Carnival's Private Ports?

[ZeeWP]

In February My family and I are going on the Carnival Vista from Galveston. Our ports are Mahogany Bay, Belize, and Cozumel. Are any of them private port destinations (Kinda like HMC?) That could help us pick excursions and beach days. 

[sunonfire]

Mahogany Bay. It is similar to Grand Turk except there is no pool. Here is a link. 

https://www.mahoganybaycc.com/Port-Information.aspx

Edited April 9, 2019 by sunonfire

[thinfool]

10 minutes ago, ZeeWP said:

In February My family and I are going on the Carnival Vista from Galveston. Our ports are Mahogany Bay, Belize, and Cozumel. Are any of them private port destinations (Kinda like HMC?) That could help us pick excursions and beach days. 

Mahogany Bay is a Carnival developed shopping area that includes a beach area (free) and zipline(not free).  Or you can walk thru the shopping area to the taxi stand and take a taxi to what many consider to be one of the best white sand beaches in the Caribbean...West Bay Beach, which offers wonderful' walk-in from the beach' snorkeling.  It is our favorite.

Edited April 9, 2019 by thinfool

[K&RCurt]

On 4/9/2019 at 10:50 AM, thinfool said:

Mahogany Bay is a Carnival developed shopping area that includes a beach area (free) and zipline(not free).  Or you can walk thru the shopping area to the taxi stand and take a taxi to what many consider to be one of the best white sand beaches in the Caribbean...West Bay Beach, which offers wonderful' walk-in from the beach' snorkeling.  It is our favorite.

 

I was there in February and don't recall a zip line.  Where is this located, hate to think I missed out on something like that?

 

As an FYI, they also have cabanas available to rent for the day on the beach.  We though it was nice to have a place to set as a base, and they included lounges in front reserved only for cabana guests.  A waiter made the rounds for food and drink orders or it was a short walk to a few bars / food venues.

[richbum]

Is the snorkeling at Mohogany Beach any good...or should we go to West Bay? Also, can someone tell me about the cabana rentals? How much, how big, etc? We will be doing the sloth/monkey tour beforehand...so not sure if that will affect the answer as to what we should do!

Edited April 10, 2019 by richbum

[Saint Greg]

37 minutes ago, K&RCurt said:

 

I was there in February and don't recall a zip line.  Where is this located, hate to think I missed out on something like that?

 

As an FYI, they also have cabanas available to rent for the day on the beach.  We though it was nice to have a place to set as a base, and they included lounges in front reserved only for cabana guests.  A waiter made the rounds for food and drink orders or it was a short walk to a few bars / food venues.

 

For the zip line walk through the red roof building past the taxi stand to the road. Take right at monkey land. 

 

 

 

 

 

[purplephenom]

34 minutes ago, richbum said:

Is the snorkeling at Mohogany Beach any good...or should we go to West Bay? Also, can someone tell me about the cabana rentals? How much, how big, etc? We will be doing the sloth/monkey tour beforehand...so not sure if that will affect the answer as to what we should do!

 

Go to West Bay.  It was one of the best days of my (snorkeling) life.  Very very awesome

[K&RCurt]

5 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

 

For the zip line walk through the red roof building past the taxi stand to the road. Take right at monkey land. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

We are going back next year, I will check it out!!!

[mdahmus]

There was a little snorkelling at Mahogany Bay off the end of the far pier and it looked pretty good - much better than I expected (or I'd have brought my own gear instead of borrowing my son's ill-fitting full-face mask). It's not barrier reef quality but for a free easy beach it exceeded expectations.

[evandbob]

The snorkeling off the pier at MB is okay, but it is nothing like the snorkeling you can do at Tabayana, Little French Key or Maya Key.  For LFK, you do need to book the extra charge for snorkeling, since you will go around the isle in a boat with a guide.

 

In Tabayana, go out with a kayak guide, or follow the underwater signs to the cut through the reef; in Maya Key go to the end of the pier where the reef comes up.

[ZeeWP]

Thank you for your help everyone! 🙂

[evandbob]

There are other zip line locations in Roatan than the one right at MB parking lot.  Look for combo island tours that include zip lining and another activity.

 

But back to the OP's question, except for HMC, which is drop dead gorgeous, I look to either escape Carnival's port shopping corrals and get out into the real island/country like on Roatan or Costa Maya, or just stay on the ship if docked at Amber Cove.  

 

Belize is a tender port and has great snorkeling on the reef, cave tubing and other activities, Mayan ruins and a very ugly port area.

 

Cozumel has shopping and dining in downtown San Miguel, and a string of beach clubs like Mr Sancho's, Nachi Cocum, Playa Mia, etc.  I've never spent any time in the immediate over priced port area either.  If you are on a Coz plus, then it's possible to visit Playa del Carmen and the ruins on the mainland like Tulum, Coba or sometimes even Chichen Itza.

[Sabalon]

On 4/9/2019 at 10:40 AM, ZeeWP said:

In February My family and I are going on the Carnival Vista from Galveston. Our ports are Mahogany Bay, Belize, and Cozumel. Are any of them private port destinations (Kinda like HMC?) That could help us pick excursions and beach days. 

 

As others have said, Mahogany Bay is a Carnival section of Roatan.  Of course, you can venture out.  If you take any private excursions here, you have to hoof it to the gate at the end of Carnival land to meet them (if I remember right).  Other lines dock at the port near Thicket.  

 

Belize is a tender port - and the tender is a 20+ minute ride from the ship to the port.  Some excursions leave from the ship instead of port.  From what I understand, there isn't really much of a public beach area, but could be wrong.

 

Cozumel is a shared port.

 

At Roatan we did the Carnival Clear Kayak, Snorkeling & Gumbalimba Park (which included the monkey encounter).  Good tour guide.  Not the most exciting snorkeling, but not bad.  Gumbalimba park was neat.

 

At Belize we did the Carnival Xunatunich Mayan ruins.  This involves a two hour bus ride to the location (and eventually back!).   There is a stop for lunch on the way back which is included IIRC.  This was an amazing excursion...though there is a chance you could get there and if it's too wet due to rain, not be able to go on the ruins for safety.  Our guide realized it looked like something was coming and got us up on the big ruin first and then did the walk around guided tour.

 

At Cozumel, we did our own thing, wanting a simple cheap beach day.  We went to Paradise Beach.  Ended up being cheaper than all four of us on a Carnival excursion, but still more than expected...but loads of fun.  We found it on twitter I think, since only internet we had was the social feed!

 

I found my review where we hit those ports -it's a bit long, but it may help at least for the excursions we did.  

 

 

 

[mdahmus]

Zipline there was fun too (we booked morning zipline and spent the rest of the day at the captive beach). Got to spike a volleyball on the way in on the last line (it ends upstairs from the bar at the beach).

 

I'm sure you can do a better zipline and much better snorkelling if you leave the port, but we already had a snorkel from a boat in Belize; we wanted to zipline that day; and being able to do both zipline and beach was the best bang for the buck (you don't have a long ride to/from; it's a short walk to the start; a short pickup truck ride up a very bumpy dirt road; and you end up back at the beach - the entire experience took less time than the travel just to get to some past excursions' starting points). The beach experience was much better overall than I thought it would be. Not the best in the world and very crowded but nice water, nice sand, decent bar food, etc.

[ZeeWP]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

11 minutes ago, Sabalon said:

 

As others have said, Mahogany Bay is a Carnival section of Roatan.  Of course, you can venture out.  If you take any private excursions here, you have to hoof it to the gate at the end of Carnival land to meet them (if I remember right).  Other lines dock at the port near Thicket.  

 

Belize is a tender port - and the tender is a 20+ minute ride from the ship to the port.  Some excursions leave from the ship instead of port.  From what I understand, there isn't really much of a public beach area, but could be wrong.

 

Cozumel is a shared port.

 

At Roatan we did the Carnival Clear Kayak, Snorkeling & Gumbalimba Park (which included the monkey encounter).  Good tour guide.  Not the most exciting snorkeling, but not bad.  Gumbalimba park was neat.

 

At Belize we did the Carnival Xunatunich Mayan ruins.  This involves a two hour bus ride to the location (and eventually back!).   There is a stop for lunch on the way back which is included IIRC.  This was an amazing excursion...though there is a chance you could get there and if it's too wet due to rain, not be able to go on the ruins for safety.  Our guide realized it looked like something was coming and got us up on the big ruin first and then did the walk around guided tour.

 

At Cozumel, we did our own thing, wanting a simple cheap beach day.  We went to Paradise Beach.  Ended up being cheaper than all four of us on a Carnival excursion, but still more than expected...but loads of fun.  We found it on twitter I think, since only internet we had was the social feed!

 

 

 

I will have a 3 and a 5-year-old, so I really want to do Gumbalimba park. but if it's a carnival developed beach, will it be much less crowded than say, Cozumel? cause that might be nice. 

[Sabalon]

Lot of variables there!!!    You have two docks at Mahogany Bay, so there is a chance of having two ships of people on that  beach, depending on how many go on excursions.   Cozumel has two ports and maybe 6 docks overall, but there is nothing "right there" so that means all those people will be disbursing around the island to various activities.

 

We didn't do anything at Mahogany Bay because of the Gumbalimba park events (and travel) took up most of the day.    They do have an excursion that goes to the park and then a beach, so maybe that'd work. (Tabyana beach and Gumbalimba Park excursion)

 

When we did the Paradise Beach in Cozumel, it did not seem crowded at all.  You pay a chair fee and then you have your own beach chair, so I think they want to keep it somewhat controlled.

[OCruisers]

On 4/9/2019 at 10:40 AM, ZeeWP said:

In February My family and I are going on the Carnival Vista from Galveston. Our ports are Mahogany Bay, Belize, and Cozumel. Are any of them private port destinations (Kinda like HMC?) That could help us pick excursions and beach days. 

 

Mahogany Bay is owned by Carnival Corporation so all lines under the Carnival Corp umbrella (Carnival Cruises, Princess, HAL, Cunard, Costa, etc) do have port stops there as well.

 

Mahogany Bay makes a great beach day if shorkeling is not too important to you.  Entry & and chairs are at n/c.

 

Belize has boat excursions to their Barrier Reef (2nd largest in the world) ... awesome snorkeling!

 

Cozumel is always a fun stop with lots of choices.  

 

Enjoy your cruise!