2muchluggage

On 8/9/2021 at 1:53 PM, allaboard99 said:

I went on this excursion last week.  It was relaxing.  I recommend it.  Easy breezy - bus transport and it included a sun bed, umbrella, and a choice of water, coffee, or soda.  They also have food and alcohol available for purchase.

Do you happen to know the name of this beach? or how far it was from port?

I'm a little late to this game, but I am trying to put together a private excursion from Tortola to the BVI with an important stop at Soggy Dollar Bar. (This is cross-posted in Celebrity Roll Call)

I have contacted Ocean Magic Mitch who has been recommended on these Boards. He is available Dec 18 and the price would be perfect for 8 or 9 people at only $130 per person. My group is only 6 people, so to make it more affordable, I am putting it out here. So if anyone would like to join us, here are the details for a full day from Katie at Ocean Magic Mitch:

Jost van Dyke tour => Sandy Spit (home of the corona commercials), Little Jost van Dyke (B-Line) where there is great snorkeling around the point and fun games, nice little private beach, and cold drinks at the bar, plus snorkeling in our secret spot (if interested), and White Bay (home of Soggy Dollar and One Love), and Foxy's if requested. White Bay is loved because it is a beautiful white sandy beach with palm trees and aquamarine water…perfect for swimming and cocktailing in the aquamarine shallow water.  He backs the boat as close to the beach as he can, then you hop off, swim in, and wade on to the beach…thus the name of the most popular bar on White Bay: Soggy Dollar.  If this is a problem for any "less-mobile" members of your group, there is another docking option, please let us know.
The price for your PRIVATE full-day charter for up to 8 people: $850 plus $200 fuel

The price for your PRIVATE full-day charter for 9 or more people: $105 per person plus $200 total fuel 

(Add snorkeling the Indians to the Jost van Dyke tour above for $100 additional fuel)

On board and included in your price, he has water, beers, spirits, and sodas.

Captain Rudy will make sure you get back to the ship in plenty of time to depart as well as have plenty of fun time on the boat and at the beaches and bars.  He does it all of the time!  

Captain Rudy will meet you right at the taxi dispatch area after you exit the cruise ship pier and together you will walk about 1 block to where you will board his boat.

Please note he currently only accepts cash, currency on the BVI is U.S. dollar, and gratuity is always appreciated but not included.

Captain Rudy grew up in the BVI, so he knows the waters VERY well and knows many interesting tidbits about the Islands and living life on them.  He offers a departure from the run-of-the-mill tourist attraction by sharing a bit more of an authentic experience thanks to our local Captain.  It’s a FUN day on the water, all of our guests tell us this!

Please let me know if you have any more questions or when you would like me to book you with Captain Rudy.  That's a highly-requested date, so please let me know as soon as you know so we can be sure to get you booked.

Sunny Regards,
Katie

We are a party of 6 wanting to take a full day catamaran snorkel to Nevis next April. Because we are the only ship in port that day(RCI Adventure of the Seas), we have the option of booking with Blue Water Safaris instead of with the ship(they're using Leeward Charters). How many people are usually on Blue Water Safaris' biggest catamaran, Irie Lime? Does ir feel crowded? We're not liking the large crowds . The Moko Jumbie is an option as a private tour with a max of 12 people, but this smaller cat doesn't have the netting to lie on. Not sure if this is a big deal, Somebody sell me on one of these options....small cat or big cat with netting??????Thanks

My group of 6 were on the Irie Lime 5/31/14 and had the best time! They will sail with as few as 8 people. Our trip had 14-16(can't quite remember) guests and 3-4 crew members. They were all great, the only name I remember is Cracker, what a great Captain. There was plenty of room for us to spread out on the netting, plenty of Caribbean Rum after snorkeling, and lots of beautiful blue water. Lunch was great too! Shauna was easy to work with, and she's still there. I just reserved our second trip(Full day with lunch to Nevis) for Sept 21. I hope we have the same size or fewer crowd. I will be with a group of 5 and I don't know if anyone else has booked yet. I would definitely recommend booking with Blue Water Safaris.

I went to the website earlier...looks nice but it is not the area I prefer

to stay when sailing out of San Juan.

Can you tell us where that is?

Thank you Jimham4 for a very thorough review. I really enjoyed it. We are traveling on the Connie for the first time March 30. We enjoyed the Summit last year, this same time, our first time on Celebrity. We've enjoyed RCCL, Carnival and Norwegian, but I think we enjoyed our Celebrity cruise last year the most out of them all. Just a mention regarding upgrading to the Premium drink package: I was with a group of 3 couples, all having the Classic package, none of us felt the need to upgrade to Premium, and there was always a variety of drinks for us to choose. The worst problem was the shortage of limes at that time; just can't make a good mojito without limes, and a Corona is not a Corona with a lemon in it! We all are fortunate to have the Classic package again on our upcoming cruise and I plan to enjoy every minute!;)

I have done both and loved both, although Explorer was 5 plus years ago.

 

I would lean towards Breakaway for the newer ship, extra days, and slides. We also loved the "Waterfront" - Deck 8 and the outdoor dining.

 

We enjoy both cruise lines.

 

Have fun!

I see you were on Breakaway last September. I am considering it for this September, but was wondering if you could tell me what the weather was like, in general, at that time of year. It will still be hurricane season, but I know it should still be warm in Bermuda. How were the days at sea?

We recently returned from our So Caribbean cruise with a stop in Dominica. I would like to add my experience with Woody's "Off the Beaten Path" tour. As a big pre-cruise researcher, I found information over a year ago on CC about this tour. Woody was a great correspondent through Facebook. There were 12 guests and 4 guides, including Woody. We made at least 5 stops: to waterfalls, a river, herb garden, hot springs and a beach. It was a bit chilly and windy riding in the back of the jeep:eek:, going up into the rainforest, but I guess that was part of the adventure. Our tour day turned out to be one of the best excursions we have done. Many thanks to Woody, Vivi, Tana, and Maclan for showing us their country.

We took the full day catamaran tour to Nevis, March 31, with Blue Water Safaris. Communication was very good, professional, but fun, staff. They served lunch on board, open bar, stopped for snorkeling, and then on to Nevis for about 2 hours. Very comfortable catamaran, not overly crowded with 16 passengers and crew of 3. I would definitely go again.

:)We can highly recommend the excursion we took-Blue Water Safaris full day catamaran sail to Nevis. We met about 9am with Shauna, who I had been corresponding with. The cost was $95 each which included a great crew; lunch of chicken, rice, pasta salad, coleslaw, and banana bread. The bar was open and the Caribbean rum was flowing. There were 16 passengers, which made it not too crowded. After sailing for about 30 minutes we stopped to snorkel for awhile. There is a shipwreck near the shore that you can snorkel to. After some lunch, and drinks and celebrating, we headed over to Nevis where we parked at the beach for about 2 hours. It was very calm and pretty water, white sand. More rum punch! Nice relaxing time. Relaxing sail back to the port, arrived about 4pm.

Sailing on March 29, flying into San Juan from Georgia, can't wait to read your review, especially on your ports. Hurry!! My question: did the ship typically dock (and you could get off) at the appointed time? Thanks for sharing.

Gerry and Gary, that's almost as interesting as our group that has 2 Kims. So we are Vicki and Rick, Kim and Darryl, Kim and John. We are in 7047, K&D are next door, K&J are on another deck, somewhere swimming on deck 2 LOL, they booked way after us.:D A drink sounds great (we have the Classic Package so we want to make sure we get our money's worth, even though it was free) here's my email if you have any other information vicki60408@gmail.com.

So I faxed the form and it went through OK. I have to get the others to do the same.

Great, thanks for the heads up!

Has anyone been on the tour recently? I checked the website and it says they are open on Sunday 10-2. (We will be there March 30) Also says "please note we only accept credit or debit cards for payment". So does that mean no cash?:confused:

I received an email response from Shauna:

"If we have to cancel due to bad weather or if the ship does not dock in our port for any reason you will get a full refund of your deposit. Our lunch menu consists of a stewed chicken in pineapple sauce, rice and peas, Greek pasta salad, cole slaw and banana bread for dessert. The bar consist of Juices: Orange juice, pineapple juice and passion fruit juice, ting, Carib beer, sodas, coco cola, coke zero, sprite, ginger ale, white rum, dark rum, coconut rum and vodka."

:rolleyes:Of course, I had to find out what we were drinking!

I guess I feel pretty comfortable sending the deposit, just have to get my travel mates to do theirs as well. (I'm not paying for everyone!)

What do you think, Gerry?

Hello 2Muchluggage,

Received a reply from Shauna today and she confirmed the tour.She sent forms to complete to cover a deposit. Have you received anything from her? She did not include a cancellation policy though, will contact her again for clarification and if they just hold the credit card or do the charge the 50% deposit? Will wait to hear from you.

Thanks

Gerry

No did not hear anything yet, will attempt email again and ask as well about cancellation policy. Thanks for taking that step. I will follow up as well

Vicki

Gerry k

That would be great! Yes, please let her know you are interested. I will email her again to confirm. Need to find out payment details, as we are hoping for a clear sailing day. Will find out policy in case of bad weather.:) Pray for sunshine!

I contacted Blue Water Safaris for the all day catamaran tour that also goes to Nevis. I am with a group go six, three couples in our 40-50s. We would really like to do this excusion, but The company needs 10-12 passengers to make the sail. This is for March 31, 2014. We are on the March 29 sailing on Celebrity Summit. So far, we are the only ones tentatively booked. If you are interested, contact Shauna at Blue water safaris, I got a quicker response when I emailed through their Facebook page.

According to cruisetimetables.com, Celebrity Summit docks in Charlotte Amalie Harbor on 4/4/14. So is this still considered Havensight? Trying to determine how long it will take to get to the ferry at Red Hook, or should we take the Cruise ship excursion to St John?

Thanks, thought I was going crazy when I couldn't find it either:confused: