Book Dolphin Swim through cruise or direct?

So we're looking at doing the dolphin encounter on 4/4/2015. We are on the Carnival Liberty from San Juan. Looking on the Carnival site I can book their "Anguilla Dolphin Swim" for $155/adult. Going directly to the tour website http://www.**********************anguilla/anguilla-dolphin-swim.asp it looks like $139/adult but "dock and transportation fees" are not included.

I thought in general it was better to book direct rather than through the cruise. Doesn't seem to be the case here or am I missing something?

Thanks.

(first-time cruising)

I am finding the same thing in my quest for excursions--it looks like in the Caribbean the cruise ship excursion rates are comparable to booking direct. This is certainly not typical.

I have found the same while looking for excursions on our southern Caribbean. Our excursions before in places like jamaica, cayman islands, Belize and roatan were cheaper booking direct

So I booked direct because I found the dolphin company was giving a 20% promotion, so $99/person instead of $139. I thought I'd be doing better than $155/person through Carnival.

However, the transportation adds up. For the 3 of us:

taxi from cruise terminal to ferry: $30

departure tax: $15

ferry, round trip: $120 ($20 each way/person)

anguila departure tax: $60 ($20/person)

taxi from ferry to cruise terminal: $30

So it ended up being more expensive booking direct. However, in our case, we were the only people in our group so we basically had a private session and got a lot more time with the dolphins vs. if we were part of a larger group. That made it worth it.

The other advantage to booking through the cruise line is that you are covered if the tour is cancelled in the case the ship can't make port. I didn't think of that possibility but one day we couldn't make port due to high winds.