Princess cruise in Panama Canal in 2014 - Excursion Question

[dr alaok]

My wife and I (both in our 60's) will be cruising the Panama Canal with Princess in 2014. We thought the Atlantis submarine excursion in Aruba would be interesting and something different. Has anyone else taken this excursion and if so was it worth the money?

 

Or are there other Aruba excursions that would be better? Anyone with any ideas please chime in.

 

 

Thank you.

[Pam in CA]

I've been to Aruba several times and had the most fun last October. Four of us walked off the ship after the initial rush and went through the terminal. Outside is a taxi stand where we got a van to take us on a 2-hour drive. We went all over the island, up to the California Lighthouse, back through the beaches and were dropped off at Palm Beach where we stayed for a couple of hours for lunch and to enjoy the beach. Our driver picked us up and took us back to the pier. $40/hour for two hours. We each paid $25 for our "tour" and had a great time.

 

I've done snorkel and other tours on Aruba and hated them. The snorkeling is massively crowded both on the tour boats and where they drop you off to snorkel. Not unusual to have 4-5 big boats in the same place at the same time. On one snorkel tour, it was do crowded on the boat that there were ten of us with no place to sit for half an hour, until the boat got well away from land and they opened up the canvas at the front of the boat. There were so many people it took almost half an hour to get everyone who wanted to snorkel off the boat. :(

 

A submarine tour would be interesting but I think Aruba is one of those places to be "experienced." Kick back and enjoy. We saw some dune buggy tours that looked like fun. FYI, I'm not in my 60's... I'm in my 70's. :)