Grand Turk: Whale Watching
I normally wouldn’t book a whale watching tour in Grand Turk. When there is a beach right off of the ship, that’s what I normally do. But this time I had a lot of onboard credit to use so I did the beach in the morning and booked the Whale Watching Adventure in the afternoon. The tour cost $135 at the time I went on it. My excursion ticket was delivered to my cabin on the second day of the cruise.
After you come off of the pier in Grand Turk and walk through the duty free shop, you will see all of the excursion kiosks.
My ticket specified booth #4. This is where you check in, sign a waiver, and get a bracelet indicating you are on this tour.
We were all given orange bracelets.
It would’ve been good information to know we were going to have to walk half a mile through the sand to our boat. The other whale watching excursions I’ve been on have left from a pier.
At this point you have to take your shoes off and climb that ladder.
I definitely wanted a window seat so I could have a good view of the whales when they were on my side…if they were ever on my side. The only one available was row two on the starboard side.
Quite a few people are still in line to board.
And we are heading out.
We have two marine biologists on board.
First we had to learn how to put on a life vest.
They have water for everyone in the ice chest.
That is the bathroom. They warned us that it’s a rough ride in the bathroom. Nobody went down there other than this one crew member.
The ride out there was rough. One person had to throw up in a plastic bag. Everyone in the front of the boat got soaked. Here’s a sample of it.
On the way out we had to stop for a recovery mission.
Finally we got to whale watching. The whales were on the other side of the boat the whole time. They never spun the boat around even though they told us they would try to allow both sides to see them. So what I got is what I could capture with both arms stretched out as high as I could.
It was a mother and a baby that we watched–mostly the baby. Here are the highlights:
On the way back they played music and poured rum punch.
The ships are Holland America’s Rotterdam and Carnival Magic.
All of the not so fun things we got to do on our way here, we got to do again in reverse.
I stopped at the foot washing area by Margaritaville.
That was not my favorite excursion. I only booked it because I had a lot of onboard credit this cruise. The water was extremely rough. If you do it I would say be prepared to get wet and sandy. I would recommend just enjoying the free beach. Do whale watching when you’re in Cabo or Alaska.
