Question for anyone who has done Trunk Bay excursion through Carnival

[mrs.a.vigil]

My husband and I will be in St. Thomas for one day in May, we will be on a Carnival Cruise, we really want to go to St. John though since it is a National Park. We are kind of big dorks and like to go to the visitors center of eah national park we visit and get a stamp for our national park passport book, kinda like a page for each park and we buy a magnet and all that goofy stuff LOL. I was researching the excursions and there is a specific excursion that does a bus tour of St John and specifically stops at the visitors center so I know we can run in and get our stamp but I noticed there is another excursion that goes to trunk bay and its an hour or so of snorkeling. snorkeling and beach time sound much more fun then sitting on a bus where i might get a bad seat and cant even see anything.. Since the Trunk Bay excursion also takes the ferry into Cruz Bay on St John which is right by the visitor center my question is for anyone who has done this excursion before, After arriving but before getting on the bus or taxi to go to Trunk Bay was there time for ppl to run off into the visitor center for even 5 minutes? Or maybe after the beach time while waiting for the ferry to go back to st thomas? Thanks!

[looneyric]

As I recall, no. When you get off the ferry, there are vans lined up in the lot and they whisk you away to trunk bay. Same with way back. Get out of vans and onto the ferry. The vans pretty much left in a procession so there's not a lot of time. At least that is how tour went with rccl.

[mrs.a.vigil]

Thanks for the reply!

[BecciBoo]

disregard

Edited January 29, 2016 by BecciBoo

[blue_water]

We took this Carnival excursion on our first trip to STT just as many other first-timers do. I would first suggest you skip the excursion and go on your own - you will find it much more enjoyable and you will have the utmost freedom and flexibility there. It is very easy - just grab a taxi to the Red Hook ferry terminal and ferry to Cruz Bay. Ferries depart every hour on the hour from both Red Hook and Cruz Bay. Total roundtrip cost from the Havensight dock including taxi to and from Trunk Bay is $48pp. The ferry is just 15 minutes in calmer water as compared to the 45 minute ferry in much rougher water from the ship. Just a suggestion!

 

As mentioned you will find the safari taxis lined up in Cruz bay waiting to take folks to the beaches, or on an island tour which is a nice option for ~$25pp and you don't need the $7pp taxi to Trunk because they drop you there. You can go to the visitor center first and hail a taxi to the beach after, or just hop one of those and hit the visitor center when you return to Cruz Bay. Give yourself enough time to do that, taxis are available. That's the beauty of going on your own, you can make your own choices, you'll find many others on the taxi and ferry doing just that.

 

A good rule of thumb for the return ferry to Red Hook is taking one 3 hrs before your ship departs. So if you leave port at 6PM take the 3PM ferry back from St John just to be safe. That will also give you some time to shop at Havensight where you are docked. Many peiople will take a ferry an hour later to get the most time on St John and that's fine. Jou just want to allow for a bit heavier traffic back into Havensight.

Edited January 29, 2016 by blue_water