I hope that Angela pops in here to write up her review of this tour for you, she had some great commentary, but I will give you my take on it as well.
We booked this excursion through Royal, I had done a TON of research about St. Croix and this excursion had both of the top things we wanted to do on this island (Captain Morgan's Rum Tour and The Leatherback Brewing Company Tour) and it was about the same price I had figured it would cost for us to take a taxi to both places, entrance fees, etc, so we just went ahead and booked through the cruise line to avoid any transportation hassles that may have come up with securing a taxi in these more remote parts of the island that aren't tourist heavy.
There were about 40 people or so on the tour, so not too huge, and we got split up into a couple different groups and directed to large bus like taxi's for transport. I will say our driver was, meh. He wasn't super talkative and the air conditioning in our vehicle was not working so great, so 15 people crammed into the van was a bit stifling. For me, this was really the only negative thing about the excursion. It would have been nice to get a bit of history of the island from the driver, or at least some commentary on the sites we were passing as we drove to the locations.
The driver of the other bus was super talkative and outgoing, and we heard they had great air-conditioning on that bus...lol
We went to Leatherback Brewing Co first, we were treated to a tour of the brew house and got to see the canning line in action. Small but mighty operation, they are the only brewery on the island and we got to hear all about their production and processes. Then we got to enjoy a 4 taster flight of some of their beers and hear about how those brews came to be part of their line up. After that was done, we were able to order more beer from the bar if we wanted (at our own cost) and got to wander around the tap room and gift shop. We spent about 45 minutes at the brewery overall before moving onto Captain Morgan's
Once we got into Captain Morgan's Distillery, there was a fun couple of places for some photo ops, and we took pictures of each other, and read a bit about the distillery before our Tour guide gave us a pretty intensive history of the distillery and the process for how Captain Morgan makes there rum. I was told, so I am not sure how true to this is, that the tour info we got is more extensive than what they usually offer to visitors that just show up on their own. The one thing I would have loved to see is the production line, but that wasn't something that was open to us.
After the presentation, we were taken back to the tasting room. Where the magic happens 😉
Everyone had samples of the Original Spiced Rum, the White Rum, and the Private Stock, and then we all got to select from a variety of different options for our 4th tasting. I went with Coconut. All of them were fun to try and you really can taste the difference in them.
Once our tastings were done, we were able to order a complementary cocktail to finish out the tour. and you could order more at a discounted price. We were on vacation, so you can guess what we did there.
The gift shop was right there at the end, where you could buy all kinds of Captain Morgan Merch, and of course bottles if you desired. Again about 45 minutes at this location too.
We had a blast on this tour, part of that may have been just getting to know the others on the bus and tour with us, many were just as into the samplings as we were, which helped stimulate the conversations about what we were doing and tasting.
Let me know if you have any specific questions!
