Christmas Island

[SeaYa52]

Does anyone know if you can book a snorkle or dive tour on Christmas Island? Princess dones not currently offer any tours ( and I've heard the often just skip this stop). But my research says it's great for snorkling & diving. Are there vendors for tours when the ship tenders in?

Thanks,

Sandy

[DonahCBrown]

Does anyone know if you can book a snorkle or dive tour on Christmas Island? Princess dones not currently offer any tours ( and I've heard the often just skip this stop). But my research says it's great for snorkling & diving. Are there vendors for tours when the ship tenders in?

Thanks,

Sandy

 

Depending on the size of the ship you are on and when you are able to get off, you can find local folks who will take you to snorkel spots, fishing, etc. We were on a Sun class ship, and the people in the first tender did okay, but everyone else was pretty much stuck. We did a Honolulu-Tahiti-Honolulu round trip and didn't bother getting off the ship the second time.

 

The route through the lagoon is very tricky and the sands shift constantly, so the first thing is for the ship to send out a tender to figure out and mark the current channel. There's only room for one tender at a time so the tendering times are awful, as they have to wait in line for their turn in the narrow channel. There's nothing much around the dock area (the local folks usually have a dance troupe, some school children doing songs, crafts for sale etc. in a lean-to affair right at the dock) but the beach area around the dock was pretty dirty, and although we brought our own gear, we didn't see anything in a reasonable walking distance that looked promising.

 

Some folks we talked to who were on the early tenders had a great time, though, as they were able to hook up with some local folks offering impromptu tours out into the other areas of the island. By the time we got off, all the cars and trucks on the island were engaged.

 

So, the moral of the story is to get on one of the first two tenders, and if you can't, I'd say book a spa day!