Best Snorkeling-Key West, Freeport or Nassau

Going on a cruise with our parents and my husband has to have a snorkeling trip in there somewhere. What location would be our best bet for some good snorkeling? Would like the excursion to have some snorkeling time as well as some other activities to keep the parents happy but I will follow all suggestions...

it might be time to say, none of these places are really great.

IME you are going to have to take a boat/excursion to get to decent snorkeling and then it is just gonna be decent as compared to some of the great places ...

sorry

what cruise and when? I'll try to look at the options your cruise offers and make a recommendation. Off the cuff I'd go in Key West but there are not good options other than the ship excursion in most cases due to the arrive/depart time of the cruise vs that of an outside operator . . .

MANY TIMES the first reply breaks the ice tho and folks will now chime in to tell you just how wrong I am . . .

Thank you Capt. This trip is really for the parents but wanted to give my husband a little trip he could enjoy as well so anything he is able to do is really just a bonus.

We are traveling on the Carnival

Freedom out of Galveston, Sat April 18th-Sat April 25th. I have looked at the excursions offered by the cruise line and also read some other recommendations for Paradise Cove in Freeport & Stuart Cove in Nassau but even those weren't very encouraging.

Then again, being from Galveston any snorkeling is considered exemplary :rolleyes:

Really just wanted to hear what others had to say before I booked anything. Thanks for responding, looks like I will just have him carry his equipment anytime we leave the boat just in case an opportunity should arise :)

looks like I will just have him carry his equipment anytime we leave the boat just in case an opportunity should arise

No, I'd say that is the opposite of the recommendation I'd make .... in neither of these places are you going to 'walk by' a snorkeling location just by chance. {Go to Cayman however and you can stumble into EDEN ROCK, Sunset House, Smith's Cove, Cheeseburger or many other sites for some 'jump in' snorkeling.}

OPINIONS:

In none of these 3 spots is there decent shore snorkeling .... people will take you to beaches and give you snorkel equipment but you might see better in the lake at home ... or your pool

Stuart Cove is the BIG DOG of dive shops in Nassau, he's actually out of Nassau and THAT is the problem. The 'good stuff' is on the other side of the island - where SC shop is - and there is a transportation time issue versus the arrival time and departure time of the ships. This page addresses SCUBA trips but .....

http://www.stuartcove.com/DiveBahamasMgmt.aspx?id=2&pageId=51

If you check their schedule for snorkel trips you see they pick up at 8:15 and 12:15 ... getting back in time is your concern (unless booked thru the ship)

the ride from the piers to SC's location is around 30 minutes IME ... and once because of an accident closing the road, over an hour . . .

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hmmm ....

pulled up your cruise itin'ry (I think)

A snorkel and all you can drink offered in Freeport ..... (sounds very Carnival)

and SNUBA in Nassau .... that's SC .... did not see a snorkel trip tho . . .

Snorkeling in the Keys is actually pretty good, but the reefs are OUT away from islands for the most part so you must take a boat out to them. One of the catatmaran boats might work best for Key West, we have looked at that excursions ourselves.

I have not snorkeled at Key West, but I have dived up around Key Largo and the reefs are shallow with tons of fish, lots of coral. A couple of our favorite dives were only 20' deep! They would have been great snorkels. I have been told that this is true throughout the Keys.

An Extract from my review of Stuart Cove at Nassau. Not only the best port for snorkeling, Stuart Cove was great.

Day six, Nassau, Bahamas, 12:30PM – 6:30PM. What a great diving/snorkeling location. Here too the swells had limited the dive trips, but our boat captain took us to sheltered ‘Angelfish Reef’ where we enjoyed a magical coral garden and hundreds of fish.

Only at Roatan Bay have I enjoyed such a variety. This was absolutely marvelous. The water was so crystal clear I was able to get a number of great underwater photos.

The "shark" stop was magnificent.

A bucket of bait was lowered to the bottom to attract the sharks. We floated on the surface to watch them feed

to complete the show, a crew member held bait above the water. On long poles, of course. :D

Seeing sharks break the surface to get at the bait was a magnificent show!!

http://www.snorkelbahamas.com/DiveBahamasMgmt.aspx?id=3&pageId=17

An extract from my review of Stuart Cove at Nassau:

Day six, Nassau, Bahamas, 12:30PM – 6:30PM. What a great diving/snorkeling location. Here too the swells had limited the dive trips, but our boat captain took us to sheltered ‘Angelfish Reef’ where we enjoyed a magical coral garden and hundreds of fish.

Only at Roatan Bay have I enjoyed such a variety. This was absolutely marvelous. The water was so crystal clear I was able to get a number of great underwater photos.

The "shark" stop was magnificent.

A bucket of bait was lowered to the bottom to attract the sharks. We floated on the surface to watch them feed

to complete the show, a crew member held bait above the water. On long poles, of course. :D

Seeing sharks break the surface to get at the bait was a magnificent show!!

http://www.snorkelbahamas.com/DiveBahamasMgmt.aspx?id=3&pageId=17

Key West snorkeling and scuba diving have deteriorated greatly in the last 10-20 years - so much so that I will never snorkel or dive there again. People new to snorkeling tell me they thought it was great, but much of the coral is dead and there are more fish in the Bahamas than you'll see on a boat trip to the reefs off Key West. So my vote goes to the Bahamas over Key West, but you will not have good beach snorkeling anywhere.

There are still nice dives in the Keys... just not around Key West.

There's also a nice snorkeling spot called Deadman's Reef near Freeport. It's close to shore at a resort called "Paradise Cove". You can use their website to arrange transportation to and from the port. :cool:

Key West does NOT have good snorkeling. We've dived/snorkeled there. You need to take a boat out, and it was ok, not great. If we go to Key West again, would not go diving/snorkeling there.

Key Largo had very good diving/snorkeling. There is no comparison, way better. If thinking about diving/snorkeling in the Keys, do it around Key Largo area, not Key West.

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As for Bahamas, Capt BJ is right. The good diving/snorkeling is on the other side of the island. We've also been there, and that was the exactly issue from cruise port.

Going on a cruise with our parents and my husband has to have a snorkeling trip in there somewhere. What location would be our best bet for some good snorkeling? Would like the excursion to have some snorkeling time as well as some other activities to keep the parents happy but I will follow all suggestions...

none of these would have shore snorkeling... freeport or Nassau an excursion would be good.. I've had good snorkeling in both places with an excursion .. in Nassau I went with a ship's excursion to Rainbow reef.. nothing for the parents to do on a snorkeling excursion except enjoy the boat ride..

I'm a fairly experienced snorkeler and did the Stuart Cove snorkel a couple years ago and I have to say not only was it a great snorkel, but one of my favorite excursions I've ever done.

The first stop takes you behind Goulding Cay, which is a great spot, a nice healthy reef with big Elkhorn coral formations. Also lots of fish, saw a few Caribbean Reef sharks in this spot too, they just swam around at the edge of the reef and didn't bother anybody. The second stop is a deeper reef where there is a sunken plane...pretty good spot if you can dive down some. The last spot was the best, they take you out to an area where they feed dozens of Reef Sharks and let you float above them while you hold onto a rope for 10 minutes. Amazing Tour, the 3rd stop is optional of course, only half my excursion participated, but it was so worth it. Unforgettable experience. I hightly recommend doing Stuart Cove if you stop in Nassau.

http://www.stuartcove.com/

Here is video I took from the Stuart Cove Excursion, the second half of the video is a patch reef off of Rose Island which is close to Nassau...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC5lC89-nyA

Oh wow, thank you all so much for the replies!! I will definitely check into these. I feel much more comfortable booking an excursion through the ship this go around with the parents...the husband and I are a bit more adventurous but we will play it safe this time.

As far as taking the parents just to enjoy the boat ride that will be fine. His parents used to do a lot of boating and will enjoy it with someone else doing all the work. On the other hand, I can already hear my mom "You got me off the boat to go ride on a boat?? Can't we just go shopping somewhere??" Haha, gotta love her!