Excursions

[LorettaD]

My parents are on the sun this weekend and we were wondering if anyone can help with some ??? Fist of all is the ship going to Great stirrup cay? I had heard a while back that they were rerouting to nassau, anyone know??

Also can anyone shed some light on excursions in Cayo Leventado, dominican republic. Can they just get off the ship and go to the beach. I googled it and it comes as a small island, does the ship tender to the mainland or cayo Leventado island? Any tour info or recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks so much

Loretta

[arenee]

Loretta, I have been trying to get the same answers. Cayo Levantado is a mystery. After reading some of the previous posts on this, it appears (I could be wrong) that you tender to the mainland. The Sun sailing on

Feb 4 could not go to the beach unless they purchased the excursion from NCL. Another ship had chartered out the entire beach on the island of Cayo Levantado. I don't know if this was a onetime thing or if this will happen every week. I hope someone can shed some light for us.

[sailwi]

I'm on the 2/4 Sun, checked the cruise ship calendar and Sun is the only ship listed in Cayo that day so I would think there would not be a problem with another ship renting our the beach. Read some threads on the port of call boards and other Sun threads here that in essence said not much to do unless an excursion through NCL.

 

Lat Sun reports for GSC said they went to Nassau becasue of high seas and would have been unable to tender to CSC. Don't know if that was just the excuse or if the beach erosion has been reparied.

[bubbachief]

We were on the Sun,2/4 and the ship did'nt offer an excursion to Cayo. There was another ship already there. I don't know if this is a regular occurance, but Samana was a real disappointment. We tendered, went into town and walked about, nothing there. We talked to people that did the whale watching trip. Expensive, but they said they saw lots of whales and felt it was worth the cost. We saw the boats coming back and they were really loaded with people. Other excursions seemed to have some problems as discussed in other posts.

[floatin'4ever]

We were also on the Sun 2/4. Ship ended up in Nassau not Great Stirrup Cay - because of high seas we couldn't tender in to the private island.

 

We booked the whale watch excursion in Cayo Levantado and were very happy. It was expensive but we felt that we got our money's worth. Boat was not too crowded. It was well organized. Then when we were finished we took a tender to Samana. The ship was unable to go to Cayo Levantado, an island which was basically all beach, due to another ship booking it for the day. I little upsetting because we were looking forward to relaxing in the sand for one more day. Lots of people that we talked to were disappointed that they had not booked something through the ship for this port and a few that we heard of got ripped off by taxi drivers. We didn't have that problem - probably because we only walked around for a while and then went back to the ship.

 

Kristi

[snorklephile]

So, what I am gathering is that the tenders actually go to the Semana pier, NOT Cayo Levantado and if you don't get the ship's excursion, you pay $30 per person 1 way (!!!) to get to the island from Semana pier. IS THAT RIGHT???

 

Thanks,

 

Snorklephile

[Daisydog7]

We were on the Sun Feb. 4. My husband booked the snorkeling excursion in Samana, Dominican Republic. He really enjoyed this excursion, but I was amazed that NCL allowed this excursion. The excursion boat was overcrowded, had no restrooms for a four hour trip, offered no life vests for snorkelers, had no ladder to get off and on the boat. To get back on the boat, crew members hoisted people over the side.

Another excursion was supposed to be a five hour tour of Samana. It lasted 25 minutes. Naturally those on the excursion were very angry.

We heard this is a relatively new cruise stop, and obviously NCL hasn[t checked it out sufficiently. I took the tender to shore. It was about half a mile to the "city", and the cab wanted $30 to take me there. I walked. I heard other stories of gauging.

On the other hand, I got 30 minutes of internet time for $1.

The snorkeling was very nice, my husband said, and there were lots of really pretty starfish.

I think this will be a great stop in about five years.