jacruisers

Cosol (not Consol! Lol) is all by land, with the short water taxi ride to/from the beach.

Spencer's is all by boat to/from port, and short land taxi ride to volcano and waterfall, etc. You unload St Soufriere pier, see the sites, then back to the beach. Same sites right in Soufriere, more time at the beach. Lunch with Spencer vs all the snacks along the way with Cosol. Drinks with both.

Depends on whether you want more besch time or what. If you haven't seen the coastline by boat, it's pretty spectacular. If you've seen the main sights like volcano and such, consider Spencer's beach break instead, about 5 hours at Jalousie beach, includes lunch and drinks..

Flip a coin maybe?

Thank you for your response.

We used Consol for island tour last December that also allowed us to board a boat to get to the Pitons and some time to swim/snorkel (no lunch included at the Pitons).

I was wondering has anyone done both tours Consol and Spencer’s land and sea lately and can provide feedback of the difference between both and which one you preferred as both are recommended?

So far I can see a price difference and lunch provided at the Pitons with Spencer.

We enjoyed our tour with Consol and would recommend them however also curious about Spencer’s tour land and sea and wondering if we would see anything different.

Thank you in advance.

Thank you Steve and Jane for the updates. We will joining you on this ship this Sunday.

Thank you Mitsugirly for all your detailed reviews. Really helpful and enjoy the pictures/maps help visualize everything and connect once one is there by your pictures. DH and I where in Costa Maya in 2014 and this time we are cruising with our little ones DS 3 and DD 4 in a couple of months. Looks like we will trying out Blue Kay. Thank you again.

And http://beyondships.com/NCL-GreatStirrupCay.html is great!

 

Making this thread immortal for anyone's future reference. :D

Thank you for sharing picture of GSC and the detailed link of various ships along w/GSC. We will be visiting GSC via NCL Spirit in Dec and looking forward to our cruise.

@ spiritweevil - We had prebooked a private snorkel trip w/GT Diving and got off as soon as we docked. We walked along the beach while we waited for our small boat to pick us up. While walking along, you do find locals offering snorkel trips. We walked to Jack's, there was only one other couple there since it was early. Jack welcomed us and after talking to him a bit mentioned he had lived in the Bay Area for some time. He even called our Snorkel tour guide to let them know we were at his place waiting. It was nice chatting with him and in less than 5mins our tour guide appeared. We did not get a chance to go back to Jack's and eat but we were thankful of his hospitality.

Enjoy GT, as others mention beautiful beach. We were there Aug 2014.

Our private Snorkel tour took us to 2 snorkel spots (one being the 7000ft wall) and we also went to Gibb's Cay and did encounter stingrays. Amazing how clear the water was.

Great information - :) How was Alto de Chavon? What was there to see? Did they have tours you could take as soon as you get off the ship? We will be going there in a couple of weeks and this will be our first time. Thanks

We walked around you have views of the Chavon River, small Church you can't go in but you are able to see through the entrance, some small stores from jewelery to cacao items. We walked into a restaurant wasn't serving yet but they let us walk around which had nice views. On TA you can see various pictures that people have posted of what you see there. When you get off the shuttle that takes you to Altos de Chavon there are taxis there offering their service to take you to the beach or on a tour.

This port seems to be more of a port you either have a tour set up with the ship or one already with outside vendor. There is taxi stand as well as a stand to purchase a ticket for shuttle to downtown or Altos de Chavon but where the ship docks its like on private property. There's a duty free shop and inside that building you will find someone providing information in regards to direction on where you are interested to go. You won't find various vendors walking around offering tours. Right outside this gated area there are about 3-4 baseball fields that kids are practicing in and a single road to drive out to the main street.

So there's still a shuttle to Altos for $7 then I take it? And no entrance fee right? Sounds like the town is not worth going? Is it a long ride to town? Can one walk from pier to town? And what about the Casa de Campo? Is that a completely separate place to go?

As mentioned above, there is a shuttle at the dock that you can catch for $7.00/person RT that will take you to Altos de Chavon. There is no entrance fee and the shuttle will take you back to the pier. The ride to Altos de Chavon was about 30mins one way.

Before we went on our cruise I searched for info to Altos de Chavon and very limited so thought I'd share. We were in DR 08/20/14 and decided to take the shuttle bus at the port. You purchase your bus tickets at a stand w/in the building at the port which also has a duty free shop, bathrooms, and chairs to sit and rest. Outside this building there's taxi and Carnival tour buses and the shuttle bus that takes you to downtown plaza and Alto de Chavon. The price to go to Alto de Chavon is $7.00/person and if you want to go downtown $5.00. The tickets are color coded and you handed it in once you board the shuttle bus going back to the port. If you take the shuttle bus to Alto de Chavon and also purchased ticket to downtown marketplace, you will need to take the bus back to port and then hop on the bus that goes to downtown marketplace. The shuttle bus runs every 30min and 1hour so we found shuttle bus available to go back to port right away. The ride to Alto de Chavon took about 30mins one way. You will find taxi drivers once you get off the bus at Altos de Chavon offering tours. I did ask how much and he quoted $60.00 from Altos de Chavon to beach and downtown tour. Note the price is up to 5 passengers so it is best if you have more to be able to split the price.

Hope this helps a bit.

Sorry may be too late for you to read this before your cruise but thought I'd still post for future cruisers. We were in DR 08/20/14. I had researched but as others mentioned very limited info for this port. Majority go to Saona Island or Bayahibe beach but we wanted to do something different since our other stops were at the beach and the Dune buddy tour had sold out.

When you get off the ship you walk up and there's a representative explaining the bus to downtown marketplace and Alto de Chavon or directing you where to walk to take taxi or ship tour bus. There's a stand where you can purchase your tickets in the building where there's also a duty free shop, bathrooms and some chairs to rest. Cost to take bus to Alta de Chavon $7.00/person and $5.00/person to downtown marketplace (prices are roundtrip). The buses are designated to each route. We went to Downtown first, so once we were done we had to take the bus back to port and then hop on the bus that would take us to Alto de Chavon. The price covers one roundtrip to the place. You can stay as long as you want the buses come every 30min & 1hour. You will be given two different colored tickets (one for downtown and other to Alto de Chavon) and you will hand the ticket when you hop on the bus back to the port.

At the marketplace(downtown) it's basically a plaza where there are tons of vendors selling their local items from jewelery, paintings, wooden sculptures, t-shirts, souvenir items. There are so many of them the baseball statues were somewhat hidden between them however we did find them and walked around the plaza seeing various players/managers in baseball. All the statues are a mix of players/managers and they are not all Dominican. One of the vendors explained the reasoning is to give tribute to those that had an influence in Latin baseball community. Some of the statues you will see: Tommy Lasorda, Edgar Martinez, Dennis Martinez and Roberto Clemente. For us going to downtown was a quick stop we mainly went to look at the baseball statues. You will find taxi there offering their tour services. We then took the bus back to port and hoped on a different bus to Alto de Chavon.

Thank you all for providing details. I had called Carnival but was told I'd need to book and inquire when I board the ship.

Thank you for taking the time to share your family adventure/vacation and for providing a detailed review. We will be on this same ship with same itinerary in a couple of weeks and we are looking forward to it. We haven't been to 3 out of 4 ports so it was nice to see pictures of your tours. It's been about 9yrs since our last Carnival cruise and we are definitely looking forward to seeing all the upgrades.

The Sun Trolley doesn't go to the airport or port. http://www.suntrolley.com

 

The Port is enormous, industrial, and lacking sidewalks in places. Realistically, the only terminals within walking distance are 2 and 4, usually used by Princess. If it is summer (hot, humid, chance of showers) I wouldn't walk it. http://www.porteverglades.net

 

Depending upon which ship terminal you are leaving from and if you get stuck in traffic at the security gate, I would guess the taxi ride would be about $10.

capriccio thank you for the information.

I've searched around & Hyatt Regency Pier 66 does not offer shuttle to airport or to port. In reading it seems like cost from hotel to airport about $15-20, is that about right? Now from hotel to port everyone mentions really close to port however is it possible to walk to port? Does anyone know roughly a taxi ride cost from this hotel to port would be? Also read trolley is across the street? Would you recommend Trolley to airport or port?

Appreciate anyone's insight/experience & recommendation.;)

We booked with Native Choice - Chacchoben Mayan Ruins Tour. We had an airconditioned mini-bus that sat a total of 12 including driver and guide. When we booked online we received an email confirmation plus a map with walking directions to their office. We walked out of the port shopping area past the taxi area and port security area. We continued walking until we saw the Mayan pyramid where we turned left on Paseo del Puerto St. We continued to walk up the street where we found the Native Choice white building on the left hand side. Note the streets are pretty much abandoned basically those of us walking were the only ones looking for the Native Choice building.

Our guide at the ruins was David. He was very knowledgable and provided us a lot of information about the Mayan culture and ruins. We were able to walk around and climb stairs up a hill to view the ruin at the top of the hill. We enjoyed our time. On the way back they dropped us off by the port/taxi entrance.

We used .com aka Butts Up. We choose their triple pack Cave-tubing, ATV and Zip-line. Like others mentioned the ride was about an hour. We were provided with information about Belize and it's culture and also were given to taste some Cashew Wine. It was my husbands birthday so everyone sang and toasted with Cashew Wine :D. Since we were the only ones on the bus that had booked the 3 pack adventure, we were given our own personal guide who assured us we would have time to do them all and get back on the bus with every one. We first did the ATV. It had rain so the trail was muddy. We joined the group that had booked the ATV tour ..we were about 9 in total. It was my first time riding an ATV and so one of the guides offered his assistance at all times. They were very helpful and made sure we had a fun time. Our personal guide then took my husband and I to the caves. Half way up the trail he picked up our tubes and carried them for us and we were given our head lights. Once in the water he pulled us through the caves at the same time pointing out features to focus on with our head lights. After cave-tubing we then headed to zip-line. There was only about 2 other couples by the time we got to the zip-line so pretty much had it all to ourselves. Their the zip-line guides went over some safety things and started our hike up to our 1st line. It was my 1st time zip-lining and I can say it was fun. The guys at the end of the line directed you when to slow down or speed up and were there ready to grab you. Once we completed everything our guide was there waiting and asked us if we enjoyed ourselves. We definitely did :D. We headed back to the bus and off to their Palapa to have some tamales. We definitely were hungry, tamales were great and my husband tried their Belizian Beer. We really had a great time and would definitely recommend Butts Up and would book again!