hubby and I have been before (pre-kids).

In Cozumel I've booked the Dolphin encounter cuz she LOVES Dolphins.

In grand Cayman and Jamaica we've made plans for beach days. Play in the sand and surf (ankle deep only [emoji51]) and she is really looking forward to hunting for sea shells.

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For an adventurous 6 year old: the Turtle Farm in Grand Cayman.

The stingrays on GC are really neat to see, but 6 yo might be a little young.

The sandbar is roughly in 4ft of water? (someone correct me...its been a few years), but I think a 6 year old would probably not be able to stand on it...they would need to cling to you or float in their life jacket.

For the price, I would recommend waiting a few years unless they are really good swimmers, just my 2 cents.

Dunn River Falls in Jamaica might be a good for an adventurous 6yo. Its a large park with a cool waterfall that you climb up.

We have the same opinion on the stingrays. It's a fantastic experience, but you really need to be able to stand on the sand bar. We will defer that for a few more years most likely (with our twins turning 7 in October.)

We did Dunn's River Falls with the kids a couple years ago, probably when they were 4. It seems do-able based on comments here, but it was a big mistake. We were lucky that others in our line helped a ton with moving the kids from point to point. We would have been able to do it with 2 fit adults and one child, but that would probably still be difficult and less enjoyable. I think 10 or 11 is probably a more reasonable age to take that on. Just my opinion of course. It is a great excursion that everyone should do at some point.

Right next to Dunn's River Falls is Dolphin Cove, a very nice park that focuses on interacting with animals. They offer many good opportunities to play with and feed animals, and you can take many lovely photographs with animals here.

Dolphin Cove offers several different types of dolphin encounters, and if you have any questions about which dolphin encounter would be best for your family you should email their facility directly since they were very responsive to our emails when I was organizing this tour.

After you book a dolphin touch or encounter, they will email you a confirmation letter with the time of your dolphin encounter, and they recommend that you print out this confirmation letter and bring it with you. It is absolutely necessary that you bring this letter, since our family and the people on line in front of us were both initially assigned incorrect times for the dolphin touch and Dolphin Cove was able to easily fix this mistake when we showed them the correct time in the confirmation letter.

We signed up for the dolphin touch so our two year old could safely participate, and he really loved meeting his friendly and cute dolphin. Please note that if you are on a cruise, you may need to book this excursion directly with Dolphin Cove since some cruise lines (like Princess) only allow children older than 8 to participate in the dolphin touch. Dolphin Cove appears to be much stricter than other attractions in terms of allowing cruise ship passengers to book independently. They turned away a previous trip advisor reviewer who had disclosed he was arriving on a cruise ship and wouldn't take our reservation until we disclosed where we were staying on the island. Dolphin Cove can arrange transportation for guests, but we didn't want them to know we were arriving at a cruise ship, so Richard Brooks at excursionochorios@gmail.com provided us with very good transportation all day in Jamaica. Please note that Dolphin Cove, like all other dolphin experience locations, does not allow you to take your own pictures. Their photographers did a very nice job, but you should factor their costs into your plans for visiting this park. They also will take professional pictures of your stingray and nurse shark experience (they allow amateur cameras in these areas, but it would be hard to get good amateur pictures here)

It is important to note the time of the shark show, since this show is terrible (and seemed to consist of a lot of chanting instead of sharks) and the handlers are also the people who help you touch a stingray and touch nurse sharks. For the 15 minutes prior to the show while the performers are getting ready, you can explore the lovely trail above the beach, where there is a very nice touch tank and an enclosure where you can feed love birds who will land on you. There are also lots of parrots they can pose on guests. It was a very enjoyable afternoon, and our two year old had a wonderful time here.

We are cruising for the first time in March and will stop in Cozumel, Grand Caymans and Jamaica. I'm trying to find the best excursions for us and our 6 year old son (very adventurous). I would love to hear any recommendations!! Thanks.

We are doing this same itinerary on DCL in November. My son is 6 as well.

Here is a list of our excursions-

Cozumel- Dune Buggy Eco Tour

Grand Cayman- Private Charter Stingray City, Starfish Point, Barrier Reef Snorkel

Falmouth Jamaica- Dunn's River Falls and Bobsled Jamaica

You know your child, my kid is very adventurous and I know that he will love all of these. All of the snorkel trips provide life jackets, so even if you do not have a strong swimmer he will be fine. Good luck deciding!

We are doing this same itinerary on DCL in November. My son is 6 as well.

 

Here is a list of our excursions-

 

Cozumel- Dune Buggy Eco Tour

 

Grand Cayman- Private Charter Stingray City, Starfish Point, Barrier Reef Snorkel

 

Falmouth Jamaica- Dunn's River Falls and Bobsled Jamaica

 

You know your child, my kid is very adventurous and I know that he will love all of these. All of the snorkel trips provide life jackets, so even if you do not have a strong swimmer he will be fine. Good luck deciding!

IMHO. You will certainly get life jackets but I would hesitate to snorkel with a 6 year old who is a very weak swimmer as they might not enjoy it as much as something else. A dolphin experience yes but reef snorkelling not as much.

We did a snorkeling excursion with our kids who were 5 and 8 and they were not fans. It wasn't so much the swimming, it was the really salty water that they didn't like. We live in a land locked location so the salt water was new for them. They ended up hanging out on the boat while DH and I snorkeled.

Honestly, all they needed was a beach. They were perfectly happy playing in the sand.

Chankanaab would be a good choice in Cozumel. We did the manatee encounter there when my son was 7, and he loved it. We did the stingrays in Grand Cayman the same trip. He was a little apprehensive at first, but then ended up loving the stingray excursion too.

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