Self Guide Tour Amber Cove

[whitford]

We are in our late 60's and quite fit, Live in Montana. Would like to know your experiences with a self guided tour for Amber Cove. Is it safe? What were you favorite things, secret tips and things to avoid. Really getting tired of the BIG bus excursions. Would prefer to get to know the real culture and people.Any in sites will be quite helpful.

Thank

[Debbierpof]

Following!

[Organized Chaos]

Amber Cove itself is the private cruise port complex built & owned by Carnival Corp. It's a secured port for cruisers only. It has all of the typical cruise port shops, along with some private vendor shops. There's also a large pool with a waterslide. A zip line that passes over the pool area (I believe $20 for unlimited times). A bar and small restaurant by the pool.

 

Other than that, you have to take a bus or taxi everywhere else because it sits a few miles outside Puerto Plata. There will be a bunch of taxis staged at the port when you arrive.

 

We took a taxi to the Teleferico, or cable car, that goes to the top of Mt. Isabel de Torres. It's about a 15 minute taxi ride from Amber Cove and cost us $60 round trip for 4 people. The cable car ride is $10/person. It was a fantastic experience. At the top is a smaller (but still huge) replica of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. There's also a bunch of walking paths that take you through the jungle. Some of the paths are paved, others are rock, but all very easy to navigate. Plus some steps here & there, but nothing too bad. There's also some vendors in the domed building under the statue. All in all, we spent about 2 hours up there and our taxi driver waited for us at the bottom.

[GreakLakes]

The tour I did was not self guided, however we were the only two people booked.  It was more like a private tour.  The company we used was Iguanamama eat, drink and be merry.  The cost was $75 pp on Christmas Day.  

[calmcruzer]

On 12/29/2019 at 10:17 PM, Organized Chaos said:

Amber Cove itself is the private cruise port complex built & owned by Carnival Corp. It's a secured port for cruisers only. It has all of the typical cruise port shops, along with some private vendor shops. There's also a large pool with a waterslide. A zip line that passes over the pool area (I believe $20 for unlimited times). A bar and small restaurant by the pool.

 

[calmcruzer]

So that would be something you could do right off the ship without booking anything? That would be nice. 🙂

[Organized Chaos]

25 minutes ago, calmcruzer said:

So that would be something you could do right off the ship without booking anything? That would be nice. 🙂

 

Yes, I think it's nice. There's a lot of people who don't like these "cookie cutter" (as they call them) ports that are popping up these days, but if they provide some things to do for those who don't want to go too far, I think they're a good thing. Since there's nothing immediately around Amber Cove, you have to take an excursion or taxi to do anything outside of the port. So I think having these larger cruise line-built port complexes are a nice addition. We didn't spend much time at the pool area since we did something else, but we did walk around and have a look. I'm not really the type of guy who enjoys hanging out around a pool, but that area was nice enough that, when we go back someday, I wouldn't mind hanging out there a little bit.