TORTOLA: "Island Sailaway" Review

Tortola: "Island Sailaway" Review

It was our second time taking this excursion -- liked it so much the first time we had to go again!

We were driven to the marina in an open-air bus ... about a 5-10 minute ride. Our shoes had to be removed (normally, you know it's a good one when you have to take off your shoes) before boarding the HUGE sailing catamaran. The sail itself (about a hour each way) would have made this tour worthwhile. The water was blue-blue and the scenery beautiful.

Our first stop to snorkel was at Norman Island in a sheltered area close to some caves. The water was very warm, clear, and calm. All snorkeling gear was available. We wore our own masks but used their fins. DH snorkeled by the caves and saw a good variety of fish. As usual :rolleyes: , I did more playing in the water than snorkeling -- so calm and peaceful! (We were there for 45 minutes.)

After a very short sail we were at our next stop on Norman Island -- a small marina with a beach bar and a nice clean little beach. There were beach chairs at no/cost in both sunny & shady areas ... the water was clear and very warm. The sandy bottom did have some rough spots (shells) so you might want to take your water shoes. Some also snorkeled there. The beach bar, "Pirates Bight", was fun and had yummy drinks. :D We loved "Pirates Bight" -- could have easily spent the entire day there! :D

Tasty run punch was served to the way back. It was a great excursion! If you have questions, please feel free to ask.

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

OCruisers, you described this magnificent tour beautifully! Glad you mentioned the rum punch because on the way over to the caves they gave us a delicious punch which I happily gulped down. On our return, they handed me a glass that looked identical and I took a hearty gulp. Thank goodness I was sitting over the the opening to the sea below because it flew from my mouth!!!

I don't drink at all so the rum was a bit of a shock:D ! So everyone should bear in mind they don't tell you about the alcohol.

But this was, as I've said a zillion times, one of my all time favorite tours by any ship anywhere. OCruisers does not exaggerate. A magnificent few hours.

How many people are usually booked on this excursion?

tterry .... Guess it varies. The captain told us that it would hold 50 without a problem BUT he preferred to take no more than 40 which, he said, is the maximum number given to the cruise lines.

One our first trip there were only 12 of us! This last time there were 32. We never felt crowded ... lots of space to move around! Think... Heather mentioned elsewhere there were 30 when she went ... she'll have to let you know....

Heather .... :D Maybe we should quit telling folks how good this excursion is! :D

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

Yes, we had about 30. But because more wanted to book it, they had 2 catamarans go out. But it seemed they were a slightly different time so they left the beach shortly after we got there. Maybe they did beach first and snorkelling second so there wouldn't be too many at once.

OCruisers, you are absolutely right. We are nuts:D !!! It should be our little secret. Let's just make a pact between all of us here that we won't tell another living soul.;)

I would like to express my gratitude to all of you CCers who were so kind to give your positive reviews of this excursion. We have an upcoming cruise on the Zaandam and have decided the Sailaway sounds lke the perfect day trip for us in Tortola. :-)

Thanks so much!!

Tortola: "Island Sailaway" Review

 

It was our second time taking this excursion -- liked it so much the first time we had to go again!

 

We were driven to the marina in an open-air bus ... about a 5-10 minute ride. Our shoes had to be removed (normally, you know it's a good one when you have to take off your shoes) before boarding the HUGE sailing catamaran. The sail itself (about a hour each way) would have made this tour worthwhile. The water was blue-blue and the scenery beautiful.

 

Our first stop to snorkel was at Norman Island in a sheltered area close to some caves. The water was very warm, clear, and calm. All snorkeling gear was available. We wore our own masks but used their fins. DH snorkeled by the caves and saw a good variety of fish. As usual :rolleyes: , I did more playing in the water than snorkeling -- so calm and peaceful! (We were there for 45 minutes.)

 

After a very short sail we were at our next stop on Norman Island -- a small marina with a beach bar and a nice clean little beach. There were beach chairs at no/cost in both sunny & shady areas ... the water was clear and very warm. The sandy bottom did have some rough spots (shells) so you might want to take your water shoes. Some also snorkeled there. The beach bar, "Pirates Bight", was fun and had yummy drinks. :D We loved "Pirates Bight" -- could have easily spent the entire day there! :D

 

Tasty run punch was served to the way back. It was a great excursion! If you have questions, please feel free to ask.

 

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

Do you happen to remember the name of the boat ?? It wasn't Patouche was it ?? Also I have heard another famous Tortala location Cane Garden Bay has a problem ( for many years ) of Sailboats dumping seweage in the harbor making swimming less than desirable. Did you hear anything about this ?

djludwig .... Really don't think THE VIRGIN ISLAND SAILAWAY uses Potouche.

(We've only been on one Potouche and that was "land trip" in Tortola -- was very nice.)

The only thing we know about problems at Cane Garden Bay Beach were told to us by our friends who have had a "family home" there for ages ...... It's posted on a thread on this board:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=74872

Tortola is WONDERFUL! Have FUN! Happy Sailing! OCruisers

There is a "Virgin Island Sailaway" excursion on the Carnival Legend. Is this the same excursion, and if so, is it appropriate for small children ( age 3 &5)

Do you happen to remember the name of the boat ?? It wasn't Patouche was it ??

Hi,

My DW and I went on this excursion on the Zuiderdam in mid-Feb. and we loved the trip. The boat was the PALU out of Roadtown. There were about 20-30 people on board and they had another boat about 1/2 hour behind us doing the cruise also. We stopped at the "caves" in about 20 ft. of water where those that wanted to snorkel could get in the water. The cat lowered a platform of the starboard side (right side for land lubbers) so it was easy to get in and out of the water, no big ladders to climb. I'm a scuba diver and see lots of mature reefs so the fish weren't that great for me but my wife loved me pointing out a lot of fish she'd only seen pictures of. As far as the site, go towards the caves (half in/out of the water) and it gets very shallow, go away from the caves and the water eventually drops off fairly deep. However I'd say the snorkelling site was around 50 yds. in diameter, plenty big for the number of people we had. BTW, there wasn't any current and the seas were calm the day we were there. After about 45 minutes of snorkelling, the captain got us all back on board and we sailed around the corner into a large mooring cove. That's where the little beach and restaurant are described in the first post. The day we were there the restaurant wasn't open yet but the captain said we could go under cover and sit at the tables, just couldn't bring the plastic chairs out to the beach (apparently people weren't returning them back to the restaurant when they were done with them). The cove is shallow and great snorkeling over grass beds. As you go across the cove away from the dock there's a bit of coral outcrop and sponges. There were some great fish around this outcrop including two 1 1/2 foot file fish (totally harmless but the largest ones I'd ever seen), flamingo tongues (1 inch white shells with orange spots on them), urchins, a small nassau grouper, a small school of grunts (yellow stripped fish 2-3" in size) and other small creatures around the outcrop (don't use up all your underwater film on the first site, some really good things were under the water at the beach). My wife sat on the beach while I snorkelled around. After 45 min - 1 hour we were called back to board the boat (in the interim, the other sailaway cruise had come in so there were more people in the water and you have to know which boat you were on. One woman tried to board our boat just to find out she was on the wrong one). After we weighted anchor, we had a great little sail back into Roadtown where we docked and they took us back to the boat. It was very nice and we'd done the same thing about 3 years ago and Norman island is virtually unchanged in all that time.

Randy

Actually thanks to all of you who responded to my question about the snorkeling trip, it sounds great. My husband has had two knee replacements, was it easy getting back onto the catamaran? We are on a guarantee, and haven't been assigned a cabin yet and so we can't book excursions as of yet, but will definitely book this one. Thanks again!

Peggy,

What line are you going on? I was able to book excursions thru Carnival, they didn't need my room number just my booking number.

Peggy .... Like vicocala, we have always just used our booking number to book excursions without a problem. I always print a copy of the confirmation!

Have a WONDERFUL time! Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)