Need info on Carnival Freeport Kayak/Beach excursion!

[mitsugirly]

We will be on the Carnival Pride and will stop in Freeport from 7-1:30pm. This is a VERY short day and I have been looking at the excursions for this place (we normally don't book ship excursions, but this time we just might do that due to the time constraints).

 

 

I found an excursion that's listed as: Freeport Kayak & Nature Experience. From the reviews it gets a really high rating and looks like a lot of fun.

 

After a little research, it looks like this goes to Gold Beach at the Grand Lacayan Park...which I wanted to go to the last time we were here 2 months ago. I was told by others that it's a pretty long drive there and not to chance it.

 

However, if I can go on a ship excursion, then I guess time wouldn't really matter.

 

 

 

Now on with the questions....

 

This excursion says that you depart at 7:15am and it is 6 hours long!!!! Do the math-7:15am for 6 hours puts us back at 1:15pm!!! Um, the ship leaves at 1:30pm. They usually want you back on the ship 1 hour prior to departure. So...how exactly is this going to work? I'm not worried about them leaving us since it's a ship sponsored tour. But, can this be right? Or will they cut the tour short because of the time frame? My MAIN reason I want to go is to make it to Gold Beach and I have a feeling if they were to cut the tour short, that would have to be the part they would cut it short on. Can they do this without warning you after booking or before the tour starts?

 

Next question: How far of a drive is this place? I have read 1/2 hour or 45 minutes. Does this sound about right?

 

Do any of you that have done this tour have any reviews of it with pictures?

 

Does this tour also take you around the caves on your way to the beach area? (I have seen pictures of people along walkways that are right beside the cave system there and wondered because there's no mention of it in the description).

 

What type of meal do they provide for you?

 

I have read that the best time to be at Gold Beach is during low tide so that you get to see the "ripples", which makes it unique. I found a site that shows the tide times, but I'm wondering at what time do you actually arrive there with a tour like this? If there's say an hour for the ride back to port and factor in walking back to the vans, this would put you there on the beach at maybe....11 to noonish?

 

 

 

According to this tide map, the low times are at 7am and 7pm. At noon it's really high. Is this map always correct? I have read people being disappointed in the beach when the tides are high saying there's next to no beach area AT ALL and the place just isn't nice during that time. When the tide is low, it's just gorgeous and it's a huge beach.

 

I'm just worried that if we spend this kind of money on this excursion (around $300) and get there and there's basically no beach, we will be completely bummed.

 

 

Any of you that have done this excursion (which I would imagine that you would have went close to the same times if on a ship excursion maybe??), please share your experiences and times you were there and what it was like.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice/comments/suggestions.

[Ratdoggie]

My cousin and I were just on this excursion last week from the Carnival Victory. We had a great time and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

I think our tour was scheduled from 8:30 to 2:30, but we got back a little early. I’ll just step through the day as I remember it although I’m totally guessing on the times:

8:30-9:00: organize and load into the vans (we had 4 vans total). Our group was the smallest with 10 people. The van was old and tiny, we were pretty crammed, but it got us there.

9:00-9:45: travel to Lucayan National Park (remember these times are only estimates as I wasn’t really keeping track)

9:45-10:00: arrive at kayak “dock”, use outhouse, listen to kayak instructions, etc.

10:00-11:00: kayak through mangrove creek system (it might have been a little longer than an hour), we covered 2 ½ miles in the kayaks.

11:00-11:15: take out, wait for the guides to load the kayaks into the waiting van and drive back to the starting point.

11:15-11:30: take a “Tom Sawyer” raft across the river and commence on the Nature tour. This entails taking a boardwalk through the mangroves as the guide points out various plants, etc. The walk ends at the beach.

11:30-12:00ish: Lunch – I would rate it at just ok. Basically build your own sandwiches with a loaf of bread, deli meat, cheese, and lettuce from tuperware containers, cookies, apples, lemonade and water. But considering there is no running water or electricity and it had to be packed in by someone, it was sufficient. Also, there were a few bees hanging out.

12:00-1:10: walk/hang out on beach. We were given 1:30 as the meet back together time, but everyone was tired and back at the lunch shelter early so we went ahead and left.

1:10-2:00: Walk back to the van and then a 30-45 minute ride back to the ship. We were dropped off right at the ship so that was good.

Notes:

We didn’t go to the cave system. I had seen that on some other posts as well, but we didn’t even see them.

The beach was beautiful. I’m assuming we were there at low tide, even though it was from 12-1, because there was a lot of beach “space”. Also, it was only people from the kayak excursion (4 vans) so it felt like we had it all to ourselves.

Racoon – and yes, we got to see one of the local raccoons!

I hope that helps!

[mitsugirly]

Thanks so much for the detailed review...even if you are not sure on the times, it helps a lot.

 

Although I know you are not sure of the times, it still makes me wonder how we can possibly be able to do this tour and get back in time without cutting something off (the beach maybe?). I really wish they had an excursion to just go to the beach itself, especially since you mentioned that once you were done with the canoes they go back to where you started from.

 

So since you mentioned that you were at the beach during the noonish-1:15ish time and there was plenty of beach, did you see the ripples that it leaves when it's low tide? Did you happen to get any pictures you can post?

 

Once again, thanks so much for taking the time to write this up for me. I really appreciate it.

[Ratdoggie]

It does seem like a short time frame, but your starts earlier in the morning so hopefully you will have the same amount of time that we did.

 

And yes, the ripples were very noticeable. In fact, I was walking barefoot and it actually kind of hurt my feet a little bit because they were so rigid. I shouldn't say it hurt, but I could definitely tell they were there!

 

I'm having trouble attaching the pics, I'll open a new post and try it below.

[Ratdoggie]

Still can't get them to post, but I will work on it!

[mitsugirly]

You have to host the pictures somewhere in order to post them.

 

Pick a place like photobucket and upload them to that. Then it will give you the html link for the picture. Then when you hit the little picture box here above where you are posting, you just copy that code into it and it will post the picture here. :)

[Ratdoggie]

Okay, I think I've got it now. Here are some pics of the beach. I don't know if the tide was in or out, but I suspect it was out.

[Ratdoggie]

Well shoot, the pictures came in small, hopefully you can enlarge them. Sorry, I guess I'm not as computer savvy as I thought!

[mitsugirly]

Yea, they were attached as thumbnails which are too small to really tell anything. Did you host them on another site and then copy the url?