Orlando and Nassau excursions/activities

[tagpsu]

We are booked on the Anthem next March (2023). The only excursion showing up for Orlando is ICON Park with the Wheel. Will other excursions show up later or do you think this is it? We've been to Orlando area many times and to Cocoa Beach. Not sure what to do. We are in port 12 to 8 pm. Thought about space center (saw the other posts about issues with tours) or Daytona.

For Nassau, we have been there and Paradise Island many times over the years, so we have done a lot of touristy things. In 2019, we went to Blue Lagoon and swam with dolphins. Great experience. We could go back and see the sea lions this time, but thought we'd try something different. Any thoughts on the other excursions?

We already booked the Beach Club for CocoCay. Not necessarily exciting ports, but we love the Anthem so excited to be back on it. Thanks in advance for ideas.

[USFFrank]

 Hopefully more excursions for your cruise will show up, keep checking your cruise planner. Although it sounds like allot of time, 8 hours in Port Canaveral is really not much time to go to and see the Orlando area attractions. That's mainly due to the travel time, and unpredictable traffic problems one may run into going to and from Orlando. If you do want to go there, I would suggest you do one of the Royal Caribbean based excursions. At least if there's a problem with your excursion getting back to the ship on time, they'll wait for you as opposed to trying to go there and back on your own.

 For Nassau, try resort for a day.

[ChessE4]

13 hours ago, tagpsu said:

We are booked on the Anthem next March (2023). The only excursion showing up for Orlando is ICON Park with the Wheel. Will other excursions show up later or do you think this is it? We've been to Orlando area many times and to Cocoa Beach. Not sure what to do. We are in port 12 to 8 pm. Thought about space center (saw the other posts about issues with tours) or Daytona.

For Nassau, we have been there and Paradise Island many times over the years, so we have done a lot of touristy things. In 2019, we went to Blue Lagoon and swam with dolphins. Great experience. We could go back and see the sea lions this time, but thought we'd try something different. Any thoughts on the other excursions?

We already booked the Beach Club for CocoCay. Not necessarily exciting ports, but we love the Anthem so excited to be back on it. Thanks in advance for ideas.

At Port Canaveral you can always take a bus to Cocoa Beach and have a beach day, or eat at a local restaurant, etc.  It is not exciting, I know, but it can be relaxing.  I enjoyed the dinosaur museum/gift shop not far from Ron Jon's.

At Nassau, we once took a snorkeling excursion.  I am not sure what will be offered these days.

[Rackham]

Shore excursions start appearing in earnest at around the 6 to 9 months before embarkation. 

Personally, due to the cost and transit time, I'd avoid the Orlando theme parks (assuming you don't have an annual pass and just want to pop in for a few hours). I did Kennedy Space Center on a recent Oasis sailing and there was just enough time to literally walk through most of their exhibits with seeing the shows as you enter the individual buildings, the bus ride out to the Saturn V Center, and one ride on a Spaceport KSC simulator. Skipped the IMAX and Universe Theater films along with Journey to Mars and the Shuttle launch simulator off the top of my head. I'm considering booking this again next time I'll be porting in Cape Canaveral with the idea of focusing in on what's not at the Saturn V Center. In many ways, Kennedy Space Center reminds me of what a space museum built by Disney would be like. Entry isn't cheap, but it's obvious where that money is going. 

[rjac]

Here's a link that might help everyone: Plan Your Trip to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. We will be in Orlando April 11th next year and will do one of the recommended itineraries. We're off the ship at 1:00 pm and have to be back on by 8.00 pm/ Unfortunately, KSC closes at 6:00 pm. That means no lolly gagging at the exhibits. Shopping and dining, I don't think so, have to pay for it. There's a cruise ship waiting for us that full of free eats! 

[ejp0514]

We really enjoyed our day at Margaritaville Beach Resort in Nassau. It is about a 10 minute walk from the port. It has a beautiful stretch of beach and a "mini water park" with a lazy river and some slides. The drinks and food are on the pricey side, but delicious. We're in our early 20s, so having an excursion where we could drink and lounge but also have access to something young and fun (like "cliff diving" into a deep plunge pool!!!) was a plus.

[Little jo]

I would also like some Ideas, hope you don’t mind me hopping on your post! We go next July with oasis, first time cruise with a 16 and 12 year old. We did wonder about going to Orlando, but also whether to book beforehand or wait until in port? Same with Nassau. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated thank you 

[LMF]

On 8/5/2022 at 7:37 PM, tagpsu said:

We are booked on the Anthem next March (2023). The only excursion showing up for Orlando is ICON Park with the Wheel. Will other excursions show up later or do you think this is it? We've been to Orlando area many times and to Cocoa Beach. Not sure what to do. We are in port 12 to 8 pm. Thought about space center (saw the other posts about issues with tours) or Daytona.

For Nassau, we have been there and Paradise Island many times over the years, so we have done a lot of touristy things. In 2019, we went to Blue Lagoon and swam with dolphins. Great experience. We could go back and see the sea lions this time, but thought we'd try something different. Any thoughts on the other excursions?

We already booked the Beach Club for CocoCay. Not necessarily exciting ports, but we love the Anthem so excited to be back on it. Thanks in advance for ideas.

We are doing the same, March 26! First time on a large ship so excited. Worried about what to do in Cape Canaveral - thinking about just going to Cocoa Beach Pier and saving our funds for Nassau and the water park at Coco Cay. 

[Loyal to Royal]

We just did Port Canaveral/Nassau/CocoCay on the Oasis September 11th. 

First - If you do any of the Orlando area excursions, with it being about a 45 minute bus ride each way, book through Royal directly. We were stuck in traffic for 2 hours behind an overturned oil rig. That shouldn't be a common occurrence and our tour guide told us that it wasn't - but to be safe I would absolutely book through them. There is only one real path to Orlando so if theres an accident or traffic theres no way to avoid it. They worked with us and made sure we got back to the boat in time but also did a great job communicating with the boat the entire day and making sure we were set. Financially we ended up getting 50% of our excursion back after speaking with guest services so it wasn't a bad deal. 

We did Gatorland and man was it awesome. That being said our experience was extremely short due to that accident, but it was still amazing. We both said we wish we had the full time there and were able to see all the shows. They have little bags of gator food you can get - I don't remember for certain but I think it was $6 for 2 bags. Based on where it was being sold at we thought it was just for this large gator boardwalk right by it but they told us you could actually feed literally any gator in the park with just 2 exceptions she pointed out to us. Knowing what we now know we would have bought more food because it was our favorite part of our time there. So cool to toss food in and see them try to be the first to get it. 

To "make up" for us only being at Gatorland for an hour and a half they transferred us to Icon Park. It was a waste of time. There were 2 rides closed - the one is probably permanently closed as its the one that teenager fell from and died on earlier this year. The aquarium was interesting as we both love aquariums but we asked an employee at gatorland and he told us it was a waste of money and more for small small children. We considered the wax museum but it was closed by the time we got there. Otherwise - the shops were all pretty lame. I would have probably preferred to be dropped off at a normal mall honestly. Our bus ride back was shared with the cruisers who had booked the Icon Park excursion that were not at Gatorland with us and a couple from the Icon Park only excursion told us it was very hard to pass the time being there exclusively and they had been ready to come back for hours. I felt that way and we were only there for a little over an hour. 

Nassau was super disappointing. Nearly a year ago we booked an all glass submarine tour and were very excited for it. Never heard anything about it and expected that to be what we did there. When we boarded we had no excursion tickets in our room for Nassau. We went to the excursion desk to inquire about it and they said that it had been canceled about a week before but again we had not been notified. They gave us a 20% discount on a different excursion so it was essentially about what we would have paid if we had booked it before the cruise, technically a little less for the one we picked, but their excursion selection was terrible. We couldn't settle on anything we both wanted to do so I let my husband pick a jeep tour. We booked onboard so the guy helping us from the excursions desk warned us that as a group of two we would be sharing a jeep. The entire group for our tour was seemingly unaware. I did see it in the fine print on the app but our whole group was shocked and upset. We ended up getting paired up with a very rude/annoying set of friends who refused to ride in the back due to car sickness. We were good sports about it but were very displeased. The port itself is under major construction and is expected to be done Q1 next year. We enjoyed walking around the port and shopping more than our actual excursion. Very expansive area of shops, restaurants, liquor stores, etc. 

CocoCay we did the jetskis like we normally do. No complaints there. The food on the island is complimentary as I'm sure you know so we ate lunch after our jetski tour and got back on the boat. 

In regards to Ports of Call this was my absolute least favorite itinerary out of all of the cruises I've been on. If you are into beach sitting and ocean activities it might be a great itinerary for you but my husband doesn't swim in oceans or actually at all really so most of the excursions available in Nassau were automatic "no"s for us. If I knew what I knew now I would have probably kept Nassau as an excursion free port and just spent the time walking around the shops. 

 

[New Royal]

On 9/27/2022 at 10:40 PM, Loyal to Royal said:

We just did Port Canaveral/Nassau/CocoCay on the Oasis September 11th. 

First - If you do any of the Orlando area excursions, with it being about a 45 minute bus ride each way, book through Royal directly. We were stuck in traffic for 2 hours behind an overturned oil rig. That shouldn't be a common occurrence and our tour guide told us that it wasn't - but to be safe I would absolutely book through them. There is only one real path to Orlando so if theres an accident or traffic theres no way to avoid it. They worked with us and made sure we got back to the boat in time but also did a great job communicating with the boat the entire day and making sure we were set. Financially we ended up getting 50% of our excursion back after speaking with guest services so it wasn't a bad deal. 

We did Gatorland and man was it awesome. That being said our experience was extremely short due to that accident, but it was still amazing. We both said we wish we had the full time there and were able to see all the shows. They have little bags of gator food you can get - I don't remember for certain but I think it was $6 for 2 bags. Based on where it was being sold at we thought it was just for this large gator boardwalk right by it but they told us you could actually feed literally any gator in the park with just 2 exceptions she pointed out to us. Knowing what we now know we would have bought more food because it was our favorite part of our time there. So cool to toss food in and see them try to be the first to get it. 

To "make up" for us only being at Gatorland for an hour and a half they transferred us to Icon Park. It was a waste of time. There were 2 rides closed - the one is probably permanently closed as its the one that teenager fell from and died on earlier this year. The aquarium was interesting as we both love aquariums but we asked an employee at gatorland and he told us it was a waste of money and more for small small children. We considered the wax museum but it was closed by the time we got there. Otherwise - the shops were all pretty lame. I would have probably preferred to be dropped off at a normal mall honestly. Our bus ride back was shared with the cruisers who had booked the Icon Park excursion that were not at Gatorland with us and a couple from the Icon Park only excursion told us it was very hard to pass the time being there exclusively and they had been ready to come back for hours. I felt that way and we were only there for a little over an hour. 

Nassau was super disappointing. Nearly a year ago we booked an all glass submarine tour and were very excited for it. Never heard anything about it and expected that to be what we did there. When we boarded we had no excursion tickets in our room for Nassau. We went to the excursion desk to inquire about it and they said that it had been canceled about a week before but again we had not been notified. They gave us a 20% discount on a different excursion so it was essentially about what we would have paid if we had booked it before the cruise, technically a little less for the one we picked, but their excursion selection was terrible. We couldn't settle on anything we both wanted to do so I let my husband pick a jeep tour. We booked onboard so the guy helping us from the excursions desk warned us that as a group of two we would be sharing a jeep. The entire group for our tour was seemingly unaware. I did see it in the fine print on the app but our whole group was shocked and upset. We ended up getting paired up with a very rude/annoying set of friends who refused to ride in the back due to car sickness. We were good sports about it but were very displeased. The port itself is under major construction and is expected to be done Q1 next year. We enjoyed walking around the port and shopping more than our actual excursion. Very expansive area of shops, restaurants, liquor stores, etc. 

CocoCay we did the jetskis like we normally do. No complaints there. The food on the island is complimentary as I'm sure you know so we ate lunch after our jetski tour and got back on the boat. 

In regards to Ports of Call this was my absolute least favorite itinerary out of all of the cruises I've been on. If you are into beach sitting and ocean activities it might be a great itinerary for you but my husband doesn't swim in oceans or actually at all really so most of the excursions available in Nassau were automatic "no"s for us. If I knew what I knew now I would have probably kept Nassau as an excursion free port and just spent the time walking around the shops. 

 

Question; does someone else drive for tou on the Jeep excursion or did tou do the driving? I considered getting it but it would be tricky if one of us (there are 4 of us) aren't driving. I'm also directionally challenged so perhaps I shouldn't...lol