What to do in Santa Marta?

[v3cruiser]

Santa Marta is a stop on our upcoming panama canal cruise and was looking forward to just walking around the town. Can you walk to old colonial part of town frrom cruise pier? Any recommendations? Our cruise line NCL doesnt have many excursions.

Edited August 21, 2022 by v3cruiser
adding a question

[Turtles06]

On 8/21/2022 at 10:25 AM, v3cruiser said:

Santa Marta is a stop on our upcoming panama canal cruise and was looking forward to just walking around the town. Can you walk to old colonial part of town frrom cruise pier? Any recommendations? Our cruise line NCL doesnt have many excursions.

 

We had a port call to Santa Marta just before the pandemic, also on an NCL Panama Canal cruise.  The ship docks in a large commercial port, and my recollection is that we were required to take a shuttle to the terminal gate.  From there, it was an easy walk to the old part of town.  In fact, we were pretty much in town.

 

I had found a local guide for a walking tour using Guru Walks. Several of us on our Roll Call came along, and we had an interesting morning in the town.  When the walking tour was over, our guide gave us some recommendations for lunch places, and then we were on our own.   Our guide's name was Yube (Yubelis), and she was excellent.

 

I see Guru Walks still has guides in Santa Marta, though I don't see Yube's  name.  You might consider picking one of the other guides for a walking tour.

 

https://www.guruwalk.com/santa-marta

 

I hope this is helpful.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[Monkeygirl2]

Hi there, we are in Santa Marta on 20th Jan on MSC Poesia, we dont dock until 9am and I can see that the Guru walks and other free walks all start at 0830 or 9.30 from the historic centre. You mentioned docking at the commercial port and getting the bus to the gates/town as is normal practice so Im thinking that there will be a bottle neck of people waiting to disembark and we wont make the 0930 walk. They always give priority to people who have booked shore excursions with getting off. The afternoon tours are too late as we sail at 6pm

I suppose we could book and hope for the best but wondered how long it took you to get into Santa Marta

thanks

[v3cruiser]

True, true, Ive been google mapping the area and provided we can get out of port,  we will most likely walk south along the beach, malecon de bastidas, to  the parque de los novios area and hang out there.

[Turtles06]

On 9/8/2022 at 3:31 AM, Monkeygirl2 said:

Hi there, we are in Santa Marta on 20th Jan on MSC Poesia, we dont dock until 9am and I can see that the Guru walks and other free walks all start at 0830 or 9.30 from the historic centre. You mentioned docking at the commercial port and getting the bus to the gates/town as is normal practice so Im thinking that there will be a bottle neck of people waiting to disembark and we wont make the 0930 walk. They always give priority to people who have booked shore excursions with getting off. The afternoon tours are too late as we sail at 6pm

I suppose we could book and hope for the best but wondered how long it took you to get into Santa Marta

thanks

 

We docked in Santa Marta at 9am, and our Guru Walk was scheduled for 9:30am.  But we had booked our guide with a number of folks from our Roll Call, and I'd emailed her about the timing concerns.  She replied:   "I understand that the ship may have a delay in the arrival and disembarkation of passengers, but if you book with me, I will wait until [you] arrive at the meeting point to start the walking tour."

 

It was not a problem.  You just need to work this out in advance with the guide.

 

Once you get outside the terminal, it's really not that far to where the guides meet you.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Turtles06

[Monkeygirl2]

Thanks very much for the feedback, its given me some confidence. Much appreciated