Recent visit to Cartagena

[styles27]

Hi

I spent some time on the “ports of call” board for this port but most of the threads are old. Someone recommended I start a new thread so I thought I’d come here. 
Has anyone recently purchased the “hop on/off” bus tour in Cartagena from MSC?

I read about a ferry from the ship to the Old city area but that was a  post from a couple of years ago. 
Does that still exist? 

Is there still a zoo area near the ship? Any other shops etc within walking distance if we don’t do the bus tour?

Any tips or recommendations appreciated. 

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by styles27

[JT1962]

I was there last month on MSC. The zoo is still at the port. There were a few shops, but I did not go in any of them and aren’t sure what they were.
 

I did an independent tour with Dora the Explorer that was good and included the old city. The local & street vendors are VERY aggressive (made Jamaica vendors look shy), and the tour guide helped to fend of some of them.

Edited November 16, 2022 by JT1962

[kelleherdl]

MSC Divina repo cruise, Oct 2022.
 

We did an independent tour with a taxi driver at the taxi stand outside the cruise terminal. We let the taxi stand marshall know we wanted a 4 hour tour of all the major sites.  He quoted $100 for a complete tour (2 of us). He pulled one of the senior taxi drivers out of the line and we went off. Our tour included the Monastery, the fort, Old Town and the old wharf area. We wanted to see the cathedral, but it was closed for an event. He knew the city very well. He was clearly one of the senior drivers as all the other drivers knew him.  Sorry, I can’t find his card. We had done Cartagena once before, but this time we wanted a more inclusive tour. We told the driver we did not want a shopping stop, so we didn’t waste any time there. We much more enjoyed this visit around town and glad we went with the ‘private’ taxi tour. 
 

side note.  There had been a lot of rain overnight and several of the streets were flooded. Took a driver with excellent knowledge of the city to get around. Be patient, traffic in Cartagena is very rough, particularly getting out of the port area.

 

Dennis

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by kelleherdl

[mnpurple]

@kelleherdl Thanks for sharing your experience. I see on the MSC excursions they are now offering car/van tours and was considering that. It is $99/pp, so if we went your route it would be half the cost. We did something similar in Malta earlier this year and it worked well.  We want to see a few sights and maybe find a good restaurant.

[mnpurple]

@kelleherdl I just thought of a question. When you get a taxi, do you pay the marshall?  When in Malta, we discussed it with someone at the stand and paid her and not our taxi driver. 

[kelleherdl]

14 minutes ago, mnpurple said:

@kelleherdl I just thought of a question. When you get a taxi, do you pay the marshall?  When in Malta, we discussed it with someone at the stand and paid her and not our taxi driver. 

We paid the driver at the end of the day plus tip.

[mnpurple]

I hope the OP doesn't mind, but I'm wondering if anyone who responded here also had a stop in Colon Panama. I looked at the ports board also and got the overall impression to stick to a cruise excursion. Has anyone here done the Two Ocean railroad panama canal tour?

[CarolnLarry]

I did the railroad excursion a couple of years ago.  Train to Panama City and bus back to Colon.  

Colon is a port city and not a tourist city.  The train trip is very interesting as some of it runs alongside the canal.  

[styles27]

3 hours ago, mnpurple said:

I hope the OP doesn't mind, but I'm wondering if anyone who responded here also had a stop in Colon Panama. I looked at the ports board also and got the overall impression to stick to a cruise excursion. Has anyone here done the Two Ocean railroad panama canal tour?

No I don’t mind at all. 
We decided not to get off the ship in Colon after reading some reports on here from members on this cruise a couple of weeks ago. They said the port had a heavy police presence and someone on board from another area of Panama said she wouldn’t get off the ship in Colon that it wasn’t safe. 
So I decided to do my own research on this and I’ve read some things about Colon that are unsettling to say the least.
Even the US Gov website has warnings about traveling there. 

Maybe things will change by the time you sail but you may want to do some reading about it before you book anything. 

[JColtonMason]

I visited both Cartagena and Colon in October on the Divina.  

 

For Cartagena if you stay within the old city walls or bocagrande you should be fine; plenty of tourists walking around en mass.  After exiting the aviary complex(which is fantastic, don't miss the 2 walk-in bird enclosures), I found and paid $5 to share a shuttle bus with a bunch of czechs to old town, and paid $15 for a solo taxi back to the port.  Very aggressive vendors.  I was offered coke multiple times.  

 

Side note: a diabetic old man fell in the water between the ship and the pier there and was saved by the crew.  

 

For Colon, the immediate areas surrounding the port looked pretty dangerous and completely run down.  Police closed two roads one block from the port while the ship was there.  I saw about a dozen cruise passengers walking around in the "bad" area.  The port has very little to offer(2 casinos, a couple of restaurants, a subway, and a few stores).  I walked out of the port gates to the taxis parked opposite and paid $40 for a round trip to the new locks with 3 hours of wait time at the locks.  Duty free shop guy said I got ripped off, meh doubt I can do better looking like a tourist.  I tried a few words in spanish and the locks admissions lady gave me the locals discount.  At the locks there's a free white van that takes visitors to the lower viewing platform and back up.  The drive to and from the locks was not as bad as I was expecting, and felt safer than near the port.  Driver also gave me a brief detour of driving across that canal crossing bridge and checking out some of the views.

[styles27]

10 hours ago, JColtonMason said:

I visited both Cartagena and Colon in October on the Divina.  

 

For Cartagena if you stay within the old city walls or bocagrande you should be fine; plenty of tourists walking around en mass.  After exiting the aviary complex(which is fantastic, don't miss the 2 walk-in bird enclosures), I found and paid $5 to share a shuttle bus with a bunch of czechs to old town, and paid $15 for a solo taxi back to the port.  Very aggressive vendors.  I was offered coke multiple times.  

 

Side note: a diabetic old man fell in the water between the ship and the pier there and was saved by the crew.  

 

For Colon, the immediate areas surrounding the port looked pretty dangerous and completely run down.  Police closed two roads one block from the port while the ship was there.  I saw about a dozen cruise passengers walking around in the "bad" area.  The port has very little to offer(2 casinos, a couple of restaurants, a subway, and a few stores).  I walked out of the port gates to the taxis parked opposite and paid $40 for a round trip to the new locks with 3 hours of wait time at the locks.  Duty free shop guy said I got ripped off, meh doubt I can do better looking like a tourist.  I tried a few words in spanish and the locks admissions lady gave me the locals discount.  At the locks there's a free white van that takes visitors to the lower viewing platform and back up.  The drive to and from the locks was not as bad as I was expecting, and felt safer than near the port.  Driver also gave me a brief detour of driving across that canal crossing bridge and checking out some of the views.

Thanks so much for your input it’s greatly appreciated! 

In Cartagena it sounds like there are plenty of taxis right outside the ship that we could take to the old city without doing the hop on hop off bus. 
It’s getting back to the ship that worries me but I’m assuming there will also be taxis to take us back. 
I think Colon will be a stay on board day for us. I haven’t heard one good thing about that port which makes me wonder why they bother stopping there (besides the canal of course) but I think we will book another cruise that actually goes through the canal. 
 

That poor man that fell, I hope he was okay!

[mnpurple]

Thanks for sharing. We are thinking about the train excursion still. I would hope an excursion run by MSC would be safe. I have a few months yet, so no rush. Which cruise are you on @styles27?  We are on 1/27 10-day Divina. The ports sounded interesting, but I maybe should have done more research. However, I did chose that one because I wanted time to enjoy the ship and YC. We were on Seaview this past May in the Med and it was very port heavy, so we were off the ship a lot (totally awesome of course). I wanted this cruise to be a bit more relaxing, so if we do decide to skip a port, that is fine with me!

[styles27]

1 hour ago, mnpurple said:

Thanks for sharing. We are thinking about the train excursion still. I would hope an excursion run by MSC would be safe. I have a few months yet, so no rush. Which cruise are you on @styles27?  We are on 1/27 10-day Divina. The ports sounded interesting, but I maybe should have done more research. However, I did chose that one because I wanted time to enjoy the ship and YC. We were on Seaview this past May in the Med and it was very port heavy, so we were off the ship a lot (totally awesome of course). I wanted this cruise to be a bit more relaxing, so if we do decide to skip a port, that is fine with me!

We’re on for 14 days Dec 30th and we feel the same about not a big deal if we skip a port. We love Divina it’ll be our 3rd time on her. 
 

We also chose this itinerary because the ports sounded interesting however when I heard that the long excursion to the Panama Canal had police escort from the ship that gave me pause.

In our 30’s and 40’s we were a little more adventurous but I can’t run as fast as I did then lol

 

All kidding aside, unfortunately even the police in these countries will rob you so having them escort our tour didn’t give me much peace of mind. 
I will definitely report back after our cruise (probably during it as well as I usually do a live review)