wcm24

We are wondering which activities to select while in these towns. We have rented cars on other cruises and wondering if it's safe to do so in these also.

KVR

We're doing the same itenary next month on our cruise.

You can easily rent a car in Grand Cayman and take your own tour. I personally wouldn't rent a car in Cozumel, though some do and I don't think it's recommended to rent a car in Ocho Rios by anyone that's not very familar with the area.

We've been to Cozumel twice before and Grand Cayman once on land vacations. For Cozumel we chose to take a cab from the pier and go to Chakanaab Park for snorkeling. Cozumel also has several beach clubs.

In Grand Cayman the most popular activity is going to Sting Ray City or doing an Island Tour. Since we've already done those, we chose a ship sponsered excursion on inflatable boats that goes to 3 snorkel spots. If you snorkel Grand Cayman is the place.

In Ocho Rios, we booked with a recommended local tour operator to go to Dunn's River Falls, Fern Gully and Shaw Park Gardens and then they will drop us off a Margaritaville. I've been reading the boards on www.cruisecritic.com and it seems that people who take sponsered tours in Ocho Rios have a better experience, than people who just walk off the ship and try to find something to do on their own.

What cruise line are you taking? What type of activites/shore excursions interst you? We just received our documents from Princess and it came with a full catalogue of all the ships sponsered excursions. Lots of ideas.

wcm24

Thanks for all the info! We are going on Grand Princess in November. I know it's a long time away, but love researching and learning about places.
We have a friend from Jamaica and he said not to go in groups smaller than 5 people.
We have loved doing our own car rentals on 2 other caribbean cruises and love exploring places. But I am leary about doing this in Jamaica and Cozumel.
Could you please give me contact info for the person you lined up to drive you around on some of the islands?
Thanks!

kudo96

I had this same cruise itenerary two years ago. In Ocho Rios, I booked a tour w/ Peat Taylor. I highly recommend this. We got to Dunn's River falls before the cruise ship passangers, so we pretty much had the falls to ourselves. Afterwards, Peat took us through Fern Gully and then those on the tour were able to break for lunch. Some met back up w/ Peat after lunch to go to the straw market, but we did not.

In Grand Cayman, I booked a tour w/ nativeway to sting ray city sandbar. It was very nice. We were also able to snorkle after visiting the sandbar.

In Cozumel, dh and I took a cab to Chanknaab park. There is a lot to do there. We tried scuba. There were also trails, dolphin encounters, animal shows, and snorkeling available.

KVR

For Ocho Rio we booked with A-Z Jamaica Planners. http://www.a-zjamaicaplanners.com/


In Grand Cayman we have previously used Tropicana Tours for an Island Tour and Soto Cruises for Sting Ray City. Go to www.CaymanIslands.ky for more info. There are lots of tour operators. We also did the Nautilus Semi-sub and snorkel tour. For this cruise, we signed up for a ship excursion. There are only a limited number of those inflatable boats, so we wanted to make sure we got one.

In Cozumel if you want to go to a beach club or Chakannab, it's easy and inexpensive to grab a cab from the pier. Try www.mycozumelmycozumel for listings of other tour operators.

The cruise boards are your best bet for info. www.cruisecritic.com and www.cruiseclues.com


Since your taking a Princes cruise, look on their web-site for their list of shore excursions. Even if you don't want to book from them, it will give you an idea of what's offered.

wcm24

Thanks for everyone's info given me!

eileen

If you choose Sting Ray City in Grand Cayman, you can easily arrange this on your own and save paying the high cruise excursion rates. Also, if you arrange it for the afternoon rather than the morning when all the cruise excursions go, you will have a much better time. We spent the morning on 7 mile beach then did Sting Ray City later on and there were only a few people there. Make your arrangements in advance and be sure you know where to meet your tour, there were 3 ships in port when we were there and getting off in the morning was chaos!

motor_city_girl

We rented a scooter on Cozumel in the morning and snorkeled in the afternoon. Now, this was in 1998 so I am not sure about safety concerns for today but we felt safe just tooling around.