Curacao port ideas

[Funtime4me]

Hi all,

I'll be in arriving in the port of curacao on January 23, 2022 from 8 AM - 8 PM and looking for suggestions on what to do.  I couldn't find any recent posts since cruising has re-opened.  Please share your ideas.

TIA,

Jenny

[canadianbear]

We’ve been a few times.  All independent tours either pre-booked or picked up at the dock from local vendors.  

 

 We’ve done Irie Tours which included National Park, cliff jumping (if you wanted to) Fisherman’s Wharf where you could snorkel with turtles, and Mari beach for relax or snorkel.  
 

We also did another independent snorkel excursion with Curious2Dive.  We chose this one because I didn’t feel like a boat ride yo snorkel & jump off a boat which we usually do. 

 

Another one was Ben Tours which was a 2 hour bus tour and included a stop at the Curacao liquor place with free samples. Very interesting with a great driver telling us about the sites we saw.  

 

All were very good tours.  
 

Plus we always had time after to walk around the port area over the bridge.  I have mobility issues at times but found the walk ok with resting spots at times.  
 

Hope this helps a bit!

 

 

[cruiseapril]

Our suggestion is to take a taxi to the Avila Beach Hotel

- have lunch there and walk back slowly to the center of town.  E-mail before you go.

Edited January 13, 2022 by cruiseapril
adding

[MNtwins]

We just did Odyssey of the Sea cruise on February 26th and did a private excursion with Gone Caribe. It’s a married couple who own it and we had the wife, Jessica showing us around. Just an awesome experience. I had given them an idea of our interests and they put together a wonderful itinerary. We enjoyed the lovely sights of the island on our way to the west side of the island. We snorkeled with the sea turtles in their natural environment at Playa Piskado, stopped at Santa Martha Bay, great stop at Playa Porte Marie for lunch, snorkeling and swimming. On our way back to port we did a stop for flamingo watching, then made our way to town and did a little walk on our way to the locks,  Queen Emma floating bridge and the Rif Fort with Jessica sharing information along the way. 
 

it was my favorite island and we couldn’t of asked for a better private tour with Jessica from Gone Caribe. We got to meet Jessica’s husband, Joseph when we stopped for lunch as he had another group out as well, that we had met the day before and they said Joseph was amazing as well. You can’t go wrong.

 

if you get a chance to visit this beautiful island I would highly look at booking a private excursion with Gone Caribe. I had actually first heard about Gone Caribe right here on Cruise critic.

 

Sincerely,

Joyce

[crewsweeper]

Thanks for this Joyce.  I'm contacting them to see what we can line up DW would like to see flamingos and the only thing I've found was at the Marriott Resort in Aruba. We typically just walk over to Punda and walk around the shops and have a bite at the Iguana Cafe (which isn't all that good).

[home-mom]

We've booked a room at the Renaissance by the port.  Just gonna chill at the resort for the day.

[jacpedigo]

On 3/13/2022 at 8:34 AM, MNtwins said:

We just did Odyssey of the Sea cruise on February 26th and did a private excursion with Gone Caribe. It’s a married couple who own it and we had the wife, Jessica showing us around. Just an awesome experience. I had given them an idea of our interests and they put together a wonderful itinerary. We enjoyed the lovely sights of the island on our way to the west side of the island. We snorkeled with the sea turtles in their natural environment at Playa Piskado, stopped at Santa Martha Bay, great stop at Playa Porte Marie for lunch, snorkeling and swimming. On our way back to port we did a stop for flamingo watching, then made our way to town and did a little walk on our way to the locks,  Queen Emma floating bridge and the Rif Fort with Jessica sharing information along the way. 
 

it was my favorite island and we couldn’t of asked for a better private tour with Jessica from Gone Caribe. We got to meet Jessica’s husband, Joseph when we stopped for lunch as he had another group out as well, that we had met the day before and they said Joseph was amazing as well. You can’t go wrong.

 

if you get a chance to visit this beautiful island I would highly look at booking a private excursion with Gone Caribe. I had actually first heard about Gone Caribe right here on Cruise critic.

 

Sincerely,

Joyce

Thank you so much for posting this!  I've just booked a tour with Gone Caribe to swim with the sea turtles next week!  We hadn't been able to find any tour operators with availability for our port date (though maybe HAL Rotterdam's recent swap of Aruba and Curacao port days helped with this.  We were supposed to be in port with them both days!). 

 

They've been great in communication, so far, and I can't wait to tour with them!

 

~Jacquelyn

[crewsweeper]

22 hours ago, jacpedigo said:

Thank you so much for posting this!  I've just booked a tour with Gone Caribe to swim with the sea turtles next week!  We hadn't been able to find any tour operators with availability for our port date (though maybe HAL Rotterdam's recent swap of Aruba and Curacao port days helped with this.  We were supposed to be in port with them both days!). 

 

They've been great in communication, so far, and I can't wait to tour with them!

 

~Jacquelyn

We just got confirmation for April 13th.  DW wants to see flamingos and then we're heading to a beach for lunch and Punda for shopping (and a beer at The City).  Very responsive and loved how they give you maps to the meetup point and all the details.  

[Slyfox16]

Thanks for the information. Can we ask how much was the tour with Gone Caribe and how long was it?

[crewsweeper]

$210 for 2 of us. 9A-2P

[GreenIdScorpio]

We will be visiting on Harmony OTS in November and are hoping to book a Turtle/Snorkeling trip with Gone Caribe! 

[crewsweeper]

On 4/9/2022 at 12:04 AM, GreenIdScorpio said:

We will be visiting on Harmony OTS in November and are hoping to book a Turtle/Snorkeling trip with Gone Caribe! 

Book them. Jessica and Joseph are very accommodating . We had a great time with Jessica yesterday. More on the fly vs set destinations.

[GreenIdScorpio]

We actually just booked a custom turtles & snorkeling tour — so excited! 

[jacpedigo]

Our group of ten (aged 36 to 88) had a wonderful time on our private "Gone Turtles" tour with Gone Caribe!  Jessica was great at communicating and provided a detailed map and photos of when and where to meet.  Joey, her husband, was our guide for the day and was so fun and charismatic!  We had a great time visiting Shete Boka National Park (the normal overlook for turtles was having too much sargassum growth to be enjoyable, so this was substituted) and our highlight of snorkelling with the turtles at Playa Piskado was the highlight of the entire 10 day cruise!  Jessica made arrangements for us to travel in a large taxi van so that we could all ride together and were provided detailed information about Curacao on our drives through the entire day.  After snorkeling with the turtles for just over an hour, we drove to a nearby cliffside, local restaurant and had a table reserved for our group during what appeared to be a busy lunch hour.  We got to sit right next to an area set up to attract iguanas and a cliff-jumping platform, which one member of our group used after dining.  The food and company were great (we also loved our driver, Lika!).  We paid $90US/pp, as we had a group of 10 and were given a discount.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

[gr8tfulscott]

we use gone caribe 2 days before covid shut down..... who knew......Jessica was great and we spent the y day touring and swimming. You cannot ask for a bettert tour guide and company. ham booked again for may but RCCL has just changed itinerary and time in port. so it's up in the air at the moment.

Highly Recommended!!

[vacation44]

On 4/14/2022 at 7:01 PM, GreenIdScorpio said:

We actually just booked a custom turtles & snorkeling tour — so excited! 

Please report back your experience as we are looking to do the same in February. 

[GreenIdScorpio]

Can do!  So excited for the great reports coming in about others who have taken them.  
 

We opted for a customized tour — both turtles and great snorkeling…can’t wait to see what they have in store for us!

[Sparetiming]

On 3/13/2022 at 9:34 AM, MNtwins said:

We just did Odyssey of the Sea cruise on February 26th and did a private excursion with Gone Caribe. It’s a married couple who own it and we had the wife, Jessica showing us around. Just an awesome experience. I had given them an idea of our interests and they put together a wonderful itinerary. We enjoyed the lovely sights of the island on our way to the west side of the island. We snorkeled with the sea turtles in their natural environment at Playa Piskado, stopped at Santa Martha Bay, great stop at Playa Porte Marie for lunch, snorkeling and swimming. On our way back to port we did a stop for flamingo watching, then made our way to town and did a little walk on our way to the locks,  Queen Emma floating bridge and the Rif Fort with Jessica sharing information along the way. 
 

it was my favorite island and we couldn’t of asked for a better private tour with Jessica from Gone Caribe. We got to meet Jessica’s husband, Joseph when we stopped for lunch as he had another group out as well, that we had met the day before and they said Joseph was amazing as well. You can’t go wrong.

 

if you get a chance to visit this beautiful island I would highly look at booking a private excursion with Gone Caribe. I had actually first heard about Gone Caribe right here on Cruise critic.

 

Sincerely,

Joyce

Can you please tell me where you stopped to see flamingos?

[MNtwins]

There is a pull off near a pond and the flamingos are there. They are not in captivity. Just roaming. I had seen others post about this so asked if we could stop. You are not up real close to them.

[soccer2010]

On 3/15/2022 at 9:58 PM, home-mom said:

We've booked a room at the Renaissance by the port.  Just gonna chill at the resort for the day.

it looks like it's a quick walk from the cruise port ... what's the beach like there?  Does it include a chair at the beach?

[home-mom]

On 5/12/2023 at 4:10 PM, soccer2010 said:

it looks like it's a quick walk from the cruise port ... what's the beach like there?  Does it include a chair at the beach?

It’s a man made beach. I’ll see if I can find my pictures. 

[home-mom]

On 5/14/2023 at 5:11 PM, home-mom said:

It’s a man made beach. I’ll see if I can find my pictures. 

This was from the restaurant next door. You can see the man made beach on the right. It was only a 5 minute walk from ship. We rented a room for the day but they also had day passes available. 

[janetz]

Headed there in January 

We have rented a SUV and have the whole day to explore

With the rental comes a map, and GPS

Just making a list of what we want to see and do.

 

[Cruising_Tim]

Going to be in port from 8am-8pm and am looking for a suggestion for a catamaran cruise for the day.  Please and Thanks!!

[sunkey1]

On 5/16/2023 at 2:18 PM, janetz said:

Headed there in January 

We have rented a SUV and have the whole day to explore

With the rental comes a map, and GPS

Just making a list of what we want to see and do.

 

We're doing the same thing in October - looking forward to having the freedom to come and go where/when we want.