Blue Lagoon questions

We will be in Nassau on May 31 from the Carnival Fascination. Would love any tips or suggestions on how to make a trip to the Blue Lagoon on our own. Prices and how to arrange a trip would be great!! We were looking for an alternative to booking with the ship. Thanks for any input!!!

You can book directly with Dolphin Encounters (Blue Lagoon) as long as they don't have an exclusive contract with Carnival.

http://www.dolphinencounters.com/

I found the Blue Lagoon site and wonder if anyone had any problems booking directly with them. We would book with the cruise line but they are booked and part of our family booked through the cruise line and the rest of us tried but it's now booked :confused::confused:

I found the Blue Lagoon site and wonder if anyone had any problems booking directly with them. We would book with the cruise line but they are booked and part of our family booked through the cruise line and the rest of us tried but it's now booked :confused::confused:

I booked directly with them and didn't have any problems. It has been a few years and I seem to remember it took a day or so for them to respond to emails, but it wasn't a big deal.

We are going in October on the Allure of the Seas. So I tried calling and emailing Blue Lagoon. Both responses were the same that the Allure has booked all there spots on the excusion. So we will be paying ship prices:eek:. My Daughter will be 3 1/2 when we go will she be able to participate in the encounter? Just wanted to know! Thanks for your help!

We'll be arriving in Nassau in a few short weeks, and I've sent an email to Blue Lagoon to confirm 5 adults for the beach and lunch package, and received confirmation, so we're set, but my question is - the first ferry over is at 8:30am. If we dock at 7am, will we make this ferry?

If we book through the cruise line, it's $90 per person. If we book the identical excursion ourselves, it's $45 per person, we can take the earlier ferry (hopefully), and I'm trying to see the downside of booking it ourselves? Apart from having to get ourselves to the ferry, but frankly, getting our own cab for just the 5 of us sounds a lot nicer than being herded onto a shuttle bus with dozens of others?

So anyway, please someone tell me if I'm missing something . . .

KC

We'll be arriving in Nassau in a few short weeks, and I've sent an email to Blue Lagoon to confirm 5 adults for the beach and lunch package, and received confirmation, so we're set, but my question is - the first ferry over is at 8:30am. If we dock at 7am, will we make this ferry?

 

If we book through the cruise line, it's $90 per person. If we book the identical excursion ourselves, it's $45 per person, we can take the earlier ferry (hopefully), and I'm trying to see the downside of booking it ourselves? Apart from having to get ourselves to the ferry, but frankly, getting our own cab for just the 5 of us sounds a lot nicer than being herded onto a shuttle bus with dozens of others?

 

So anyway, please someone tell me if I'm missing something . . .

 

KC

As long as you dock on time you won't have any issues. I would say as long as you are off the ship by 7:30-7:45 you should have PLENTY of time to grab a taxi over (about 10 minutes, 15 max) to the ferry pier and check in. When we did this we left too early (we wanted to make sure we didn't miss it) and had to wait about 1/2 hour for the ferry to arrive. LOL

Ok I'm really, really confused we wanted to do the dolphin encounter and still spend a good amount of time at the beach however I was just looking at our itinerary and our ship docks at Noon and then the beach day excursion is at 12:30 the dolphin encounter is at 1pm the dolphin is 3.5 hours so I don't understand how the last ferry back to the ship would be at 4. So my thinking was to do the beach day at 12:30 but then book directly with the island as they have a more flexible time of 3:30 for the dolphins which brings me to my question again when is the last ferry off this island?? Please help!!

I was thinking of booking directly the 3:30 pm encounter so when would the ferry take me back to the cruise pier?

I would book directly with Dolphin Encounters for any trip to Blue Lagoon. Yes you will have to get to the dock on Paradise Island, but it is a short and easy taxi ride. The Dolphin Encounter ferry WILL take you back to the cruise pier, even if you didn't book through the cruise line.

 

To my knowledge there is no sailing excursion offered through Dolphin Encounters, just the beach day, Dolphin Encounter, Dolphin Swim and Sea Lion Encounter. They do have a few water toys available for rent but otherwise it is all about the animal encounters.

Just got back from our Dolphin Encounter and had a great time. We saved almost $200 (family of 4) by booking directly through the Dolphin Encounter website instead of buying the Royal Caribbean excursion. It was hard to find clear answers to some of our questions online. Here is what we'd tell people trying to do the same thing we did:

- If you book directly with DE instead of through the cruise-line, you need to get from the Port of Nassau to the Dolphin Encounter ferry boat pickup site on your own. The cruise line is (understandably) not going to help you get there. DE will not help you either because they have an agreement with the cruise lines to stay clear of the port area. Buying the cruise excursion puts more $ in both of their hands.

- Buy your Dolphin Encounter online and print out the confirmation to take with you. Also be sure to bring the credit card that you used to make the purchase with you. If you don't have the credit card with you they will charge you again and credit back the extra charge at a later time. Not something I'd want to worry about having to deal with later.

- Here is how to get to the ferry boat pickup site: walk off the ship, a line of taxi drivers will be waiting (impossible to miss), look for a van that you wouldn't mind riding in (clean/air-conditioned, etc) and ask the driver how much to take you to Margaritaville for the Dolphin Encounter. It's a 10 minute ride, should run about $5 a person. Negotiate before getting into the cab.

- Once you're at Margaritaville, follow the white signs to Dolphin Encounter ticket office located at the side of the restaurant. Give them your confirmation and credit card. They'll give you wristbands and have you wait for the next ferry board which picks up on the dock behind the restaurant. The ferry boat picks up about every 30 minutes and does not cost anything to ride if you have a wristband.

- If your reservation is for 1:30, that is the time you need to be checked in at Margaritaville, not on the island. The ferry takes about 25 minutes to take you the actual Encounter location. Once you are checked in with a wristband you are good to go.

- The ferry will take you and about 75 other people to the Encounter location, some from the cruise lines others not. They give you a quick orientation and then ask you to sign a waiver. Stay at the end of the line and be one of the last ones to sign the waiver. They split the group into 4-6 subgroups to have the actual encounter. Everyone is in a rush to sign and get to the dolphins. There were only 4 clipboards to go around so we were the last to sign. They try to fill the sub-groups up to capacity before starting a new subgroup so the first 5 groups were maxed out with 20-25 people around their respective pools. The last group is less likely to be maxed out because it will only be the last few people to sign the waiver. We ended up in a very small group of about 8. I'm pretty sure each group had the same amount of time with the dolphins, so the smaller groups get more time per family.

- The ferry will take you directly back to the port, no taxi-ride needed. They are only prohibited from picking you up at the port, Again, no charge for the return ferry. Last ferry of the day is 4PM,

* Allow plenty of extra time to get around, don't schedule things tightly. Even though we got off the ship at 9:30, we booked the 1:30 Dolphin Encounter. Unless you're already familiar with getting around in Nassau, add 2x more time than you think you're going to need. Even though we tried to be very well prepared, we got sidetracked several times: streets do not run parallel, things are not well marked by US standards, the people we met were very friendly in general but gave us incorrect information more than once. Our cab driver dropped us at the wrong dolphin encounter (there are two companies in different locations - don't say "take us to the dolphins") sending us in a panic to get to the right place by 1:30. On the way back one of the workers at the DE almost put us on the wrong ferry going back to the port. The woman working at the ticket counter almost forgot to give me a voucher for the picture package we pre-paid for. I'm positive that they would have made me pay again for pictures without the voucher even though it's something that was on my receipt. Things like that wouldn't be a major issue in the US but it's different there.

I found things in Nassau to be very informal. Tip-seeking people will try to assist you even when they can't. I don't think anyone was messing with us it's just a very laid back environment which can cause stress if you are on a time schedule to be back on the ship. Allow for fluff time in your schedule, things do not run like clockwork.

Info accurate as of June 2017