Celebrity Excursion or Private for Turtle Swim?

Hi Everyone,

Can you please offer up some input on whether the ship's excursion to swim with the turtles in Barbados is comperable to a private excursion? We are looking for an intimate experience to see, feed and swim with the turtles....How big are the ship's excursion groups for this activity? And is there only one location on the island that has turtles like the stingrays in Grand Cayman?

My Mom, Sis and I are really looking forward to this trip. So any help or input is appreciated. Thanks!

The big difference will be the number of people. With a private excursion we'll be on a boat with at most 25 people -- frequently half that number. With a ship's excursion, there will be will be 100+ on the boat. The prices will be roughly the same, with the private excursion running ~$10 pp less. Everything else will be very much the same.

I've done a private tour with Thriller Ocean Tours. The capacity is limited to 14 or 16 people. It's a high speed boat and you stop at a reef/shipwreck, the turtles and a beach. They offer a morning and afternoon trip. If interested, I would recommend the morning as the owner/operator had told me the morning was less crowded with other boats at the turtle site. I opted for the afternoon since I had teens.

A friend that took the ship sponosored tour was on a boat with about 30 other people and really just enough room to get off and on. We met in the water at the same time even though on different tours. There are also catamaran tours that offer a more leisurely experience.

All the boats are going to the same area and due to all the boat activity, I found the water a little choppy and was definitely a very, very busy spot with about 6 boats anchored in a small area.