Turtle farm via Carnival

[Sabalon]

For those that may have done the turtle farm tour with Carnival.

 

How early do they get you there? I see the farm opens at 8am so that wouldn't be a hold up. I don't remember when the ship gets in port but I believe it's pretty good early.

 

We're trying to plan the day and what we could do after the farm. I figure if they got us there early enough then we would be turtled out by lunch.

 

I know we could catch the bus ourselves, but to do the full blown turtle excursion the wife wants to do, the cost difference is $5 once you add bus fare in. And we're doing an excursion package with Carnival for Belize and Roatan (and Cayman) which had a discount which makes it a little more realistic pricing to the best I can find.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[mrsfuzzmo]

For those that may have done the turtle farm tour with Carnival.

 

How early do they get you there? I see the farm opens at 8am so that wouldn't be a hold up. I don't remember when the ship gets in port but I believe it's pretty good early.

 

We're trying to plan the day and what we could do after the farm. I figure if they got us there early enough then we would be turtled out by lunch.

 

I know we could catch the bus ourselves, but to do the full blown turtle excursion the wife wants to do, the cost difference is $5 once you add bus fare in. And we're doing an excursion package with Carnival for Belize and Roatan (and Cayman) which had a discount which makes it a little more realistic pricing to the best I can find.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

 

Well, if you are going with Carnival it doesn't really matter what time the Turtle Farm opens, it will matter what your excursion time is. You will receive your tickets in your room by at least the night before.

 

How long of a tour is it? It should say in the description. How long are you in port? If you are in port for 6 hrs and it's a 4 hr tour, you will not have much time for anything after your tour.

[Sabalon]

Correct. I was hoping someone who has booked this through carnival may know what time they have the excursion set for. Since it says it includes lunch, I'm assuming it starts earlier.

 

It is a 4 hour excursion but my thought is if we finish up and feel we are done we could hop on a bus and do something else. Hopefully someone who has booked this before will know how they handle it. Not like the Mayan one in Belize where they have to get you out first due to the length of it.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Sabalon]

Just to follow up in case down the road someone is looking for similar information. The ship gets into Grand Cayman at 7:30a (and leaves at 3). The "Amazing Turtle & Wildlife Adventure - with Lunch!" excursion is from 9am to 1pm.

 

Depending, we may take the bus back or find lunch elsewhere - it seems any lunch provided anywhere in the Caribbean is BBQ chicken and rice.

[Kechin Yer Eye]

Last fall we did the Amazing Turtle & Wildlife Adventure" NO lunch tour. Once we tendered over, there were lots of tour operators holding signs, go to the person holding the sign for turtle farm, get checked in, then prepare to wait for about 20 minutes. They take groups of I would guess about 20-25 and put them together and you get assigned a tour guide that will stay with you all day at the turtle farm. We spent a few hours with the turtles & swimming.....decided to eat lunch at the place. They have a sit down restaurant where you can pay and eat or the other side is a buffet where the people that paid for lunch in their tour package go to eat. Glad we got to chose what we wanted off the menu, the buffet didn't look all that great to us.

 

We knew going into the tour that we wanted to do a few other things in the Caymans, but didn't think we would get to since the tour was suppose to end at 1:00 and all aboard was 3:00......well once we finished eating, we went and found our tour guide, told him we were bailing on the rest of the tour, which was in reality only the bus ride back. He had us sign a release form and made sure we knew that we would be on our own getting back to port. We thanked and tipped him and went out front of the turtle farm, caught a bus to Hell, spent some time there, caught another bus back to shops that were fairly close to port, took in some shopping and then walked a couple of blocks to where you catch the tenders. There were hundreds of people waiting on tenders, so we made it back with plenty of time to kill. The bus rides were the cheapest part of the whole day, 2 bucks a person anywhere you wanted to go. Just have to make sure you flag down a bus and not a taxi, they look the exact same, but the license plates are different. Sorry, I can't for the life of me remember what the difference is, but just ask around when you get there.

 

We loved the Cayman's and think we might do a non-cruise trip there in the near future.

[Sabalon]

Thanks for the info - I think with my picky daughter we may end up not doing the buffet. Glad to know how the food there works. We may end up going to hell for the novelty of it. I think my teenage girls would get a big kick out of it, though from what I understand it's mostly a tourist trap. I see it's not far from the farm. Are there buses going by a lot? Would hate to get stuck in Hell. Will have to do some familiarization.

 

What you did sounds just like what we were thinking. thanks again!

[Kechin Yer Eye]

Hell is a short ride from the Turtle Farm. The rock formations are very cool, but all you need is a few minutes. The gift shop & post office is where we spent the most time. Had to get several t-shirts for friends ;) I would say we only spent a total of 30 minutes there. There is a picnic table in the shade where you can sit while others finish up shopping & such. We were told that buses come by every 20 minutes. We waited more than 5 minutes but less than 10 for one to come by, just waved him down, climbed in and off we went. I won't say that we will go to Hell again, but we are glad that we went. Not just anybody can say they have been to Hell and back. :D