Back from Fantasy 6/10-6/17--let me know if your have questions.

My family and I will be sailing on the DCL western Caribbean cruise in April 2018 and we are trying to decide which stops to book excursions on and which ones we could just get off the ship and do some shopping and sight seeing at and I was wondering if you could tell me if any o the stops have public beaches or shopping areas within walking distance of the ship?
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!
 
I am very sorry for your experience. Sounds like you had a really bad guide.

We did the Horseback Riding and Dunns River Falls and had a much different experience. The tours were great, the guide was great, very knowledgeable, informative, enthusiastic. There wasn't a wait to get into the park, and the ascent itself was a lot of fun. One thing I really like about that trip is that if someone in your party doesn't want to climb the falls, they can climb the stairs next to the falls, take pictures of the group, and even go into the pools at the various levels. Or, if even climbing stairs is too strenuous for someone in your group, there is a paved path that will still let them see you/the falls at the bottom and the top. I will say, the ascent can be a little intimidating at first, they tell you all to hold hands, which makes some people uncomfortable, but after the first section, it gets easier.

I agree that the vendor gauntlet at the end is unpleasant, but our guide had warned us. I led our family group forward, with the rest of my family crowded in behind me. No eye contact, no reply to the vendors of any kind, just keep moving. No problem. Over in a couple minutes. The guide also warned us not to shake hands with them or take anything from them, as they will then try to bring you into their shop. It is a shame that it is this way, but in the end, it cost them our business; it didn't cost us anything.
 
We did the Bobsled and Dunn's River Falls in November. Dunn's was not on our original to do list, but our other tour was canceled. It was my daughter's favorite part of the trip. The people as you walk out hawking their wares is not the best, but if you just keep walking and don't make eye contact, it's not that bad. I wouldn't skip the experience because of it. It does kind of amaze me though that people go to foreign countries and expect them to be like the United States. Honestly, it's no worse than all the homeless people we have begging for money everywhere. At least the people in Jamaica are trying to sell you something instead of just begging for money.
 
My family and I will be sailing on the DCL western Caribbean cruise in April 2018 and we are trying to decide which stops to book excursions on and which ones we could just get off the ship and do some shopping and sight seeing at and I was wondering if you could tell me if any o the stops have public beaches or shopping areas within walking distance of the ship?
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!
All three have shopping within walking distance. However, don't expect anyhting beyond the usual tourist wares and jewelry. Cozumel was by far the nicest shopping off hte boat. Grand Cayman did appear to have some sort of beaches right there. They weren't big but people were swimming from them. Perhaps they were private beaches attached to the restaruants next to them. Falmouth shopping was nice and new too but nothing beyond walking after the pier.
 


All three have shopping within walking distance. However, don't expect anyhting beyond the usual tourist wares and jewelry. Cozumel was by far the nicest shopping off hte boat. Grand Cayman did appear to have some sort of beaches right there. They weren't big but people were swimming from them. Perhaps they were private beaches attached to the restaruants next to them. Falmouth shopping was nice and new too but nothing beyond walking after the pier.
Thank You!
 
Glad you had a great time (minus the Jamaica part!)
Did you get to spend time at the new splash area (where the family hot tubs used to be)? Was it open as long as the pools were open? And are kiddos allowed with diapers? I'm hoping they are not (sorry for the little ones) ...
Thanks!
M.
 
We did the Bobsled and Dunn's River Falls in November. Dunn's was not on our original to do list, but our other tour was canceled. It was my daughter's favorite part of the trip. The people as you walk out hawking their wares is not the best, but if you just keep walking and don't make eye contact, it's not that bad. I wouldn't skip the experience because of it. It does kind of amaze me though that people go to foreign countries and expect them to be like the United States. Honestly, it's no worse than all the homeless people we have begging for money everywhere. At least the people in Jamaica are trying to sell you something instead of just begging for money.

How was the water temp at Dunns during November? This is when we are sailing and I was afraid the water would be too cold for any water based excursions.
 


Who were your Cruise Staff team members (support the Cruise Director by running the family and adult activities like karaoke, trivia, bingo, etc.)?
 
How was the water temp at Dunns during November? This is when we are sailing and I was afraid the water would be too cold for any water based excursions.
It was perfect. When we first stepped in, it felt a tad cold, but once we started climbing, it was very refreshing.
 
All three tours were booked through Disney. Will find out how they handle it soon.
I completely understand your point. We were in the EBTA and booked a Visit to London and the British Museum though DCL, and our guide was very rude with everyone. At one point she asked a family that was setting at the back of the bus to be quiet because she cannot hear herself through the microphone:mad::mic:... Everybody were like:scared1:...
And after the mini tour through the city, she left because we were passing really close to her house :guilty:.
Of course we let Port Adventures know about that horrible tour guide.
 
We also had a weird Jamaica experience. Our bus driver didn't pay something so we couldn't leave the port area for an hour. Thankfully that didn't effect our actual tour we still got to do everything and didn't feel rushed. We do the tranopy adventure.
 
Glad you had a great time (minus the Jamaica part!)
Did you get to spend time at the new splash area (where the family hot tubs used to be)? Was it open as long as the pools were open? And are kiddos allowed with diapers? I'm hoping they are not (sorry for the little ones) ...
Thanks!
M.
Honestly, we didn't spend aquatic time in any areas outside the Aquaduck and Mickey and Donald pools. I think my kids used the new splash areas. They looked pretty small only a few kids can fit in at a time. To be honest, I am not sure what the purpose of them is. Not sure about the swim diaper question.
 
Who were your Cruise Staff team members (support the Cruise Director by running the family and adult activities like karaoke, trivia, bingo, etc.)?
Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to that. The only name I heard was Lee who was Natalie's #2 as assistant Cruise director. I do know that there was a British? guy in the tube several times who had a good personality. Not sure if he was a host of somesort as he was there often.
 
To start, out tour guide seemed like he didn't know what was going on. He couldn't figure out which bus to get us on for a bit. Lots of standing around and waiting. When finally on, for the hour trip out to the sharks he barely did anything other than "teach" us three Jamican phrases, point out one hotel and that was about it. Once there at 9:45, my family got a 10:00 time for the sharks. We were done by 10:20. I had no problems with the actual sharks. It was quite cool and loved that. However, everything from here on out just went downhill.

once we were done, we had to wait until almost 1:00pm to leave. There were only 15 of us on the bus and they spread out everyone that far. Some people's experiences were canceled for some reason. While not the tour guide's fault, we had three rain storms. What that did was hurry along the photographers to try and speed up the shark pictures. While waiting around for a couple of hours, our pics were finally processed. The price was $180 for ONE PHOTOGRAPH or all on a CD. However all were such terrible quality that it was a joke. Half the time the photographers got pics with the trainer blocking out my wife and son so many of the pics were useless from the getgo. Many others you were not able to tell what was in the picture. Downtrodden, I passed on any photographic memories of the experience.

To try and kill time, we were to go look at the iguanas, mini zoo, shops, etc. However most of the animals in the mini zoo were not on display, the shops were a joke and the iguanas were not out either. Basically we spent a lot of time twiddling out thumbs.

Next up was Dunn's River Falls. Things don't start off well when the tour guide gives you the standard speech about the peddlers trying to hock their wares and to keep close to him, keep the kids nearby and try to make it through the stalls. Great....

Walking toward the queue, it looked like the lines we saw for Pandora at Animal Kingdom. No joke, there were about 500 people waiting in line to get a guide to then go down the hill into the falls. Someone came from the bottom and said it was an hour wait to get to the bottom. They turned out to be nearly spot on. There were several of us from our group who were getting quite upset at this point and nearly mutinied our excursion and demanded to get back to the boat. With an hour wait, hour hike and hour drive we were going to be cutting it real close to the 4:45 all aboard. The hour long wait was compounded by our guide not knowing how to play the game with the gatekeepers at the bottom to get his tour group through. The other tour guides were able to sweet talk the gatekeepers and have their entire groups waltz by and into the falls. We stood there and waited. And waited. And waited.

The falls were nothing special to me but I knew that going in. I just hung on and did it for my 11 year old to experience it. The videographers were pushing the sale of the falls hike videos hard. Some were quite pushy to other groups.

Walking through the merchandise stalls on the way out and putting up with the vendors was not a pleasant experience. You were really in there tight with everyone trying to hound you and sell stuff. I am 6'5", 230 and was getting quite uncomfortable. Not to mention what my wife, 8 and 11 year old were feeling. Mercifully, we got back on the bus.

On the way back, our tour guide fell asleep. Icing on the cake.

Back on the ship, we heard from our friends how their tour guide was awesome, explained all about the island, pointed out things, showed them around and such. No joke, ours taught us to say Yaw Mon, No Problem and Irie, told us about a hotel not having windows and pointed out the bauxite mining operation. We saw hardly any scenery worth mentioning. Most of the journey from Falmouth to the sharks was in an incredibly run down part of the island which fails to make it onto most tourist brochures.

All said, we spent from 9:00-4:00 on a tour. We got 20 mins with the sharks and 20 mins of hiking time in Dunn's River Falls (my son and I left the falls at the first out as he didn't want to continue). THerefore, almost 6 hours was spent either driving or waiting around.

I couldn't wait for the boat to weigh anchor and get the heck out of Jamaica. It was a major disapointment.

Man, that sounds terrible. I am sorry to hear that. I think, since DH and I just did the Falls and that went fine, the hawkers at the end didn't seem as bad. However, I do remember one making a comment about rude or stuck up Americans. I still remember this, and it was on our honeymoon, almost 20 years ago. So, the whole marketplace definitely made a lasting impression. It sounds like it has gotten worse though. It was just us walking out; there weren't that many people. The stalls weren't as crowded either. They are definitely aggressive. Hope the rest of the cruise was good though.

All three tours were booked through Disney. Will find out how they handle it soon.

Definitely let them know. I know we have been guilty about not complaining about excursions enough to Disney. I think sometimes we were just happy to be alive and back on the boat:) I hope they do something about it, so that others don't have the same unfortunate experience.

Thanks for openly sharing.
 

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