Bermuda Excursions

[thartman]

Can anyone recommend what the best Excursions would be in Bermuda that are offered through Royal Caribbean.  Also the best beaches to visit.  Thank you  

[rjac]

4 hours ago, thartman said:

Can anyone recommend what the best Excursions would be in Bermuda that are offered through Royal Caribbean.  Also the best beaches to visit.  Thank you  

When are you going and how long will you be in Bermuda? Also, do you have any special interests or physical limitations? This info will help the gang here out with recommendations. 

[GaryAA]

We actually hired a tour guide for the day. Look for the taxis with blue flags, they are certified tour guides. The guide we used drove us around in a minivan and tailored the trip to our interests. They can get into areas the tour bus can’t go. We set up our tour guide in advance. He was there at the dock when we arrived. We usually do ship excursions but this was way better. 

[coneyraven]

On 3/13/2021 at 7:36 PM, GaryAA said:

We actually hired a tour guide for the day. Look for the taxis with blue flags, they are certified tour guides. The guide we used drove us around in a minivan and tailored the trip to our interests. They can get into areas the tour bus can’t go. We set up our tour guide in advance. He was there at the dock when we arrived. We usually do ship excursions but this was way better. 

Be careful with this one .... at the present time, only Royal Sponsored Excursions are allowed.  While, in a normal situation, I would agree with you 100%, but these are not normal times.

[JLMoran]

32 minutes ago, coneyraven said:

Be careful with this one .... at the present time, only Royal Sponsored Excursions are allowed.  While, in a normal situation, I would agree with you 100%, but these are not normal times.

This is by far the biggest question mark with Royal’s Vision sailings, where every passenger and crew member (excluding kids under 16, if any on board) will be vaccinated. Bermuda’s own vaccinated traveler protocols (which are specific to land vacationers) say that after quarantining for 4 days and a second negative PCR test, a vaccinated visitor can travel freely and only has to follow current protocols for mask wearing in public spaces.

With Vision passengers being on the ship and effectively quarantined until day 7, one would hope that all passengers qualify to roam freely during the overnight port day. But that hasn’t been stated yet by either Bermuda or Royal. And once we get past these Vision sailings and into “normal” sailings on other ships that may have a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers, will protocols revert to requiring ship-hosted excursions?

 

To avoid a total thread hijack, I’ll say that in my opinion the best and most easily accessed beaches are Horseshoe Bay beach and Tobacco Bay beach. There are several others, but they usually require a lengthy ride on the bus line to get to them. Horseshoe Bay is easily reached via the shuttle vans constantly running at the port; but it is super-popular and you’re best off getting first thing in the morning, preferably on the second day if you have an overnight stay.

Getting to Tobacco Bay requires taking the ferry from the port to St. George’s, then walking about a mile out of town. Walk is a little strenuous in a couple of places, but you pass some nice sights and landmarks along the way. It’s much smaller than Horseshoe Bay but also much less well known, so it’s never crowded.

I can’t offer any advice on ship excursions as we’ve never done them. Always had the ability to go our own way and took full advantage.

[coneyraven]

16 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

This is by far the biggest question mark with Royal’s Vision sailings, where every passenger and crew member (excluding kids under 16, if any on board) will be vaccinated. Bermuda’s own vaccinated traveler protocols (which are specific to land vacationers) say that after quarantining for 4 days and a second negative PCR test, a vaccinated visitor can travel freely and only has to follow current protocols for mask wearing in public spaces.

With Vision passengers being on the ship and effectively quarantined until day 7, one would hope that all passengers qualify to roam freely during the overnight port day. But that hasn’t been stated yet by either Bermuda or Royal. And once we get past these Vision sailings and into “normal” sailings on other ships that may have a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers, will protocols revert to requiring ship-hosted excursions?

 

To avoid a total thread hijack, I’ll say that in my opinion the best and most easily accessed beaches are Horseshoe Bay beach and Tobacco Bay beach. There are several others, but they usually require a lengthy ride on the bus line to get to them. Horseshoe Bay is easily reached via the shuttle vans constantly running at the port; but it is super-popular and you’re best off getting first thing in the morning, preferably on the second day if you have an overnight stay.

Getting to Tobacco Bay requires taking the ferry from the port to St. George’s, then walking about a mile out of town. Walk is a little strenuous in a couple of places, but you pass some nice sights and landmarks along the way. It’s much smaller than Horseshoe Bay but also much less well known, so it’s never crowded.

I can’t offer any advice on ship excursions as we’ve never done them. Always had the ability to go our own way and took full advantage.

In fact, here's one of the things you would pass on the walk to Tobacco Bay .... the Church Ruins...

[MaryS]

On 4/29/2021 at 11:11 AM, JLMoran said:

Bermuda’s own vaccinated traveler protocols (which are specific to land vacationers) say that after quarantining for 4 days and a second negative PCR test, a vaccinated visitor can travel freely and only has to follow current protocols for mask wearing in public spaces.

This is not correct.  "Immunised travellers (excluding UK) with a negative pre-arrival test result must quarantine until receiving a negative arrival test result".  I only bring this up because I leave in 2 weeks for Bermuda and they have been changing this every week.  As of June 6 they have also changed the pre-arrival testing from 5 days before travel date to 3 days before travel date.  This has all been very confusing over the last week. 

 

[JLMoran]

Thanks for the clarification, @MaryS! Hopefully Royal will provide concrete documentation on protocols, or at least a link, when those sailings get within 15-30 days of departure.

[KathyC]

The only Royal excursion we've done was a bus tour of the island.  Gave us a great introduction to everything Bermuda had to offer.  This was a long time ago, and the ship docked in Hamilton one night, then overnight on the 2nd night slowly sailed to the St. Georges side.  The bus tour we did on day 1 gave us the comfort going out on our own day 2 & 3.  We got local bus passes for those two days.  

[WannaCruise]

On 4/30/2021 at 10:02 PM, KathyC said:

The only Royal excursion we've done was a bus tour of the island.  Gave us a great introduction to everything Bermuda had to offer.  This was a long time ago, and the ship docked in Hamilton one night, then overnight on the 2nd night slowly sailed to the St. Georges side.  The bus tour we did on day 1 gave us the comfort going out on our own day 2 & 3.  We got local bus passes for those two days.  

We just cancelled this one today (bus tour) due to not making our August Bermuda cruise.  So sad.  It looks like a great option for first time visiting Bermuda.