Turquoise Caribbean Seas excursion on Viking Sun

Looking for information on which excursion’s are the best in each port on the Turquoise Caribbean .... In your opinion the best and the ones to stay away from.

Thank you

We did the included Hop-on-Hop Off trolley tour of Key West. We boarded the trolley at the pier right by our ship. Since we berthed at the Navy base, you need to be transported from the ship to the Navy gate. For us it was the means to get into Key West and get a good overview of the area and to see the location of what we wanted to go back and see. Some of passengers got off at different points in the tour. 90 minute tour. After the tour ended, it was a short walk to the Truman's Little White House and then to Kermit's for key lime pie. The guided tour of the Little White House was good.Where the trolley ended the tour you could return to this point and board a bus back to the ship. The trolley guide was a native and very funny.

One of the main reasons for taking this cruise was to see the Mayan ruins. Therefore, we did the optional excursion to Lamania Maya ruins. We took the tender to Belize City, walked thru a diamond store and boarded a bus at the rear of the store for the tour. Trip travel time 1 hour and 20 minutes to the beginning of the tour. Then we boarded a motorboat which held 12 people and headed up the New River. Guide was good at pointing out wild life and different plants. As we walked thru Lamania Archaeological Dig we could hear the holler monkeys. No commercialism here and few visitors. One of the few places you can still climb to the top of one of the temples.

Saw several temples and ball courts. Took the boat back to bus and was served a nice buffet lunch before boarding the bus. When you take a long day trip, you usually just get back in time to get on a tender or boat the ship so little time if any for shopping.

I should mention that we did this cruise in December 2017 so your climate maybe different.

In Cozumel we did the included bus tour of the city, with stops at the San Gervasio ruins and tequilla store/factory for samples of tequilla.

The next day we did the optional excursion to Chichen Itza Maya ruins. It was about a 2 hour bus ride to the site. Yes, the bus was air-conditioned. It was a good opportunity to see the country side. Very little traffic, lots of bush growth as you travel on a toll road passing the simple homes of the locals.

On arriving our guide lead us into the complex and gave us a tour. It can be very crowded at this UNESCO site. The area is dominated by the pyramid shaped El Castillo. There is a lot to see and you will not see it all. The guide really helps you to understand about this time period of the Mayan culture. At the end we had 30 minutes of free time. There are lots of people selling items. We were given a box lunch to eat on the way back. We arrived back as we were suppose to be boarding the ship. So no shopping in shop area as we walked to the ship. For us we enjoyed the Maya ruins excursions we took since that is why we came on this trip. I had read the book, Jungle of Stone before the trip. You realize that there is lot of the ruins that have not yet been uncovered. It is a long day. The other important discovery of our trip was how wonderful the Viking Ocean ship experience is.