Anyone gone snorkling at Cocoa Cay on Royal Caribbean?

Question

They charge $30 for the excursion, it sounds like they dont take you off shore though so im wondering if i can just buy a snorkling set for a few bucks and just go over to their site on my own, or do they not allow you to do that?

Answer 1

i have been on 3 almost 4 cruises. 2 soon to be 3 of them have been with Royal caribbean. we have never done any shore excursions. Cococay probably isn't the best place to go snorkeling. If you are going on the Eastern Caribbean on, you should probably go in St.Thomas or St.Martin. When we went to Cococay, we just did things on our own. I took my watergoggles along, and I saw a couple of fish, but they weren't really anything special. They were just kind of brownish tan. One guy found a live conch shell though. That was kinda cool. I would recommend to not do any shore excursions because most of the time you can find tours and things for a better price on land. The only downside is that if the tour runs late, you will be late for the ship. That has never happened to us before though.

Answer 2

They don't take you off shore.  You want to know what they do?  You go up to the kiosk, you pay the money, they hand you the snorkeling gear, you wade into the water, you go snorkeling.  There's nothing to see.  All you'll probably see is those tiny silver fish that you can see without goggles and a snorkel.

If you really want to go snorkeling there, they can't stop you from bringing your own gear, but it's probably not even worth that.

Both St. Thomas and St. Maarten would be much better than Coco Cay.  In St. Thomas, I'd recommend the Magen's Bay excursion.  It's one of the Top 10 Beaches in the world!  As for St. Maarten, I wouldn't know which to recommend, but it's such a beautiful place, I'm sure anywhere would be great to snorkel at.

Good luck, and have fun!!

Answer 3

If they don't take you out on a boat, then I'd say forget it.

You can usually go snorkeling from the cruise lines' private islands on your own.

If you want more info about whether the snorkeling is any good or not, go to CruiseCritic.com, click on "Boards", then "Ports of Call", then "Private Islands".