Port Adventure Review: Tortola Treasure Island Swim & Snorkel

During our first visit to Tortola, we kept reading about the same things in the various Caribbean Island books… Snorkeling at the caves, go to the Baths at Virgin Gorda, and check out Pusser’s Road Town Pub. Since we booked the cruise sorta last minute, we didn’t have the time shop around for third party tour operators so, we booked Disney’s Treasure Island Swim & Snorkel (TT44). The three and a half to four hour excursion is for ages 8 and up with a fee of $79 per person as of today.

To give you a little perspective of the Virgin Islands, here is a map of Tortola and Norman Island with St John on the left and Peter Island on the right showing our catamaran excursion.

Tortola Norman Island St John Nautical Chart Itinerary

Our port adventure was scheduled to meet in the Tube at 8AM. Whenever you are doing a port adventure, arrive early so you have adequate time to check-in to prevent any delays. Pool towels were available to pick up in the Tube.

Fantasy Tube Port Adventure MeetupOnce we were all gathered, our group was led off the ship to meet with our catamaran captain on the pier.

Tortola Fantasy Port Adventure Guide

We only walked about 500 yards (do not quote me on this – basically a short walk) from the Fantasy’s gangway to an awaiting 57-foot, double-decker catamaran Rebel Yell.

Fantasy Tortola From Rebel Yell

After a brief safety spiel, we left the dock sailing past the Disney Fantasy where Isabelle captured the following views of the ship.

Sailing Away On The Rebel Yell

After approximately 25 minutes crossing the Sir Francis Drake Channel, we arrived at Treasure Point, Norman Island, to snorkel around the caves.

According to DCL’s description of the port adventure, the cave furthest to the south once contained a horde of treasure and the reputed history of piracy on this island is immortalized in Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous book Treasure Island.

Rebel Yell At Norman Island CavesGuests on this excursion are provided with snorkeling gear and a required snorkeling vests, just like those used at Castaway Cay. You can bring your own snorkeling gear if you so choose (which we do).

Caves Norman Island

It is worth mentioning that once you are in the water, there is no place to stand and depending on the currents it may be a bit of a struggle trying to swim in one particular direction. Additionally, if you did not watch all of the video take a look at the 7:48 mark to get an idea on how the boat’s built in staircase lowers into the water allowing you to enter and exit (you can also just jump from the boat if you choose) the water from the Rebel Yell. We are all pretty experienced snorkelers so we did great and had a blast. We bought underwater flashlights specifically for this excursion from Amazon, which worked out perfectly in the dark caves.

Once our time at the caves was over, we boarded the catamaran and headed to Pirates Bight for some beach time. There was a nice pier which allowed us to dock and take an extremely short walk to the beach.

Pirates Bight Norman Island

There were two sides to the beach. Walking from the catamaran to shore, on your left you will find The Club where the beach chairs cost $30 each, included a towel, a token for the restroom and the freshwater shower. Food was also available.

The Club Norman Island The Club Norman Island Lounge Chair Sign The Club Norman Island Menu

On the other side of the pier there were “free” chairs. Albiet free, the loungers are meant for customers of the Pirates Bight Restaurant and Bar on the beach.

Pirates Bight Norman Island

Pirates Bight Bar & Resturant Lounge Chairs

However, I did not see anyone shooed away for sitting in a lounge chair and not ordering a drink or food. The Drink & Cocktail menu was pretty long and while they had some interesting items on the lunch menu, we opted to wait to each lunch at Pusser’s Road Town Pub back in Tortota.

Pirates Bight Bar & Resturant

There was even free wifi available on the beach!

Pirates Bight Free WiFi

The water at this beach was nice and calm, but was a bit cooler than the spot we were snorkeling earlier. At anytime during our time at Pirates Bight, we could come and go from the catamaran.

Rebel Yell Pirates BightPirate's Bight Swimming

This was nice, as it meant we did not need to schlep our stuff to the beach. When our beach time ended, we returned to the catamaran and set a course back to Tortola. On the return trip, we were offered a choice of complimentary rum punch or fruit punch.

Overall, we had an enjoyable morning snorkeling the caves, but I’d caution anyone with young children who are not accustomed to snorkeling because once you are in the water you will not have a place to stand to adjust your gear or to take a rest other than to floating with the aid of the inflated vest.

The excursion was timed just right to give us time to explore Tortola Pier Park and have lunch at Pusser’s Road Town Pub.

You can read more about our first visit to Tortola in our daily trip log from the sailing.

If you have any questions about the Treasure Island Swim and Snorkel port adventure in Tortola, please ask below in the comments.

6 Replies to “Port Adventure Review: Tortola Treasure Island Swim & Snorkel”

  1. Andrew

    If you are interested in a full day excursion, I can’t recommend Aristocats enough. Great crew, lunch and drinks. We did the same itinerary, but also went to the Indians. Everyone on board was from our Disney cruise including a couple of crew. If we get back to Tortola, we’ll be booking with them. (FYI- our kids were 5 and 8 at the time and had a blast)

    Reply
    1. William

      Can you tell me more? I have a 7 year old that turns 8 – 10 days after the cruise- so I am concerned that I cannot take her snorkeling anywhere. We have a pool in the backyard and she is an excellent swimmer.
      What is aristocrats? We sail Disney fantasy November 18. I also have my wife and 6 month old (can they be non participating “spectators” on any of these ?)

      Reply
      1. Debbie

        We did a similar excursion through DCL in March when in Tortola. I don’t recall it being called Treasure Island and Swim but it may have been. We went to the same area to snorkel and the same beach after. It was a different boat though. My 74 yr. old Mom was able to go and stay on the boat while we snorkeled. The stop at the beach was nice because she was easily able to get off the boat and enjoy the beach with us.

        Reply

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